Annecy or Venice?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and places to eat with your weighting.
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 the point of the trip is what lies outside town: protected countryside, parks near the centre and a wider range of kitchens for dinner, with July highs of 27°C.
Choose Venice if you want museums and monuments within walking distance of one another, beaches within reach and sea warm enough to swim from June to September.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Venice leads by 69 points.69
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 69 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 20 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 4 km |
| Water distance | — | 4 km |
Places to eat. Annecy leads by 1 points.1
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 45 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 750 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 10 |
Museums & heritage. Venice leads by 42 points.42
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 72 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 57 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 45 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 79 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 5 |
Nightlife. Venice leads by 15 points.15
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 35 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 342 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 306 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 89 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Annecy leads by 19 points.19
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 17 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 70 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 15 hectares |
Good for families. Venice leads by 28 points.28
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 57 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 72 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 15 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Venice leads by 60 points.60
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 83 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 464 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Venice leads by 6 points.6
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Venice leads by 7 points.7
| Annecy | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 8 °C to 30.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 36 mm to 106 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 2 |
Where they differ
Annecy is the choice for open country: 20% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Venice, and it has about three times as much park space near the centre. Its restaurants also cover a wider range of kitchens.
Venice packs many times as many notable places and museums within walking distance of its centre, and has 5 UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach against Annecy's 2. It also has 20 beaches nearby against 9, and sea warm enough for swimming through high summer.
Where they are alike
Eating out is the closest call. Venice has about twice as many restaurants near the centre, while Annecy spreads across a wider range of kitchens, so in both you can decide where to eat on the night rather than in advance.
Both have the same seasonal swing, cold in January at 5°C and 8°C and warm in summer, and in each the drinking and clubbing sits near the centre. The national price estimates behind them are close as well.
Which traveller are you?
Someone who wants heritage on foot should take Venice: many times as many museums as Annecy, notable places packed within walking distance of the centre, and 5 UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach.
Families are better served in Venice too, with far more tourist attractions near the centre and 20 beaches nearby; Annecy answers with about three times as much park space, and both have 3 theme parks within reach.
Walkers and day-trippers should choose Annecy, where 20% of the surrounding land is protected against 4% around Venice, and the countryside carries the trip rather than the town.
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, so the small gap between them says nothing about which trip costs more.
Venice's beach strength comes with conditions: the warmest sea months are also the hottest and the busiest, and the beaches sit outside the centre rather than in it. September keeps the warmth but brings the year's heaviest rain at 106mm, and the compact centre that makes the sights walkable is also what concentrates the crowds.
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). Venice: 1991-2020 normals, Treviso / S. Angelo (26.1 km from centre).
Annecy is at its best from June to August, when highs reach 24-27°C. Rain runs at 77-81mm through those months and never drops below 55mm in any month, so a wet day is possible whenever you go.
Venice works from May to July, with highs of 24-30°C and drier air than autumn brings. September stays warm at 25°C but is its wettest month at 106mm, while January and February are the driest of all, at 36-38mm, and too cold for sitting outside.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Venice |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 2 h 0 m €46-119 1 stop VCE · 7 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 40 m €68-109 VCE · 7 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 2 h 20 m €102-159 VCE · 7 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 45 m €41-56 VCE · 7 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 45 m €190-215 1 stop VCE · 7 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 55 m €122-127 VCE · 7 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 55 m €147-338 GVA · 38 km | 2 h 20 m €148-150 VCE · 7 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 25 m €318-351 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 5 h 55 m €366-421 2 stops VCE · 7 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 8 h 30 m €637-650 VCE · 7 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 9 h 55 m no fares VCE · 7 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 | Venice |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 2 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE)7 km from centre98 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Venice |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 250,369 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 602 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 52 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 44 | 46 |
| 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 Venice somewhere new.