Annecy or Nice?
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 beaches & swimming and nightlife 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 want a small lakeside town, quiet evenings and a compact centre, and you are travelling in summer, when highs reach 27°C.
Choose Nice if you want sea swimming, more restaurants and bars near the centre, and a bigger stock of museums and notable buildings within walking distance. It also stays mild in winter, at 13°C in January, when Annecy is cold.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Nice leads by 73 points.73
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 70 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Nice leads by 23 points.23
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 69 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 1,231 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 28 |
Museums & heritage. Nice leads by 16 points.16
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 14 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 52 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Nice leads by 24 points.24
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 44 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 428 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 388 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 91 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 26 |
Nature & day trips. Nice leads by 21 points.21
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 57 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 24 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 20 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 62 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 56 hectares |
Good for families. Nice leads by 1 points.1
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 30 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 4 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 56 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Nice leads by 24 points.24
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 47 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 60 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Annecy and Nice are level on 62.
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Nice leads by 15 points.15
| Annecy | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 13 mm to 138 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Annecy is the smaller place, 132,000 people against 358,000, and it shows: about a third as many places to drink, fewer nightclubs, and a fraction of the notable buildings in walking range of the centre. Its 9 beaches are lake beaches; no month brings sea swimming.
Nice has 70 beaches and four months of sea at 21°C or more, where Annecy has none. It also has about three times as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and many times more notable places in walking range.
Where they are alike
Neither is set up especially well for children, and they are level on it: both have 3 theme parks within reach and about the same number of tourist attractions near the centre, with Nice holding slightly more park space.
They are also close on heritage and on the shape of the year. Each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and both peak in high summer, 27°C in Annecy and 28°C in Nice, and both are coolest in January.
Which traveller are you?
If swimming matters, Nice is the only candidate: 70 beaches nearby and four months of sea warm enough to stay in. Annecy's 9 beaches are on the lake, and no month there offers sea swimming at all.
For someone who wants museums, a long list of places to eat and somewhere to go after dinner, Nice: roughly three times as many museums and drinking places, and far more notable buildings in walking range.
For families there is little in it, with 3 theme parks within reach of each and similar attractions near both centres, so decide on climate. For a quiet, small-town summer base, Annecy.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figures are identical for these two by construction: they describe a national price level, not either city. The cost comparison between Annecy and Nice carries no information. The €160 a day beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either place, so nothing here makes one the cheaper trip.
Nice's beach and weather advantages are seasonal. The sea passes 21°C for four months, and those are also the driest and the most travelled, so warm water and crowds arrive together. Its autumn is the wettest stretch in this data, which a year-round summary smooths away. Annecy's summer is warm but never dry.
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). Nice: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (8 km from centre).
Annecy works from June to August, with highs of 24-27°C, though rain does not step aside in summer, at 77-81mm a month. Autumn and winter turn cold, with highs of 5-7°C in the darkest months.
Nice is at its best in July and August, 28°C with just 13-18mm of rain and sea at 24-25°C. May and June are warm and dry too. The catch is autumn: October and November bring 124-138mm, the wettest stretch of either city's year.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 6 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 6 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 6 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 25 m €153-221 1 stop NCE · 6 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 6 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 6 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 1 h 20 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 1 h 40 m €155-228 1 stop NCE · 6 km |
| PortoOPO | 2 h 10 m €127-171 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 15 m no fares NCE · 6 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 25 m €318-351 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 6 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 6 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 | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 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 | 0 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)6 km from centre129 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 357,737 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 4,975 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 16 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 44 | 65 |
| 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 Nice somewhere new.