Bordeaux or Cannes?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, level with your weighting
Wins on nightlife and good for families 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 Bordeaux if you want a city trip rather than a beach one: more places to eat, more to drink in the evening, more parks and attractions for children, and more protected countryside within day-trip reach.
Choose Cannes if swimming decides it: 68 beaches nearby, sea warm enough for four months of the year, and a compact centre with more notable places close together.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Cannes leads by 73 points.73
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 4 | 68 |
| Coast distance | 18 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Bordeaux leads by 18 points.18
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 50 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 975 | 473 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 32 | 19 |
Museums & heritage. Bordeaux leads by 19 points.19
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 36 |
| Museums within 10 km | 35 | 31 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 17 | 5 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 49 | 16 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 2 |
Nightlife. Bordeaux leads by 20 points.20
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 28 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 546 | 188 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 427 | 164 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 78 | 87 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 32 | 19 |
Nature & day trips. Bordeaux leads by 18 points.18
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 51 | 33 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 35 | 17 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 35 | 16 |
| Land share of disc % | 85 | 53 |
| Park area within 2 km | 43 hectares | 13 hectares |
Good for families. Bordeaux leads by 20 points.20
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 25 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 21 | 7 |
| Park area within 2 km | 43 hectares | 13 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Cannes leads by 11 points.11
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 56 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 51 | 95 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Bordeaux and Cannes are level on 62.
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 6 points.6
| Bordeaux | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10.5 °C to 27.6 °C | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 47 mm to 114 mm | 13 mm to 138 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Bordeaux is the bigger evening city, with far more bars and more nightclubs, nearly all of them near the centre. For children it has many more attractions and much more park space close in, and there is more protected countryside around it for days out.
Cannes is the swimming trip: 68 beaches nearby against Bordeaux's 4, and sea at 21°C or more for four months of the year where Bordeaux has none. It also has 3 theme parks within reach against Bordeaux's 1, though the wider family case still favours Bordeaux.
Where they are alike
The weather runs close. Both peak at 28°C in August and both are coolest in January, 11°C in Bordeaux and 13°C in Cannes, so neither has a season that shuts down and high summer feels much the same in either.
Both also keep their interest close in: museums, bars and notable buildings sit within walking distance of the centre in each, and both have enough restaurants to eat well without planning, even if Bordeaux's range is wider.
Which traveller are you?
If the point of the trip is swimming, Cannes settles it: 68 beaches nearby and a sea reaching 25°C in August, with four months warm enough to spend in the water rather than beside it.
If you travel for eating and for evenings out, Bordeaux is the clearer choice, with about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and far more bars and clubs within walking distance.
Families with young children get more from Bordeaux's parks and its attractions close to the centre. Cannes answers with 3 theme parks within reach and beach days that need no planning at all.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information: both take the same national price level, so the figure is identical by construction and says nothing about which trip costs less. The €160 a day beside it is one country-wide estimate rather than a measurement of either city.
Cannes's beach season peaks when everyone else's does. July and August are its warmest and driest months, at 13-18mm, so its strongest weeks are also its busiest, and autumn is no easy substitute, with 124mm in October and 138mm in November.
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. Bordeaux: 1991-2020 normals, Bordeaux / Merignac (9.5 km from centre). Cannes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (18 km from centre).
Bordeaux is at its best from June to September, with highs of 25-28°C, and July is its driest month at 47mm. Its autumn is the drier of the two: 83mm in October against 124mm, and 114mm in November against 138mm.
Cannes peaks in July and August, 28°C by day with the sea at 24-25°C and only 13-18mm of rain, and it stays milder in winter, around 13-14°C in January and February. Its wet stretch runs from September into December.
Getting there
| Flying from | Bordeaux | Cannes |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 15 m €114-148 BOD · 11 km | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 20 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 30 m €46-73 BOD · 11 km | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 20 km |
| GenevaGVA | 1 h 20 m no fares BOD · 11 km | 1 h 0 m €65-145 NCE · 20 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 45 m no fares BOD · 11 km | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 20 km |
| LyonLYS | 1 h 15 m no fares BOD · 11 km | 1 h 0 m no fares NCE · 20 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 2 h 35 m no fares BOD · 11 km | 2 h 55 m no fares NCE · 20 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 10 m €77-107 BOD · 11 km | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 20 km |
| LilleLIL | 1 h 30 m no fares BOD · 11 km | 1 h 40 m €162-220 NCE · 20 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 2 h 0 m €99-106 1 stop BOD · 11 km | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 20 km |
| MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX | 7 h 10 m no fares BOD · 11 km | 7 h 55 m no fares NCE · 20 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 2026-09 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 | Bordeaux | Cannes |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 1 m | 0 m |
| Main airport | Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport (BOD)11 km from centre94 non-stop destinations | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Bordeaux | Cannes |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 267,991 | 74,350 |
| People per km² | 5,425 | 3,793 |
| Museums within 10 km | 18 | 16 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 81 | 38 |
| 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 Bordeaux or Cannes somewhere new.