Annecy or Como?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, level with your weighting
Wins on places to eat and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage and sights concentration with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Annecy if you are travelling with children or plan the trip around eating: theme parks within reach, far more park space near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens.
Choose Como if heritage drives the trip: 8 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Annecy's 2, museums clustered tightly around the centre, and milder winter days.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Annecy and Como are level on 0.
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 8 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 156 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Annecy leads by 21 points.21
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 25 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 259 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 7 |
Museums & heritage. Como leads by 16 points.16
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 9 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 6 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 67 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 8 |
Nightlife. Como leads by 4 points.4
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 24 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 213 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 143 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 67 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. Como leads by 4 points.4
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 23 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 5 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 15 hectares |
Good for families. Annecy leads by 14 points.14
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 15 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 6 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 15 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Como leads by 7 points.7
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 30 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 22 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Como leads by 6 points.6
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Annecy leads by 1 points.1
| Annecy | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 58 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 7.1 °C to 27.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 61 mm to 178 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Annecy has somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a much wider spread of kitchens, so a week of dinners varies more. It carries about three times as much park space near the centre, and 3 theme parks within reach where Como has none, which decides most trips with children.
Como is the stronger heritage base: 8 UNESCO-listed places sit within day-trip reach against Annecy's 2, and its museums cluster more tightly around the centre. It also has about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither is a sea destination. Both are lake towns with a similar handful of beaches, 9 near Annecy and 8 near Como, and neither has a month with water at 21°C or more, so swimming is brief.
Weather, evenings and countryside run close as well: summer highs match, no month drops to 40mm of rain or less, protected land covers roughly a fifth of both surroundings, and each city's bars sit near the centre.
Which traveller are you?
A family with young children: Annecy. Three theme parks lie within reach where Como has none, and there is roughly three times as much park space near the centre for days that need no plan.
A traveller who plans around museums and old towns: Como. Eight UNESCO-listed places sit within day-trip reach against Annecy's two, its museums are clustered close in, and more notable places lie within walking distance.
Someone who books a trip around dinner: Annecy, with more restaurants near the centre and a far wider range of kitchens. Como has more places to drink, but Annecy holds the clubs if the evening runs late.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget, €160 for Annecy's country and €155 for Como's, is a national estimate of restaurant and hotel prices, not a measurement of either town. Both are small, heavily visited lake destinations, and a lakeside town can sit well above its own country's average, by more than the gap between these two figures. Treat it as background, not as a reason to pick one.
Como's best months are also its wettest: July and August carry 158mm each, so a warm forecast is not a dry one. Beaches count for little, since neither lake reaches 21°C, so they are places to sit rather than swim.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Annecy: 1991-2020 normals, Geneve-Cointrin (39 km from centre). Como: 1991-2020 normals, Lugano (23 km from centre).
Annecy is the better summer choice. June to August bring highs of 24-27°C with rain of 77-81mm, while Como takes 158-172mm across the same weeks; September stays mild in both, but Annecy sits at 87mm against Como's 168mm.
Como is the better cold-season pick. From January to March its days run 7-14°C against Annecy's 5-12°C, and February is its driest month at 61mm; November and December are milder there too, though December carries 80mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Como |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 45 m €48-103 MXP · 34 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 20 m €46-63 MXP · 34 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 30 m €34-53 MXP · 34 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 34 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 35 m €78-142 MXP · 34 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 40 m €129-158 LIN · 43 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 55 m €147-338 GVA · 38 km | 2 h 40 m €140-309 MXP · 34 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 8 h 15 m €542-635 1 stop MXP · 34 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 25 m €318-351 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 34 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 10 h 10 m €710-815 1 stop MXP · 34 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Annecy | Como |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 418 m | 201 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Milan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)34 km from centre203 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Como |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 83,184 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 2,242 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 9 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 8 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 44 | 22 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Annecy or Como somewhere new.