VacationSelector

Annecy or Monaco?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Annecy
34
match

Wins on nightlife and places to eat with your weighting.

Monaco
✓ Best match
48
match

Wins on beaches & swimming 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 eating out and an unhurried evening matter more to you than swimming, and if you would rather have park space near the centre than sights packed together.

Choose Monaco if you want a beach trip, with sea warm enough to swim for four months of the year, sightseeing you can do on foot, and a milder winter, 13°C in January against Annecy's 5°C.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

AnnecyMonaco
Beaches & swimming. Monaco leads by 73 points.73
AnnecyMonaco
Score073
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km950
Coast distance260 km0 km
Water distance—0 km
Places to eat. Annecy leads by 7 points.7
AnnecyMonaco
Score4639
Restaurants within 2 km of centre343269
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2016
Museums & heritage. Monaco leads by 8 points.8
AnnecyMonaco
Score3038
Museums within 10 km923
Museums within 2 km of centre58
Share of museums within 2 km %5635
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Annecy leads by 12 points.12
AnnecyMonaco
Score208
Drinking venues within 4 km14069
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre12063
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8691
Nightclubs within 4 km67
Nature & day trips. Monaco leads by 17 points.17
AnnecyMonaco
Score3653
Protected land share 50 km %2024
Landscape blanket share 50 km %1917
Land share of disc %10054
Park area within 2 km48 hectares15 hectares
Good for families. Monaco leads by 6 points.6
AnnecyMonaco
Score2935
Tourist attractions within 2 km414
Park area within 2 km48 hectares15 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km33
Sights concentration. Monaco leads by 41 points.41
AnnecyMonaco
Score2364
Notable places within 2 km15154
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for moneyNo source publishes a price level for Monaco.
Year-round weather. Monaco leads by 15 points.15
AnnecyMonaco
Score5974
Monthly daytime high5.1 °C to 26.8 °C13.3 °C to 27.9 °C
Monthly rainfall55 mm to 94 mm13 mm to 138 mm
Dry months03
0255075100

Where they differ

Annecy has somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a somewhat wider range of kitchens, and about twice as many places to drink. It also has about three times as much park space close to the centre, which shapes how a day there feels.

Monaco has 50 beaches nearby against Annecy's 9, and four months with the sea at 21°C or more, where Annecy has none. Notable places cluster many times more thickly within walking distance of its centre, and 24% of the surrounding land is protected against 20% around Annecy.

Where they are alike

Both suit families about equally, and each has 3 theme parks within reach. They get there differently: Monaco has about three times as many attractions near the centre, Annecy about three times as much park space.

On heritage and eating out they are close too. Each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, though Monaco has about three times as many museums. Restaurant numbers near the centre are similar, with Annecy slightly ahead and offering a wider range of kitchens.

Which traveller are you?

Swimmers and beach days: Monaco, with 50 beaches nearby and the sea at 24-25°C in July and August. Annecy has 9 beaches and no month warm enough for sea swimming, so this one decides itself.

Anyone building the trip around meals and evenings out: Annecy, which has more restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens and about twice as many places to drink, though nightclubs are somewhat more numerous in Monaco.

Short-stay sightseers on foot: Monaco, where notable places cluster far more thickly around the centre and museums are roughly three times as numerous. Families weighing the two trade Monaco's attractions for Annecy's park space; both have 3 theme parks within reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

No cost comparison is possible here. Annecy comes with a daily figure of about €160, and the dataset carries no equivalent for Monaco, so nothing can be said about what a trip there costs or how the two stack up on price. Budget for Monaco from your own research.

A mild autumn in Monaco is not a dry one: October and November stay at 17-21°C while rainfall reaches 124-138mm, the wettest months in either city's year. And those 50 beaches sit in a very small place, so the months when the sea is warmest are also the months they are busiest.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Annecy
5
7
12
16
20
24
27
26
21
16
9
6
Monaco
13
14
15
17
21
25
28
28
25
21
17
14
Sea temperature, °C
Annecy
No coastline within reach
Monaco
14
13
14
15
18
21
24
25
22
20
17
15
Rainfall, mm
Annecy
71
55
61
66
77
81
77
80
87
94
87
88
Monaco
74
53
51
69
42
34
13
18
84
124
138
91
Daylight, hours per day
Annecy
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Monaco
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Annecy
2
3
6
6
7
8
9
8
6
4
2
2
Monaco
5
6
7
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Annecy: 1991-2020 normals, Geneve-Cointrin (39 km from centre). Monaco: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (19.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Annecy is at its best from June to August, with highs of 24-27°C, though summer rain stays in the 77-81mm range and September brings 87mm. May and September, at 20-21°C, are the quieter warm-weather options.

Monaco's warmest and driest stretch is July and August, 28°C with only 13-18mm of rain and the sea at 24-25°C. May is already warm at 21°C with 42mm. Skip October and November, when rainfall reaches 124-138mm.

Getting there

Flying fromAnnecyMonaco
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 35 m
€91-200
GVA · 38 km
1 h 55 m
€76-223
NCE · 18 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
€104-203
GVA · 38 km
1 h 30 m
€78-111
NCE · 18 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 25 m
€156-181
1 stop
GVA · 38 km
2 h 25 m
€153-221
1 stop
NCE · 18 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 20 m
no fares
GVA · 38 km
1 h 40 m
€155-228
1 stop
NCE · 18 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 30 m
€160-186
GVA · 38 km
1 h 50 m
€170-248
NCE · 18 km
MadridMAD
1 h 50 m
no fares
GVA · 38 km
1 h 50 m
€137-165
NCE · 18 km
PortoOPO
2 h 10 m
€127-171
1 stop
GVA · 38 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
NCE · 18 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 30 m
no fares
GVA · 38 km
1 h 10 m
€69-133
NCE · 18 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 0 m
no fares
GVA · 38 km
8 h 10 m
€666-799
1 stop
NCE · 18 km
TunisTUN
2 h 0 m
no fares
GVA · 38 km
1 h 35 m
€148-281
NCE · 18 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

MeasureAnnecyMonaco
Official languageFrenchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCEF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation418 m68 m
Main airportGeneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinationsNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)18 km from centre129 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureAnnecyMonaco
City population132,11738,857
People per km²1,97518,503
Museums within 10 km114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre4429
Swim season, months above 21 °C–4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Annecy or Monaco somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.