Cannes or Como?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage and nature & day trips 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 Cannes if the trip is about swimming and walking: 68 beaches, warm sea from June to September, and most sights close to the centre, plus a far wider choice of restaurants.
Choose Como if you would rather spend days outdoors and on heritage trips, with more protected land around the city and more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and can accept wet summers.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Cannes leads by 73 points.73
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 68 | 8 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 156 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Cannes leads by 25 points.25
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 25 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 473 | 259 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 19 | 7 |
Museums & heritage. Como leads by 10 points.10
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 31 | 9 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 6 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 16 | 67 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 8 |
Nightlife. Cannes leads by 4 points.4
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 24 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 188 | 213 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 164 | 143 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 87 | 67 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 19 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. Como leads by 7 points.7
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 17 | 23 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 16 | 5 |
| Land share of disc % | 53 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 15 hectares |
Good for families. Cannes leads by 10 points.10
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 15 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 7 | 6 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 15 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Cannes leads by 26 points.26
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 30 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 95 | 22 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Como leads by 6 points.6
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 16 points.16
| Cannes | Como | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 58 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C | 7.1 °C to 27.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 13 mm to 138 mm | 61 mm to 178 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 0 |
Where they differ
Cannes is the swimming trip: 68 beaches against Como's 8, and four months of sea at 21°C or more, where Como offers none. It also concentrates many more notable places within walking distance of the centre, and has about twice as many restaurants, across a wider range of kitchens.
Como's strengths lie outside the town: 23% of the surrounding land is protected against 17% around Cannes, with more park space near the centre and more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach. Its few museums sit tightly around the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither is a late-night city. The two have a comparable number of places to drink, and in both they cluster near the centre, so an evening out stays walkable. Cannes has many more nightclubs, but neither is built around them.
Both also have parkland close to the centre and countryside within reach, and neither is strongly geared to children. The national daily budget estimates behind them are close too, €160 and €155.
Which traveller are you?
If the point of the trip is swimming, Cannes is the only real answer: 68 beaches within reach and four months when the sea sits at 21°C or more, against a lake town with no comparable season.
Walkers and day-trippers who want landscape rather than town will prefer Como, where 23% of the surrounding land is protected and more UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach, with park space close to the centre.
Families lean to Cannes, which has more attractions near the centre and 3 theme parks within reach where Como has none, though Como offers more open park space for a quieter trip.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures are national estimates for France and Italy, not measurements of Cannes or Como, and the gap between €160 and €155 is smaller than the distance a heavily visited town can sit from its own country's average. Treat neither as the cheaper trip on that basis.
Cannes's beach and weather advantages are concentrated: the sea is only warm enough for four months, and its driest months are the ones everyone else picks too. Como's best-ranked weeks fall in the same summer, which is also its wettest, so a trip timed for warmth is timed for rain.
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. Cannes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (18 km from centre). Como: 1991-2020 normals, Lugano (23 km from centre).
Cannes is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 28°C, the sea sits at 24-25°C and rain nearly stops at 13-18mm. Late spring works if you want warm days rather than swimming. Autumn turns wet, 124mm in October and heavier again after.
Como is warmest in midsummer, near 27°C, but those are also among its wettest months, over 150mm each, and spring is little better. The driest stretch is late winter, when highs sit at 7-9°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Cannes | Como |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 20 m €46-63 MXP · 34 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 45 m €48-103 MXP · 34 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 30 m €34-53 MXP · 34 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 15 m €116-135 LIN · 43 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 40 m €129-158 LIN · 43 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m €137-165 NCE · 20 km | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 34 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 20 km | 2 h 40 m €140-309 MXP · 34 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 20 km | 8 h 15 m €542-635 1 stop MXP · 34 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 20 km | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 34 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 11 h 35 m no fares MRS · 146 km | 11 h 5 m no fares MXP · 34 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 | Cannes | Como |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 0 m | 201 m |
| Main airport | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinations | Milan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)34 km from centre203 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cannes | Como |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 74,350 | 83,184 |
| People per km² | 3,793 | 2,242 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 9 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 8 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 38 | 22 |
| 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 Cannes or Como somewhere new.