VacationSelector
The Old Port and Le Suquet, Cannes
CannesThe Old Port and Le Suquet
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens

Photos: Cannes by qwesy qwesy, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cannes or Edinburgh?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Cannes for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Cannes’s own page.

Choose Edinburgh for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Edinburgh’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Cannes 80, Edinburgh 22: Cannes leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Cannes 55, Edinburgh 53: Cannes leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Cannes 38, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 37 points.
Nightlife. Cannes 42, Edinburgh 50: Edinburgh leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cannes 72, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Cannes 86, Edinburgh 75: Cannes leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Cannes 56, Edinburgh 62: Edinburgh leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Cannes 68, Edinburgh 74: Edinburgh leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Cannes 60, Edinburgh 50: Cannes leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Cannes 22, Edinburgh 30: Edinburgh leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cannes 38, Edinburgh 72: Edinburgh leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cannes 42, Edinburgh 34: Cannes leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cannes and Edinburgh.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cannes
55match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Edinburgh
56match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Cannes in July

29 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CannesEdinburgh

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cannes: 2004-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cannes (5.8 km from centre). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCannesEdinburgh
Official languageFrenchEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation0 m47 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre130 non-stop destinationsEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCannesEdinburgh
City population74,350488,050
People per km²3,7931,884
Museums within 10 km1632
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.