VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, Lyon
LyonThe Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Lyon by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Inverness or Lyon?

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 Inverness for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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

Choose Lyon for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Lyon’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. Inverness 20, Lyon 12: Inverness leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Lyon 84: Lyon leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Lyon 77: Lyon leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Lyon 58: Lyon leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Lyon 64: Inverness leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Lyon 77: Lyon leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Lyon 62: Lyon leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Lyon 77: Lyon leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Lyon 58: Lyon leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Lyon 42: Lyon leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Lyon 68: Lyon leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Lyon 40: Lyon leads by 10 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Inverness and Lyon.

Your match

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

Inverness
40match

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

Lyon
Best match
60match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Lyon in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessLyon

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre). Lyon: 1991-2020 normals, Lyon / Bron (10.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessLyon
Official languageEnglishFrench
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation7 m160 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsLyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS)20 km from centre141 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessLyon
City population47,380519,127
People per km²2,28910,838
Museums within 10 km343
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.