Annecy or Interlaken?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and places to eat with your weighting.
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
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 want a town with a life of its own: many more places to eat, a far larger evening scene, more museums, and 3 theme parks within reach, with summers warmer, up to 27°C in July.
Choose Interlaken if your days are spent outdoors and you want drier spring and autumn months, with visitor attractions clustered close to the centre rather than restaurants and bars.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Annecy and Interlaken are level on 0.
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 12 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 713 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Annecy leads by 17 points.17
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 29 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 118 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 17 |
Museums & heritage. Annecy leads by 7 points.7
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 23 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 5 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 2 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 40 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Annecy leads by 16 points.16
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 4 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 42 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 38 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 90 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Annecy leads by 9 points.9
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 27 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 5 hectares |
Good for families. Annecy leads by 15 points.15
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 14 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 5 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Annecy leads by 1 points.1
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 22 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 14 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Annecy leads by 27 points.27
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 35 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 110.5 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €248 |
Year-round weather. Annecy leads by 2 points.2
| Annecy | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 57 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 34 mm to 68 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Annecy is the more urban of the two: far more restaurants near the centre and a wider spread of kitchens, a much larger set of bars and clubs, and a deeper museum offering. Park space near the centre is far greater, and 3 theme parks sit within reach where Interlaken has none. Summers run warmer, 27°C against 24°C.
Interlaken clusters far more visitor attractions close to its centre, has 12 beaches nearby against Annecy's 9, and is drier, with 3 months at 40mm or less where Annecy has none.
Where they are alike
Neither offers a swimming season. Both have beaches nearby, but neither records a month of water at 21°C or more, so a swim is a warm-afternoon decision rather than a reason to go.
They are close in shape and season too. Each holds about the same number of notable places within walking distance of the centre, and the year runs the same way in both, warmest in July and coldest in January.
Which traveller are you?
If you plan your days around eating and evenings out, Annecy is the clear pick: many more restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and a bar and club scene several times the size of Interlaken's.
Families lean to Annecy, which has 3 theme parks within reach where Interlaken has none, plus far more park space near the centre. Interlaken counters with more ticketed attractions close in, if that suits older children.
For walkers it is close: protected land around each is near-identical, 20% and 19%. Interlaken's drier spring and September, near 38mm, make shoulder-season days more dependable, while Annecy offers warmer air, up to 27°C.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 and €248, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels for France and Switzerland, not measurements of Annecy or Interlaken. A small resort town or a heavily visited one can sit well away from its country's average, in either direction, so treat the gap as a country-level signal and check real prices for your dates.
Interlaken has no sunshine figure in this data, because no nearby station records it. The series is missing, not low, so its month-by-month picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone, and that side of the weather comparison is simply unmeasured.
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). Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre).
Annecy is the warmer choice in summer, with highs of 24-27°C from June to August, its best window. Rain is present all year, and autumn is the heaviest, October reaching 94mm, so a summer trip trades reliable warmth for showers.
Interlaken is the drier pick outside high summer: 34-37mm across March and April, and 38mm in September, when highs still hold at 18°C. July is its strongest month at 24°C, and mid-summer here is wetter than spring.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Interlaken |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 100 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 40 m €188-233 ZRH · 100 km |
| PortoOPO | 2 h 10 m €127-171 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 30 m €139-206 ZRH · 100 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 100 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 2 h 5 m €158-220 1 stop ZRH · 100 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 100 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 25 m €318-351 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 100 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 8 h 5 m €606-782 1 stop ZRH · 100 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 10 h 10 m €710-815 1 stop MXP · 135 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 | Interlaken |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French, German, Italian, Romansh |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Swiss Franc (CHF) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CJ230 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 | 571 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Interlaken |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 6,123 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 1,424 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 3 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| 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 Interlaken somewhere new.