VacationSelector

Cannes or Milan?

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 beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.

Milan
✓ Best match
63
match

Wins on good for families and nightlife 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 swimming and sun: dozens of beaches, sea at 21°C or more for four months, and the drier summer of the two.

Choose Milan if you want museums, restaurants, late evenings and days out with children, with much more of the city within walking distance of the centre and more to reach on a day trip.

Scoreboard

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

CannesMilan
Beaches & swimming. Cannes leads by 73 points.73
CannesMilan
Score730
Swim season months40
Beaches 10 km684
Coast distance1 km120 km
Water distance1 km—
Places to eat. Milan leads by 20 points.20
CannesMilan
Score5070
Restaurants within 2 km of centre4731,991
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1920
Museums & heritage. Milan leads by 38 points.38
CannesMilan
Score3674
Museums within 10 km3187
Museums within 2 km of centre555
Share of museums within 2 km %1663
Unesco sites within 50 km24
Nightlife. Milan leads by 47 points.47
CannesMilan
Score2875
Drinking venues within 4 km1882,215
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre164961
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8743
Nightclubs within 4 km1970
Nature & day trips. Milan leads by 32 points.32
CannesMilan
Score3365
Protected land share 50 km %1730
Landscape blanket share 50 km %1611
Land share of disc %53100
Park area within 2 km13 hectares102 hectares
Good for families. Milan leads by 52 points.52
CannesMilan
Score2577
Tourist attractions within 2 km776
Park area within 2 km13 hectares102 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km35
Sights concentration. Milan leads by 18 points.18
CannesMilan
Score5674
Notable places within 2 km95266
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Milan leads by 6 points.6
CannesMilan
Score6268
Price level global73.764.9
Daily budget€160€155
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 10 points.10
CannesMilan
Score7464
Monthly daytime high13.3 °C to 27.9 °C7 °C to 28.6 °C
Monthly rainfall13 mm to 138 mm44 mm to 127 mm
Dry months30
0255075100

Where they differ

Cannes is the one with a coast: 68 beaches nearby against Milan's 4, and four months of sea at 21°C or more, which Milan has none of. Its summer is drier too, with months at 40mm of rain or less that Milan never gets.

Milan has many times as many attractions and as much park space near the centre, plus 5 theme parks within reach against Cannes's 3. It also has far more museums, more UNESCO-listed places on day trips, and many times as many bars and clubs.

Where they are alike

Value is where the two sit closest. Both countries carry a similar national price level for restaurants and hotels, around €155-160 a day, so cost is unlikely to be what decides between them.

They are also close on weather and on how much sits near the centre. Both reach 28-29°C at the height of summer, and in both a walk from the middle takes in notable places and a comparable range of kitchens.

Which traveller are you?

If the point of the trip is swimming, Cannes is the only real option here: 68 beaches nearby and four months when the sea is at 21°C or more. Milan cannot match that on any measure.

Museum-goers and people who want long evenings out should take Milan: far more museums, tightly grouped around the centre, more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and many times as many bars and clubs.

Families lean to Milan too, with many times as many attractions and as much park space near the centre, and 5 theme parks within reach against Cannes's 3.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figure, €155-160, is a national estimate of restaurant and hotel prices in each country, not a measurement of either city. A heavily visited coastal town or a large business city can sit well away from its own country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so it settles nothing.

Cannes's beach strength is concentrated: the sea passes 21°C for only four months, and those are the months everyone else comes. Milan's warmer summer highs come with rain in every month and 7°C in January, so the year-round picture is less even than a summer visit suggests.

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
Milan
7
10
15
17
23
26
29
28
24
18
11
7
Sea temperature, °C
Cannes
14
13
14
15
18
21
24
25
23
20
18
16
Milan
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Cannes
74
53
51
69
42
34
13
18
84
124
138
91
Milan
54
44
50
78
102
75
57
83
116
113
127
49
Daylight, hours per day
Cannes
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Milan
9
10
12
14
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
Milan
3
4
5
6
7
7
9
8
5
4
2
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cannes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (18 km from centre). Milan: 1991-2020 normals, Novara / Cameri (41.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Cannes is at its best from June to September: highs of 25-28°C, sea at 24-25°C at the peak, and the two driest months of the year, both under 20mm. Autumn is the trade-off, with over 120mm in October and again in November.

Milan's window runs May to September, warmest at 29°C in midsummer. Rain is spread through it, close to 100mm in the wettest of those months, so July and August are the steadier bet, while January highs of 7°C rule out a winter visit.

Getting there

Flying fromCannesMilan
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€78-111
NCE · 20 km
1 h 20 m
€46-63
MXP · 40 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 55 m
€76-223
NCE · 20 km
1 h 45 m
€48-103
MXP · 40 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 15 m
€83-135
NCE · 20 km
1 h 30 m
€34-53
MXP · 40 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 10 m
€69-133
NCE · 20 km
1 h 15 m
€116-135
LIN · 7 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 50 m
€170-248
NCE · 20 km
1 h 40 m
€129-158
LIN · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 50 m
€137-165
NCE · 20 km
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 40 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 45 m
€202-329
NCE · 20 km
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 40 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 · 40 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 20 m
€375-433
NCE · 20 km
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 40 km
SeoulICN, GMP
11 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 146 km
11 h 5 m
no fares
MXP · 40 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

MeasureCannesMilan
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 m138 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinationsMilan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)40 km from centre203 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCannesMilan
City population74,3501,354,196
People per km²3,7937,453
Museums within 10 km1687
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km24
Distinct cuisines in the centre3879
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months–

Where else could you go?

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