Cannes or Interlaken?
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.
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
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 sea matters: 68 beaches nearby, four months warm enough to swim, and a walkable centre with restaurants, bars and museums close together.
Choose Interlaken if the mountains are the point: more protected land around a much smaller town, more attractions within its compact centre, and summer days that stay cooler than the coast's.
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 | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 68 | 12 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 713 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Cannes leads by 21 points.21
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 29 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 473 | 118 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 19 | 17 |
Museums & heritage. Cannes leads by 13 points.13
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 23 |
| Museums within 10 km | 31 | 5 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 2 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 16 | 40 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Cannes leads by 24 points.24
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 4 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 188 | 42 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 164 | 38 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 87 | 90 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 19 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Cannes leads by 6 points.6
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 27 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 17 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 16 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 53 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 5 hectares |
Good for families. Cannes leads by 11 points.11
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 14 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 7 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 5 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Cannes leads by 34 points.34
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 22 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 95 | 14 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Cannes leads by 27 points.27
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 35 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 110.5 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €248 |
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 17 points.17
| Cannes | Interlaken | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 57 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 13 mm to 138 mm | 34 mm to 68 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 3 |
Where they differ
Cannes has 68 beaches nearby to Interlaken's 12, and four months when the sea at 21°C or more, where Interlaken has none. Its centre packs in many more notable places within walking distance, plus many times as many restaurants and bars.
Interlaken sits in more protected country, 19% of the land around it against 17% around Cannes, and offers more tourist attractions near the centre in a far smaller town. The national price estimates behind them are €248 a day for Interlaken's country and €160 for Cannes's.
Where they are alike
Both sit in well-protected country: 19% of the land around Interlaken is protected against 17% around Cannes, and in each the surrounding landscape is the main reason to spend a day out of town.
Neither is a heavyweight for heritage or for families. Each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and in both the museums and attractions that do exist are grouped close to the centre rather than scattered.
Which traveller are you?
A swimmer or beach-first traveller should take Cannes: 68 beaches within reach, sea at 25°C at the peak of summer, and food and nightlife concentrated within walking distance of where you sleep.
Someone who travels to walk should choose Interlaken, where 19% of the surrounding land is protected and summer highs of 22-24°C make long days outdoors easier than on the coast.
Families lean to Cannes, which has 3 theme parks within reach and about three times the central park space; Interlaken counters with more tourist attractions close to its centre, but neither town is built around children.
What the numbers don't tell you
The €160 and €248 daily figures are national price estimates for the two countries, not measurements of either town. A resort town can sit far from its country's average, by more than the gap between these two numbers, so neither tells you what your own trip will cost.
No weather station near Interlaken records sunshine hours, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured there and its monthly ratings rest on temperature and rainfall alone. Cannes's best swimming months are also the ones every other visitor picks, and its driest months are the crowded ones.
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). Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre).
Cannes is the better pick from June to September: highs of 25-28°C, sea warm enough to swim in for four months, and July close to dry at 13mm. October and November are its wettest stretch.
Interlaken works from June to September, with highs of 22-24°C at the peak. Its warmest months are also its wettest, so September, drier at 38mm and still 18°C, is the steadier choice. Winter there is cold enough to be a different trip entirely.
Getting there
| Flying from | Cannes | Interlaken |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 100 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 100 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 100 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 100 km |
| GenevaGVA | 1 h 0 m €65-145 NCE · 20 km | 55 m no fares ZRH · 100 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 20 km | 2 h 45 m €110-133 ZRH · 100 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 20 km | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 100 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 20 km | 8 h 5 m €606-782 1 stop ZRH · 100 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 11 h 35 m no fares MRS · 146 km | 10 h 55 m no fares ZRH · 100 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 | Interlaken |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French, German, Italian, Romansh |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Swiss Franc (CHF) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CJ230 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 | 571 m |
| Main airport | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinations | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cannes | Interlaken |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 74,350 | 6,123 |
| People per km² | 3,793 | 1,424 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 3 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| 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 Interlaken somewhere new.