Annecy or Florence?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
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 the trip is built around water and open country: 9 beaches on the lake, 3 theme parks within reach, and summers that stop near 27°C rather than baking.
Choose Florence if museums and a walkable heritage centre are the point, and if you want a real choice of bars and restaurants in the evening. It is also the warmer city outside summer.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Annecy and Florence are level on 0.
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 78 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Florence leads by 13 points.13
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 59 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 1,299 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 15 |
Museums & heritage. Florence leads by 52 points.52
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 82 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 132 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 93 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 70 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
Nightlife. Florence leads by 36 points.36
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 56 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 818 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 599 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 73 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 34 |
Nature & day trips. Florence leads by 2 points.2
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 38 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 2 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 86 hectares |
Good for families. Florence leads by 23 points.23
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 52 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 30 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 86 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Florence leads by 52 points.52
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 75 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 292 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Florence leads by 6 points.6
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Florence leads by 9 points.9
| Annecy | Florence | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 68 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 10.8 °C to 32.7 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 32 mm to 132 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 2 |
Where they differ
Annecy is the one with water: 9 beaches on the lake, where Florence has none, plus 3 theme parks within reach. Around 20% of the surrounding land is protected against 9% around Florence, and its restaurants cover a somewhat wider range of kitchens.
Florence has many times as many museums, and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Annecy's 2. Notable places cluster tightly around the centre, so days are walkable, and there are about three times as many restaurants near the centre, plus far more bars and clubs.
Where they are alike
Neither city offers sea swimming: neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, and Florence has no beach nearby at all. Annecy's 9 lake beaches are the exception, and they sit inland rather than on a coast.
The two are also alike on day trips and cost: protected land and park space are limited around both, so excursions carry you only so far, and the national daily budget estimates behind them sit close together, €160 and €155.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller who plans days around museums and old buildings should take Florence: many times as many museums, tightly clustered around the centre, and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Annecy's 2.
Families with young children lean to Annecy for its 3 theme parks and 9 lake beaches, though Florence counters with far more attractions near the centre and about twice as much park space.
Anyone who wants evenings out belongs in Florence, with many times as many bars and clubs and about three times as many restaurants near the centre; Annecy is quieter, with a somewhat wider spread of kitchens.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 and €155, are national estimates for the two countries, not measurements of either city. A heavily visited city can sit well above its own national average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so read them as country price levels, not as evidence that one trip costs less.
Florence's strength in museums and walkable sights is also a crowding risk: the same tight centre that makes it easy concentrates everyone else too. Its driest months are also its hottest, at 32-33°C, so the clearest weather comes with the least comfortable heat.
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). Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre).
Annecy is at its best from June to August, with highs of 24-27°C, though rain sits at 77-81mm right through summer and October reaches 94mm. January tops out at 5°C, so winter is not the trip.
Florence is more forgiving across the year: May and June bring 24-29°C, and July and August are its driest months at 32-35mm if you can take 32-33°C. September still reaches 27°C. October and November are the wettest, at 125mm and 132mm, and worth avoiding.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Florence |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 6 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 6 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 6 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 35 m €113-168 FLR · 6 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 55 m no fares TRN · 142 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 70 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 2 h 10 m no fares FLR · 6 km |
| ZurichZRH | 55 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 1 h 10 m no fares FLR · 6 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 6 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 45 m €267-328 1 stop FLR · 6 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 5 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 70 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 | Florence |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 50 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre36 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Florence |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 360,930 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 3,528 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 140 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 44 | 62 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Annecy or Florence somewhere new.