Interlaken or La Spezia?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money 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 Interlaken if you want a compact centre you can cover on foot, with notable places packed more tightly than in La Spezia and a larger share of protected land around it.
Choose La Spezia if the sea decides it: 32 beaches nearby against Interlaken's 12, warmer days across the whole year, and more museums grouped close to the centre.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. La Spezia leads by 73 points.73
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 32 |
| Coast distance | 713 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. La Spezia leads by 2 points.2
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 31 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 118 | 235 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 17 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. La Spezia leads by 19 points.19
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 42 |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 15 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 2 | 10 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 40 | 67 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. La Spezia leads by 20 points.20
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 4 | 24 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 42 | 208 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 38 | 176 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 90 | 85 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 25 points.25
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 52 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 13 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 51 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 23 hectares |
Good for families. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 14 | 20 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 3 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 23 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Interlaken leads by 15 points.15
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 22 | 7 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 14 | 6 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. La Spezia leads by 33 points.33
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 68 |
| Price level global | 110.5 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €248 | €155 |
Year-round weather. La Spezia leads by 13 points.13
| Interlaken | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 70 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 68 mm | 32 mm to 132 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 2 |
Where they differ
Interlaken concentrates what it has: notable places sit about twice as tightly around the centre, and there are roughly three times as many tourist attractions near it. Protected land covers 19% of the surroundings against 13% around La Spezia.
La Spezia is the swimming trip, with 32 beaches nearby against Interlaken's 12 and sea warm enough for swimming for four months. It also has about three times as many museums, grouped tightly in the centre, and far more park space near the centre.
Where they are alike
Eating out is where the two land closest. La Spezia has about twice as many restaurants near the centre, but Interlaken spans a much wider range of kitchens, so neither settles a food-led trip on its own.
Families come out similar, by different routes: Interlaken has about three times as many tourist attractions near its centre, while La Spezia has 2 theme parks within reach and far more park space. Both peak in summer.
Which traveller are you?
If swimming decides the trip, La Spezia. It has 32 beaches nearby and sea warm enough to swim from early summer into September, peaking at 25°C, while Interlaken has no sea at all.
For a short stay on foot, Interlaken: notable places sit more tightly around the centre, and there are roughly three times as many tourist attractions nearby, with more protected land for walking days out.
For museums and evenings out, La Spezia has about three times as many museums, grouped tightly around the centre, and many more places to drink. Interlaken's edge is nightclubs, not bars.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €248 and €155, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels for the two countries, not measurements of either city. A small mountain town and a port city can each sit well off their own national average, so the gap between the two figures is not evidence that one trip costs more than the other.
No weather station near Interlaken records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone. La Spezia's beach count also flatters its summer: the driest, warmest months are exactly when those beaches draw the most people.
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. Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre). La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre).
Interlaken is at its best in July and August, at 23-24°C, though those are also its wettest summer months, at around 60mm each. September is drier at 38mm and still warm enough for long days outdoors.
La Spezia's window is longer: warm from May, and driest in July and August at 32-35mm, when the sea is at its warmest. Autumn is the one to avoid, with rainfall passing 120mm a month. Winter stays mild there, unlike Interlaken.
Getting there
| Flying from | Interlaken | La Spezia |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 65 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 86 km |
| TiranaTIA | 2 h 5 m no fares BSL · 105 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| BerlinBER | 1 h 25 m €140-176 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 50 m €119-200 1 stop PSA · 65 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €210-262 1 stop PSA · 65 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 55 m no fares ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 5 m €158-220 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 5 m €88-193 PSA · 65 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 1 h 15 m no fares ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 45 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 5 h 55 m no fares BLQ · 125 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 | Interlaken | La Spezia |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Italian, Romansh | Italian |
| Currency | Swiss Franc (CHF) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CJ230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 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 | 571 m | 3 m |
| Main airport | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations | Pisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 10 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Interlaken | La Spezia |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 6,123 | 92,119 |
| People per km² | 1,424 | 1,792 |
| Museums within 10 km | 3 | 12 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 22 |
| 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 Interlaken or La Spezia somewhere new.