Interlaken or Nice?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat 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 cool summer days, highs near 24°C, and a small centre with attractions packed close together, and you don't mind that evenings are quiet and there is no sea.
Choose Nice if you want swimming, a wide choice of restaurants and somewhere that stays mild through winter, with sea at 25°C in August.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Nice leads by 73 points.73
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 70 |
| Coast distance | 713 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Nice leads by 40 points.40
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 69 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 118 | 1,231 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 17 | 28 |
Museums & heritage. Nice leads by 23 points.23
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 2 | 14 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 40 | 52 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Nice leads by 40 points.40
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 4 | 44 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 42 | 428 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 38 | 388 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 90 | 91 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 26 |
Nature & day trips. Nice leads by 30 points.30
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 57 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 24 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 20 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 62 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 56 hectares |
Good for families. Nice leads by 16 points.16
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 14 | 30 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 4 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 56 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Nice leads by 25 points.25
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 22 | 47 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 14 | 60 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Nice leads by 27 points.27
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 62 |
| Price level global | 110.5 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €248 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Nice leads by 17 points.17
| Interlaken | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 68 mm | 13 mm to 138 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 3 |
Where they differ
Interlaken concentrates about three times as many tourist attractions near its centre as Nice, in a place small enough to cross on foot, and its summer highs stay near 24°C when Nice reaches 28°C.
Nice has many times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs, most of them central. It also has 70 beaches nearby against Interlaken's 12, with four months of sea at 21°C or more.
Where they are alike
Families are served unevenly in both. Interlaken holds a denser cluster of tourist attractions near its centre, while Nice answers with 3 theme parks within reach and far more park space close in; neither is a place built mainly around children.
They also share weather habits and a comparable heritage reach: both have 3 months with 40mm of rain or less, and both put 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip range.
Which traveller are you?
Swimmers and beach days: Nice, without question. 70 beaches nearby and sea at 21°C or more for four months of the year, against an inland base where swimming is not part of the picture.
Eating out and late evenings: Nice again, with many times as many restaurants and a much wider range of kitchens, plus bars and clubs clustered near the centre rather than scattered.
Walkers who want cool days: Interlaken, where summer highs hold near 24°C and attractions sit close together in a small town; 19% of the surrounding land is protected, and evenings stay quiet.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €248 and €160, are national estimates for the countries the two sit in, not measurements of either city. A heavily visited town can sit well away from its national average, in either direction, so treat the gap as background rather than as a price comparison between Interlaken and Nice.
No weather station near Interlaken records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low and the sunshine side of the weather comparison is simply unmeasured. Nice's 70 beaches also say nothing about how crowded they are in July and August, its warmest months.
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). Nice: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (8 km from centre).
Interlaken is at its best from June to September, with highs of 22-24°C. July and August are the wettest of that run at 61-62mm, so September, at 18°C and 38mm, is the steadier walking month. January drops to 3°C.
Nice peaks in July and August, at 28°C with sea of 24-25°C and its driest weather at 13-18mm. Autumn turns heavy, 124mm in October and 138mm in November, and winter stays mild at 13-14°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Interlaken | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 6 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 6 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 6 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 6 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 6 km |
| GenevaGVA | 55 m no fares ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 0 m €65-145 NCE · 6 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €110-133 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 6 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 25 m €174-215 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 40 m €175-231 NCE · 6 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 6 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 5 m €606-782 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 6 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 2026-09, 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 | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Italian, Romansh | French |
| Currency | Swiss Franc (CHF) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CJ230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 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 | 0 m |
| Main airport | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)6 km from centre129 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 10 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Interlaken | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 6,123 | 357,737 |
| People per km² | 1,424 | 4,975 |
| Museums within 10 km | 3 | 16 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 65 |
| 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 Nice somewhere new.