Cannes or Zurich?
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 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 sea and warmth: dozens of beaches within reach, four months when the water sits at 21°C or more, and dry, sunny summers.
Choose Zurich if you want the city itself: far more places to eat and a much wider range of kitchens, many more bars and clubs, and about twice as many museums, most of them near the centre.
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 | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 68 | 23 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 632 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Zurich leads by 17 points.17
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 67 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 473 | 974 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 19 | 30 |
Museums & heritage. Zurich leads by 20 points.20
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 56 |
| Museums within 10 km | 31 | 76 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 37 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 16 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
Nightlife. Zurich leads by 26 points.26
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 54 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 188 | 676 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 164 | 553 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 87 | 82 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 19 | 74 |
Nature & day trips. Zurich leads by 4 points.4
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 37 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 17 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 16 | 9 |
| Land share of disc % | 53 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 48 hectares |
Good for families. Zurich leads by 11 points.11
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 36 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 7 | 8 |
| Park area within 2 km | 13 hectares | 48 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Zurich leads by 3 points.3
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 59 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 95 | 119 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Cannes leads by 27 points.27
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 35 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 110.5 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €248 |
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 21 points.21
| Cannes | Zurich | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 nearby against Zurich's 23, and four months when the sea reaches 21°C or more, which Zurich has none of. Daytime highs run 13-28°C across the year against Zurich's 4-24°C, and Cannes has by far the drier summer of the two.
Zurich has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens. It also has roughly three times as many places to drink and three times as many nightclubs, and about twice as many museums, grouped tightly around the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither city asks much of you to see its centre: the notable places sit close together in both, with Zurich holding somewhat more of them in that walkable area.
Open country is within reach either way, with 17% of the land around Cannes protected and 16% around Zurich. Both have a similar number of tourist attractions near the centre, and both have theme parks within day-trip reach, 3 for Cannes and 2 for Zurich.
Which traveller are you?
If you swim, Cannes is the only real answer: 68 beaches nearby and four months of sea at 21°C or more, where Zurich's lake summer never reaches that mark at all.
If your days are built around museums, restaurants and late evenings, Zurich leads on all three, with roughly twice the museums, twice the restaurants near the centre and three times the bars and clubs.
Families split. Zurich has about three times as much park space near the centre and a similar spread of attractions; Cannes has 3 theme parks within reach against 2, plus beach days through a long warm season.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 for France and €248 for Switzerland, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of either city. A small coastal resort and a large city can each sit well away from their own national average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so this comparison cannot tell you which trip will cost you more.
The best-reading months carry conditions of their own. Zurich's warmest stretch is also its wettest, at 119-128mm from June to August, and Cannes's dry, hot July and August are exactly when its beaches are most heavily used.
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). Zurich: 1991-2020 normals, Zurich Town / Ville. (2.2 km from centre).
Cannes peaks in July and August, with highs of 28°C, sea at 24-25°C and only 13-18mm of rain. September still holds 25°C and sea at 23°C, but the rain returns at 84mm, and October and November are the wettest months of its year.
Zurich works from June to September. June to August bring 22-24°C but also 119-128mm of rain in each of those months; September is drier at 87mm with highs of 19°C. January and December sit at 4°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Cannes | Zurich |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 9 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 9 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 9 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 9 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 20 km | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 9 km |
| GenevaGVA | 1 h 0 m €65-145 NCE · 20 km | 55 m no fares ZRH · 9 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 20 km | 2 h 45 m €110-133 ZRH · 9 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 20 km | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 9 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 · 9 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 11 h 35 m no fares MRS · 146 km | 10 h 55 m no fares ZRH · 9 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 | Zurich |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 408 m |
| Main airport | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinations | Zürich Airport (ZRH)9 km from centre181 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cannes | Zurich |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 74,350 | 452,421 |
| People per km² | 3,793 | 5,147 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 63 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 38 | 78 |
| 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 Zurich somewhere new.