Aix-en-Provence or Barcelona?

Barcelona has what Aix lacks: a line of sandy city beaches along its own edge, from Barceloneta to Mar Bella. You can reach them on foot or by metro, and the water is warm enough to swim from June. The beaches are man-made and packed in high summer, but Sitges and the Maresme have longer stretches of sand within the hour.

Aix lies about 30km inland, so the sea is always an outing. The choice is the coves of the Cote Bleue or the calanques near Cassis, mostly pebble and rock and easiest by car. Many visitors to Aix make do with a pool.

Both cities eat around markets and long lunches, but Barcelona has much more depth. Catalan cooking, tapas, vermouth, seafood rice and cava come at every level, from cheap set lunches in workers' bars to serious tasting menus. The best of it is spread across Sant Antoni, Poble Sec, Gràcia and the Eixample.

Aix is narrower and more seasonal: morning stalls on Place Richelme, tapenade and daube on a terrace, rosé from the Coteaux d'Aix and calissons to finish. It is lovely at lunchtime, but there is little beyond French and Mediterranean cooking and fewer choices in the evening.

Aix is a beautiful town to wander for two or three days. There is the Cours Mirabeau, the mansions of the Mazarin quarter and a fountain on almost every square. The Cezanne sites run from his studio at Les Lauves to the Bibemus quarries, and the Musee Granet adds paintings.

Barcelona works on a far larger scale. Gaudí's Sagrada Família, Casa Batlló and Park Güell are unlike anything else, and the Gothic Quarter and Santa Maria del Mar add a medieval layer. With the Picasso Museum, the MNAC and the Fundació Miró as well, the sights fill a week.

This is where the two differ most. Aix has student bars around the Forum des Cardeurs and a few small clubs, and it winds down well before dawn. Anyone wanting a real night out goes to Marseille.

In Barcelona the night has barely started by midnight. There are cocktail bars in medieval cellars in the Born, crowds drinking outdoors in Gràcia's squares and pintxos bars along Blai street, followed by electronic club nights that last until morning.

Both sit between hills and sea and are best outdoors in spring and autumn, but Aix has the stronger landscapes close by. Sainte-Victoire rises at the edge of town, and the Calanques offer some of the Mediterranean's finest coastal walking and kayaking. The Luberon, the Alpilles and the Gorges du Verdon are also within reach, though in summer you need to allow for fire-risk closures and you will want a car.

Barcelona's outdoors starts at the metro. There are the Collserola trails and the Carretera de les Aigües above the city, and sailing and paddleboarding off Mar Bella. Montserrat and the Garraf cliffs are a short trip away.

Both make excellent bases, and Aix is slightly the richer one. Marseille is half an hour away and the TGV reaches Avignon in about twenty minutes. Arles, Nimes and the Pont du Gard add Roman heritage, and the Luberon villages of Gordes and Roussillon are within the hour, although you need a car for them.

Barcelona's day trips depend more on the train: Girona and the Dalí museum at Figueres to the north, Tarragona and Poblet to the south. Montserrat, Sitges and the cava cellars of the Penedès are close by. Only the Costa Brava villages really call for a car.

Barcelona is much easier with children. The aquarium, CosmoCaixa, the Tibidabo funfair and the beaches on the metro can each fill a day, and children are welcome in restaurants late into the evening. The main nuisances are the crowds and the narrow old-town streets.

Aix is safe and largely pedestrian, with fountains and ice cream to break up a walk, but its sights are mansions and museums. Families there tend to rely on a pool and drive out to the zoo at La Barben, the coast or Sainte-Victoire.

Both centres are walkable, but Barcelona is easier to get around as a whole. A clear metro, with buses, trams and local trains on the same tickets, reaches the beaches, the Sagrada Família and the hilltop sights, and a car only gets in the way.

In Aix the compact old town needs nothing but your feet, but leaving it is harder. The TGV station is out on the plateau, and the villages that make Provence worth the trip mostly need a hire car and some patience with parking.

Barcelona has a range Aix cannot match. Fashion houses line the Passeig de Gràcia between Modernista façades, a big department store stands on Plaça de Catalunya, and there are independent designers in the Born, craft shops in Gràcia and vintage in the Raval.

Aix makes a pleasant browse in the lanes around Rue d'Italie, but it has no luxury shopping and no department store. Its markets and Provencal goods are the real reason to shop: calissons, santons, olive wood and Marseille soap.

Neither is cheap, but your money goes a little further in Barcelona. Hotels and Gaudí entry fees add up, but set lunches, tapas bars and transport passes keep daily spending reasonable, and you don't need to hire a car.

In Aix accommodation is scarce and mostly boutique hotels and country houses, July rates rise with the opera festival, and exploring Provence usually means paying for a car. Market picnics and lunch menus in the back streets are the way to save.

Aix has one great moment, the July opera festival in the courtyard of the Archbishop's Palace, which is one of the main events of the opera world. For the rest of the year the Grand Theatre de Provence and Ballet Preljocaj at the Pavillon Noir carry a smaller programme.

Barcelona offers more all year round. There is opera and ballet at the Liceu, concerts under the stained glass of the Palau de la Música Catalana, jazz cellars and flamenco, plus Sónar and Primavera Sound in early summer. Most spoken theatre is in Catalan or Spanish.

Aix is the better place to unwind. The Romans founded it for its warm springs, the Thermes Sextius still has thermal pools on the site of their baths, and outside July the town keeps a slow, quiet rhythm. Barcelona has a few Arab-style bath houses and hotel spas, but its old town is noisy and late, and finding calm means heading for the Collserola paths or a terrace in a Gràcia square.