VacationSelector

Cannes or La Spezia?

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

Your match

Cannes
✓ Best match
49
match

Wins on sights concentration and places to eat with your weighting.

La Spezia
43
match

Wins on nature & day trips 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 you want everything within walking distance of the centre: the notable places, the restaurants, the museums and a choice of 68 beaches, with the driest midsummer of the two.

Choose La Spezia if you would rather have the sea at the centre, more park space on the doorstep and the surrounding country as the point of the trip rather than the town itself.

Scoreboard

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

CannesLa Spezia
Beaches & swimming. Cannes and La Spezia are level on 73.
CannesLa Spezia
Score7373
Swim season months44
Beaches 10 km6832
Coast distance1 km0 km
Water distance1 km0 km
Places to eat. Cannes leads by 19 points.19
CannesLa Spezia
Score5031
Restaurants within 2 km of centre473235
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1911
Museums & heritage. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
CannesLa Spezia
Score3642
Museums within 10 km3115
Museums within 2 km of centre510
Share of museums within 2 km %1667
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Cannes leads by 4 points.4
CannesLa Spezia
Score2824
Drinking venues within 4 km188208
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre164176
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8785
Nightclubs within 4 km191
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 19 points.19
CannesLa Spezia
Score3352
Protected land share 50 km %1713
Landscape blanket share 50 km %160
Land share of disc %5351
Park area within 2 km13 hectares23 hectares
Good for families. Cannes leads by 5 points.5
CannesLa Spezia
Score2520
Tourist attractions within 2 km73
Park area within 2 km13 hectares23 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km32
Sights concentration. Cannes leads by 49 points.49
CannesLa Spezia
Score567
Notable places within 2 km956
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
CannesLa Spezia
Score6268
Price level global73.764.9
Daily budget€160€155
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 4 points.4
CannesLa Spezia
Score7470
Monthly daytime high13.3 °C to 27.9 °C11.4 °C to 30.3 °C
Monthly rainfall13 mm to 138 mm32 mm to 132 mm
Dry months32
0255075100

Where they differ

Cannes packs many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre. It has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, and about twice as many museums. There are 68 beaches nearby against 32, though the sea sits 1km from the centre.

La Spezia is the better base for time outdoors, with about twice as much park space near the centre and the water at the centre itself. Protected land around it covers 13% against 17%.

Where they are alike

Swimming is where they match most closely. Both have the same warmest sea, 25°C in August, and both hold sea at 21°C or more for 4 months, so the bathing season runs the same length.

They also sit close on weather, nightlife, museums and how well they suit children. Drinking places are about equally numerous in both and mostly near the centre, though Cannes has far more nightclubs. Neither offers much aimed at families, and both have modest museum holdings.

Which traveller are you?

A traveller who wants to do a town on foot should take Cannes: the notable places, the museums and about twice as many restaurants near the centre all sit close together, with a wider range of kitchens.

Anyone whose days are built around walking, parks and trips out of town is better served by La Spezia, which has roughly twice the park space near its centre and more of its interest beyond the built-up area.

Swimmers can take either. Both keep the sea at 21°C or more for 4 months. Cannes gives 68 beaches to choose between; La Spezia puts the water at the centre, so no transport is needed.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget is a national estimate, €160 for France and €155 for Italy, and it measures restaurant and hotel price levels for the countries, not for these two towns. A much-visited coastal town can sit far from its national average, so the small gap between the figures tells you nothing about which trip costs more.

Warm months are not always dry ones. September still swims well in both, with sea at 23°C, but rain climbs sharply, more so in La Spezia. And a large beach count is a summer count: those 68 beaches near Cannes are busiest exactly when the weather is at its best.

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
La Spezia
11
13
16
18
23
27
30
30
26
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
Cannes
14
13
14
15
18
21
24
25
23
20
18
16
La Spezia
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
La Spezia
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Daylight, hours per day
Cannes
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
La Spezia
9
10
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Cannes
5
6
7
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
5
5
La Spezia
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cannes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (18 km from centre). La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Cannes is at its best in July and August: highs of 28°C, sea at 25°C and very little rain, 13-18mm across the two. Late autumn is the opposite, with the heaviest rain of the year and swimming over.

La Spezia peaks a little earlier, at 27°C in June, and its high summer runs hotter at 30°C. Its shoulder months are damper than Cannes's, 63mm in May, so early summer rather than the autumn edges is the choice there.

Getting there

Flying fromCannesLa Spezia
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€78-111
NCE · 20 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 55 m
€76-223
NCE · 20 km
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 65 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 10 m
€69-133
NCE · 20 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 86 km
TiranaTIA
1 h 55 m
no fares
NCE · 20 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 50 m
€170-248
NCE · 20 km
1 h 55 m
€210-262
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 40 m
no fares
MRS · 146 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 40 m
€155-228
1 stop
NCE · 20 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 55 m
no fares
MRS · 146 km
1 h 35 m
€55-66
PSA · 65 km
CopenhagenCPH
2 h 20 m
€174-218
1 stop
NCE · 20 km
2 h 15 m
€102-140
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 55 m
no fares
NCE · 20 km
3 h 10 m
no fares
PSA · 65 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

MeasureCannesLa Spezia
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 m3 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinationsPisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCannesLa Spezia
City population74,35092,119
People per km²3,7931,792
Museums within 10 km1612
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre3822
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 La Spezia 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.