VacationSelector
The Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken, Interlaken
InterlakenThe Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken
The Royal Palace, Madrid
MadridThe Royal Palace

Photos: Interlaken by Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Madrid by Mert Ocak, Pexels License.

Interlaken or Madrid?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Interlaken for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Interlaken’s own page.

Choose Madrid for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Madrid’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Interlaken 30, Madrid 5: Interlaken leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Interlaken 25, Madrid 80: Madrid leads by 55 points.
Culture & sights. Interlaken 8, Madrid 86: Madrid leads by 78 points.
Nightlife. Interlaken 15, Madrid 85: Madrid leads by 70 points.
Nature & outdoors. Interlaken 97, Madrid 60: Interlaken leads by 37 points.
Day trips. Interlaken 78, Madrid 89: Madrid leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Interlaken 72, Madrid 68: Interlaken leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Interlaken 80, Madrid 84: Madrid leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Interlaken 22, Madrid 75: Madrid leads by 53 points.
Affordability. Interlaken 8, Madrid 50: Madrid leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Interlaken 15, Madrid 77: Madrid leads by 62 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Interlaken 40, Madrid 36: Interlaken leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Interlaken and Madrid.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Interlaken
41match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

Madrid
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Interlaken in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
126 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Madrid in July

33 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
9 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
InterlakenMadrid

Where the figures come from

Interlaken has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre). Madrid: 1991-2020 normals, Madrid (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInterlakenMadrid
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, RomanshSpanish
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation571 m663 m
Main airportZürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre226 non-stop destinationsAdolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)14 km from centre239 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureInterlakenMadrid
City population6,1233,506,730
People per km²1,4245,801
Museums within 10 km388
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km24

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Interlaken or Madrid somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.