VacationSelector

Cannes or Genoa?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Cannes
49
match

Wins on year-round weather with your weighting.

Genoa
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on nightlife and museums & heritage 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 built around the water and the sun: more beaches within reach, 68 of them, more protected countryside around the town, and the sunnier year of the two.

Choose Genoa if you want a city to walk in, with roughly twice as many museums, far more places to drink, and more to occupy children close to the centre.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

CannesGenoa
Beaches & swimming. Cannes and Genoa are level on 73.
CannesGenoa
Score7373
Swim season months44
Beaches 10 km6837
Coast distance1 km0 km
Water distance1 km0 km
Places to eat. Cannes and Genoa are level on 50.
CannesGenoa
Score5050
Restaurants within 2 km of centre473691
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1914
Museums & heritage. Genoa leads by 19 points.19
CannesGenoa
Score3655
Museums within 10 km3147
Museums within 2 km of centre533
Share of museums within 2 km %1670
Unesco sites within 50 km21
Nightlife. Genoa leads by 22 points.22
CannesGenoa
Score2850
Drinking venues within 4 km188637
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre164419
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8766
Nightclubs within 4 km1917
Nature & day trips. Genoa leads by 2 points.2
CannesGenoa
Score3335
Protected land share 50 km %178
Landscape blanket share 50 km %160
Land share of disc %5361
Park area within 2 km13 hectares29 hectares
Good for families. Genoa leads by 13 points.13
CannesGenoa
Score2538
Tourist attractions within 2 km721
Park area within 2 km13 hectares29 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km30
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 5 points.5
CannesGenoa
Score5661
Notable places within 2 km95130
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Genoa leads by 6 points.6
CannesGenoa
Score6268
Price level global73.764.9
Daily budget€160€155
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 1 points.1
CannesGenoa
Score7473
Monthly daytime high13.3 °C to 27.9 °C11.7 °C to 27.9 °C
Monthly rainfall13 mm to 138 mm12 mm to 122 mm
Dry months33
0255075100

Where they differ

Cannes matches Genoa for nightclubs and has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Genoa's 1, plus 3 theme parks outside town that Genoa cannot match.

Genoa is the stronger city for museums, about twice as many and set tightly around the centre, and for evenings out, with far more places to drink. Near the centre it also has roughly three times the attractions and twice the park space, so a day with children takes less arranging.

Where they are alike

Eating out is a wash: Genoa has somewhat more restaurants near the centre, Cannes a somewhat wider range of kitchens.

The rest of the overlap is coastal and seasonal. Highs run 13-28°C in Cannes and 12-28°C in Genoa, each with three months at 40mm of rain or less, and the sea warms at the same time in both. Each also has protected land and parks within reach for a day out, though neither is chiefly a nature destination.

Which traveller are you?

Swimmers and sun-seekers can take either, but Cannes has 68 beaches nearby against Genoa's 37 and the sunnier year, while Genoa's centre reaches the sea directly. Sea temperatures and the swimming season are the same in both.

Museum-goers and anyone who prefers to walk should pick Genoa: about twice as many museums, packed tightly around the centre, more notable places within walking distance, and considerably more bars for the evening.

Families divide. Genoa has roughly three times as many attractions and twice the park space near the centre, so days need less planning; Cannes counters with 3 theme parks within reach, which mean driving.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures, €160 for France and €155 for Italy, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of Cannes or Genoa. A coastal resort and a large port city can each sit well away from their country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so treat them as background rather than as a reason to choose.

Cannes's beach count sits in a town of 74,400 people, and the months when the sea is warmest are the months everyone else is there. Autumn looks tempting on temperature alone, but the wettest months of the year in both fall in autumn.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Cannes
13
14
15
17
21
25
28
28
25
21
17
14
Genoa
12
12
15
18
21
25
27
28
25
20
16
13
Sea temperature, °C
Cannes
14
13
14
15
18
21
24
25
23
20
18
16
Genoa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rainfall, mm
Cannes
74
53
51
69
42
34
13
18
84
124
138
91
Genoa
58
41
47
67
40
26
12
20
72
101
122
89
Daylight, hours per day
Cannes
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Genoa
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Cannes
5
6
7
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
5
5
Genoa
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
7
6
4
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cannes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (18 km from centre). Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Cannes peaks in July and August, with highs of 28°C, the sea at 25°C and rain down to 13-18mm. Winter is slightly milder too, 13-14°C against Genoa's 12-13°C.

Genoa matches that heat from June to August, 25-28°C, and stays a shade drier. Its autumn is the kinder one for rain, 101mm in October against Cannes's 124mm, with the sea still warm, so an early-autumn trip tips towards Genoa.

Getting there

Flying fromCannesGenoa
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€78-111
NCE · 20 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 55 m
€76-223
NCE · 20 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 50 m
€137-165
NCE · 20 km
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 137 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 · 137 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 45 m
€202-329
NCE · 20 km
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 137 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 25 m
€153-221
1 stop
NCE · 20 km
2 h 35 m
€78-142
MXP · 137 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 20 m
€375-433
NCE · 20 km
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 137 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 10 m
€69-133
NCE · 20 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 30 m
€164-246
1 stop
NCE · 20 km
1 h 15 m
€67-76
LIN · 119 km
SeoulICN, GMP
11 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 146 km
11 h 5 m
no fares
MXP · 137 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

MeasureCannesGenoa
Official languageFrenchItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation0 m20 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinationsGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCannesGenoa
City population74,350558,745
People per km²3,7932,325
Museums within 10 km1651
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Distinct cuisines in the centre3841
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months4 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.