La Spezia or Lucerne?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money with your weighting.
Wins on sights concentration and good for families 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 La Spezia if the sea is the point: 32 beaches within reach, four months warm enough to swim in, and dry midsummer weeks with protected countryside behind the coast.
Choose Lucerne if you want a compact walking city, where notable buildings, museums and a wider range of kitchens sit close together, and you would rather have cool summer days than beach heat.
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
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 32 | 16 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 669 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | — |
Places to eat. Lucerne leads by 16 points.16
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 47 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 235 | 269 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 11 | 25 |
Museums & heritage. La Spezia leads by 2 points.2
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 42 | 40 |
| Museums within 10 km | 15 | 23 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 10 | 13 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 67 | 57 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
Nightlife. Lucerne leads by 4 points.4
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 24 | 28 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 208 | 202 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 176 | 151 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 85 | 75 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 1 | 11 |
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 27 points.27
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 25 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 13 | 7 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Lucerne leads by 18 points.18
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 38 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 3 | 15 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Lucerne leads by 28 points.28
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 7 | 35 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 6 | 29 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. La Spezia leads by 33 points.33
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 35 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 110.5 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €248 |
Year-round weather. La Spezia leads by 17 points.17
| La Spezia | Lucerne | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 53 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °C | 3.6 °C to 24.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 32 mm to 132 mm | 60 mm to 128 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 0 |
Where they differ
La Spezia is the coastal option: 32 beaches nearby against Lucerne's 16, with the sea at 21°C or more for four months where Lucerne offers none. It has more countryside to work with too, 13% of the land around it protected against 7%, and warmer days year-round.
Lucerne packs many more notable places within walking distance of its centre. It has about twice as many museums, a much wider range of kitchens across a similar number of restaurants, and many more attractions and park space near the centre for children.
Where they are alike
Museums and heritage come out close. Lucerne has about twice as many museums, but La Spezia's cluster more tightly around the centre, and both have UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, 2 from La Spezia against 1 from Lucerne.
Nights out and eating are close too: a similar number of drinking places and of restaurants near the centre in each, most of them walkable. Lucerne adds many more nightclubs and a wider spread of kitchens.
Which traveller are you?
Swimmers and sun-seekers should take La Spezia. It has 32 beaches nearby and four months of sea at 21°C or more, while Lucerne has no swimming season at all on this data.
Anyone after a short city break on foot is better served by Lucerne, where far more notable places sit within walking distance of the centre, alongside more museums, more nightclubs and a wider range of kitchens.
Families lean towards Lucerne for the number of attractions and the park space near the centre, though La Spezia counters with 2 theme parks within reach against 1, plus summer swimming.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €155 in La Spezia's country and €248 in Lucerne's, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. A heavily visited city can sit far from its own national average, by more than the gap between these two figures.
La Spezia's swimming season is also its busiest stretch, and it closes fast: September to November brings 102-132mm. Lucerne's warmest months are its wettest, so summer there is no dry guarantee, and its strength is a walkable centre rather than the countryside around it.
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. La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre). Lucerne: 1991-2020 normals, Zurich Town / Ville. (41.7 km from centre).
La Spezia peaks from June to September, with highs of 27-30°C and the sea between 22-25°C; midsummer is also its driest stretch, at 32-35mm. Autumn turns that around, October and November bringing 125-132mm, so the shoulder is warm but wet.
Lucerne is at its best in July and August at 24°C, though those are among its wettest months at 119-126mm. September is drier at 87mm and the safer choice if rain would spoil the trip.
Getting there
| Flying from | La Spezia | Lucerne |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 65 km | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 49 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 86 km | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 49 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 2 h 5 m no fares BSL · 85 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 49 km |
| BerlinBER | 1 h 50 m €119-200 1 stop PSA · 65 km | 1 h 25 m €140-176 ZRH · 49 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €210-262 1 stop PSA · 65 km | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 49 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 55 m no fares ZRH · 49 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 5 m €88-193 PSA · 65 km | 2 h 5 m €158-220 1 stop ZRH · 49 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 1 h 45 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 15 m no fares ZRH · 49 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 5 h 55 m no fares BLQ · 125 km | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop 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 2026-09 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 | La Spezia | Lucerne |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | French, German, Italian, Romansh |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Swiss Franc (CHF) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CJ230 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 | 3 m | 436 m |
| Main airport | Pisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations | Zürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre181 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 12 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | La Spezia | Lucerne |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 92,119 | 86,234 |
| People per km² | 1,792 | 2,963 |
| Museums within 10 km | 12 | 14 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 46 |
| 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 La Spezia or Lucerne somewhere new.