VacationSelector

Genoa or Lucerne?

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

Your match

Genoa
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money with your weighting.

Lucerne
33
match

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 Genoa if you want to swim: sea above 21°C for four months, a long list of beaches nearby, and a compact centre with plenty of eating and drinking within walking distance.

Choose Lucerne if you would rather have cooler summers, topping out at 24°C, a wider spread of kitchens to eat from, and a theme park within reach for children.

Scoreboard

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

GenoaLucerne
Beaches & swimming. Genoa leads by 73 points.73
GenoaLucerne
Score730
Swim season months40
Beaches 10 km3716
Coast distance0 km669 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. Genoa leads by 3 points.3
GenoaLucerne
Score5047
Restaurants within 2 km of centre691269
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1425
Museums & heritage. Genoa leads by 15 points.15
GenoaLucerne
Score5540
Museums within 10 km4723
Museums within 2 km of centre3313
Share of museums within 2 km %7057
Unesco sites within 50 km11
Nightlife. Genoa leads by 22 points.22
GenoaLucerne
Score5028
Drinking venues within 4 km637202
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre419151
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6675
Nightclubs within 4 km1711
Nature & day trips. Genoa leads by 10 points.10
GenoaLucerne
Score3525
Protected land share 50 km %87
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %61100
Park area within 2 km29 hectares29 hectares
Good for families. Genoa and Lucerne are level on 38.
GenoaLucerne
Score3838
Tourist attractions within 2 km2115
Park area within 2 km29 hectares29 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km01
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 26 points.26
GenoaLucerne
Score6135
Notable places within 2 km13029
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Genoa leads by 33 points.33
GenoaLucerne
Score6835
Price level global64.9110.5
Daily budget€155€248
Year-round weather. Genoa leads by 20 points.20
GenoaLucerne
Score7353
Monthly daytime high11.7 °C to 27.9 °C3.6 °C to 24.3 °C
Monthly rainfall12 mm to 122 mm60 mm to 128 mm
Dry months30
0255075100

Where they differ

Genoa has the coast and the compact centre: more than twice as many beaches nearby, a swimming season Lucerne has none of, and far more notable places within walking distance of where you would stay. It also runs warmer through the year, with summer highs near 28°C and January still around 12°C.

Lucerne keeps its summers cooler and spreads a wider range of kitchens across a smaller set of restaurants, and it has a theme park within reach. The national budget estimates behind the two, €155 for Italy and €248 for Switzerland, are country context rather than city prices.

Where they are alike

For families the two land in the same place. Each has about the same park space near the centre; Genoa has somewhat more tourist attractions close in, Lucerne has 1 theme park within reach, and neither is built around children.

Eating out is close too: Genoa has more restaurants near the centre, Lucerne a broader spread of kitchens. Nature is similarly matched, with 8% of the land around Genoa protected against 7% around Lucerne.

Which traveller are you?

If you are going to swim, Genoa is the only option here: 37 beaches nearby and sea at 22-25°C through summer, where Lucerne has no sea season at all.

Travelling with children, the two are level. Lucerne has 1 theme park within reach and similar park space near the centre; Genoa answers with more tourist attractions close to where you would stay.

For a city break on foot, Genoa offers far more notable places within walking distance, about three times as many places to drink and twice as many museums; both have 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures, €155 for Italy and €248 for Switzerland, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Genoa or Lucerne. A single visited city can sit a long way from its own country's average, far enough to swallow the gap between the two, so treat them as country context rather than a verdict on what your trip will cost.

Genoa's beach strength is concentrated in the four months when the sea is warmest, which is also when most people travel. Lucerne's warmest months are its wettest, so the best temperatures and the driest days do not arrive together.

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
Genoa
12
12
15
18
21
25
27
28
25
20
16
13
Lucerne
4
5
10
15
19
22
24
24
19
14
8
4
Sea temperature, °C
Genoa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Lucerne
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Genoa
58
41
47
67
40
26
12
20
72
101
122
89
Lucerne
62
60
71
80
126
128
126
119
87
85
76
84
Daylight, hours per day
Genoa
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Lucerne
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Genoa
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
7
6
4
4
Lucerne
2
3
5
6
6
7
7
7
5
3
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre). Lucerne: 1991-2020 normals, Zurich Town / Ville. (41.7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Genoa suits June to September, with highs of 25-28°C, sea at 22-25°C and its driest spell, 12-26mm of rain from June to August. October and November turn wet, at 101-122mm, so late-autumn swimming comes with a real chance of rain.

Lucerne is at its warmest in July and August, but those are among its wettest months, at 119-126mm. September is drier, 87mm with highs of 19°C, and the better choice if you mind rain more than warmth. Winter is cold rather than a trip in itself.

Getting there

Flying fromGenoaLucerne
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 137 km
8 h 5 m
€606-782
1 stop
ZRH · 49 km
MadridMAD
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 137 km
2 h 5 m
€158-220
1 stop
ZRH · 49 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 137 km
2 h 45 m
€110-133
ZRH · 49 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 55 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 35 m
€110-163
ZRH · 49 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 35 m
€78-142
MXP · 137 km
2 h 40 m
€188-233
ZRH · 49 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 137 km
6 h 15 m
€232-366
1 stop
ZRH · 49 km
AthensATH
2 h 25 m
€91-99
MXP · 137 km
2 h 35 m
€213-216
ZRH · 49 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 15 m
€67-76
LIN · 119 km
1 h 0 m
no fares
ZRH · 49 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
11 h 50 m
€1,114-1167
2 stops
MXP · 137 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
ZRH · 49 km
BangkokBKK, DMK
11 h 20 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
11 h 20 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

MeasureGenoaLucerne
Official languageItalianFrench, German, Italian, Romansh
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Swiss Franc (CHF)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation20 m436 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsZürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre181 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureGenoaLucerne
City population558,74586,234
People per km²2,3252,963
Museums within 10 km5114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Distinct cuisines in the centre4146
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 Genoa or Lucerne 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

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.