Cannes or Lucerne?
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 value for money with your weighting.
Wins on good for families 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 sea swimming and reliable warmth, with dozens of beaches, four months of sea at 21°C or more, and a compact centre you can cover on foot.
Choose Lucerne if you are travelling with children or want milder summers, with more attractions and park space near the centre and summer highs around 24°C.
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 | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 68 | 16 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 669 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Cannes leads by 3 points.3
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 47 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 473 | 269 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 19 | 25 |
Museums & heritage. Lucerne leads by 4 points.4
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 40 |
| Museums within 10 km | 31 | 23 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 13 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 16 | 57 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
Nightlife. Cannes and Lucerne are level on 28.
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 28 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 188 | 202 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 164 | 151 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 87 | 75 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 19 | 11 |
Nature & day trips. Cannes leads by 8 points.8
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 25 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 17 | 7 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 16 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 53 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Lucerne leads by 13 points.13
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 38 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 7 | 15 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Cannes leads by 21 points.21
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 35 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 95 | 29 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Cannes leads by 27 points.27
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 35 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 110.5 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €248 |
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 21 points.21
| Cannes | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 53 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C | 3.6 °C to 24.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 13 mm to 138 mm | 60 mm to 128 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 0 |
Where they differ
Cannes has 68 beaches against Lucerne's 16, and a sea that reaches 21°C or more in high summer where Lucerne has none. It runs warmer all year, 13-28°C against 4-24°C, with three months at 40mm of rain or less, and its notable places sit far more densely within walking distance of the centre.
Lucerne has more tourist attractions and more park space near the centre, and a somewhat wider range of kitchens, though Cannes has more restaurants near its own centre.
Where they are alike
Nightlife is the closest match. Both have a similar number of places to drink, mostly near the centre, so an evening out is a short walk; Cannes has the larger share of nightclubs.
Eating out, museums and the outdoors are close too: both hold a comparable number of museums, each has UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and the difference in dining is one of kind rather than scale. Both also have protected land and parks within reach.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone whose trip is built around swimming should take Cannes: 68 beaches within reach and a sea warm enough for four months of the year, against a Lucerne that offers no sea swimming at all.
Families are generally better served in Lucerne, with more tourist attractions and more park space near the centre for ordinary days out; Cannes counters with 3 theme parks within reach against Lucerne's 1.
A weekend walker who wants sights close to the hotel is better off in Cannes, where notable places cluster tightly near the centre. Lucerne's museums are compactly grouped, but there are fewer of them.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 for France and €248 for Switzerland, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of Cannes or Lucerne. A heavily visited town can sit well above its country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so treat them as background rather than as a verdict on what either place costs.
Cannes's beaches and warm sea are at their best in high summer, which is also when a town of this size takes the most visitors. And its warm-year picture hides an autumn reaching 138mm of rain, while Lucerne's warmest months are also its wettest.
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). Lucerne: 1991-2020 normals, Zurich Town / Ville. (41.7 km from centre).
Cannes is at its best from June to September, with highs of 25-28°C, sea at 21-25°C and the driest weeks of its year in midsummer. Autumn is the stretch to avoid: rainfall climbs to 124-138mm and the sea cools off.
Lucerne's window is narrower. July and August reach 24°C but are also among its wettest at 119-126mm, so pack for showers. September is drier at 87mm and still mild, which makes it the better bet.
Getting there
| Flying from | Cannes | Lucerne |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 49 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 49 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 49 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 49 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 49 km |
| GenevaGVA | 1 h 0 m €65-145 NCE · 20 km | 55 m no fares ZRH · 49 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 20 km | 2 h 45 m €110-133 ZRH · 49 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 20 km | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 49 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 · 49 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 11 h 35 m no fares MRS · 146 km | 10 h 55 m no fares ZRH · 49 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 | Lucerne |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 436 m |
| Main airport | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinations | Zürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre181 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 12 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cannes | Lucerne |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 74,350 | 86,234 |
| People per km² | 3,793 | 2,963 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 14 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 38 | 46 |
| 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 Lucerne somewhere new.