Aix-en-Provence or Como?

Neither is a beach destination, but Aix gives slightly better swimming because it has real sea within an hour: the coves of the Côte Bleue, the city beaches of Marseille and the calanques near Cassis. They are pebbly or rocky, crowded in August and much easier to reach by car.

Como's swimming is in the lake itself, from lidos with lawns and pontoons such as the one by Villa Olmo, or from small pebble strands further up the shore. The season is shorter, and the best water is a ferry ride away from the city.

Food is one of the clearest reasons to pick Aix. The daily markets on Place Richelme set the tone, lunch is the main event, and dishes like daube, tians and tapenade come with rosé from vineyards at the edge of town. There is also the calisson as a local speciality.

Como's Lombard cooking is hearty and particular to the area, with perch risotto, missoltini and polenta from the valleys, plus a dependable aperitivo around the cathedral. The range is narrower, though, and the better meals tend to be up the lake rather than in town.

Aix has more to see and rewards a longer stay. The plane-shaded Cours Mirabeau, the 17th and 18th-century mansions of the Mazarin quarter and its many fountains make it a beautiful town to wander, and the Cézanne sites and the Musée Granet fill two or three days.

Como's sights are of real quality but fewer: a marble cathedral, Romanesque Sant'Abbondio and San Fedele, Terragni's Rationalist Casa del Fascio and the Volta museum by the shore. Most visitors cover them in a day before turning to the lake.

Aix has clearly the livelier evenings, and the reason is its large student population. On warm nights students and locals fill the terraces around Place des Cardeurs and the lanes behind the town hall, and a few small clubs and later cocktail bars give you somewhere to go after dinner. Even so, little runs until dawn, and the town goes quieter during term breaks.

Como has no club scene at all. Its evening is the aperitivo and a long dinner, then a stroll along the lakefront or a last glass near Piazza Duomo, and most of the town has gone home by the hour when the Aix terraces are at their fullest. For a proper big night, both send you elsewhere: Aix to Marseille, Como to Milan by train.

Both are excellent, with Como just ahead because the scenery begins at its doorstep. A funicular built in 1894 lifts you to Brunate's ridge trails, and the lake is right there for kayaking, sailing and paddling. Cyclists climb to the Madonna del Ghisallo.

Aix offers drier, sunnier limestone country: Sainte-Victoire just east of town, coastal walking in the Calanques, and the Verdon gorge and Luberon cycling a little further. Most of it needs a car, and in midsummer fire risk can close the massifs.

These are two of the best bases in their regions, and the difference is how you travel. From Aix, Marseille, Avignon and Arles are easy by train or road, with Roman Nîmes and the Pont du Gard beyond. The Luberon hill villages and the Alpilles, however, really need a car.

From Como, the classic outings run by boat to Bellagio, Varenna and the gardens of Villa Carlotta and Balbianello, while Milan, Lugano and Bergamo are reached by train. It is the easier region to explore without a car.

Both are calm, safe and walkable with children, and neither has much aimed at them. In Como the fun comes from the trip itself, with ferry rides, the funicular and summer paddling at a lido. Aix offers fountains, pedestrian squares and ice cream, but its hot afternoons push families towards a pool and drives to the zoo at La Barben or the coast.

Both centres are compact and easy on foot. Beyond them, Como is better linked: trains run to Milan and Lugano and ferries reach every lakeside village, though slowly, and summer shore roads clog. Aix has good buses and trains to Marseille, but its TGV station is out on the plateau and the Provençal countryside largely calls for a hire car.

Aix is the better place to browse. Fashion and shoe boutiques line Rue d'Italie and Rue Fabrot, and the markets add textiles, flowers and bric-a-brac. To take home, there are santons, olive wood, Marseille soap and Provençal prints.

Como has one thing it does very well: silk, sold in old-town specialist shops and mill outlets on the edge of the city. Beyond that the boutique streets are short, and keen shoppers head to Milan.

In Aix, high costs come from a shortage of rooms. There are few hotels in and near the old town, most of them boutique or country-house places, and the July opera festival pushes rates higher. Hiring a car for the villages adds to the bill, but market picnics, walking everywhere and lunch menus in the back streets keep day-to-day spending down.

In Como, the lake and its international luxury crowd set the prices, so lakeside hotels and villa rentals in summer cost the most. Rooms in town or back from the water are more reasonable, and old-town and hillside trattorias are better value. The cheap trains and ferries mean you can do without a car. Overall the two cost about the same, and in both spring and autumn are noticeably cheaper than high summer.

Aix is far stronger here. Each July its opera festival stages productions in the courtyard of the Archbishop's Palace, and through the year the Grand Théâtre de Provence, Ballet Preljocaj at the Pavillon Noir and the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume keep a real programme going.

Como offers a pleasant evening rather than a reason to visit. There is the 19th-century Teatro Sociale, its open-air summer Arena and chamber concerts in churches and villas, and La Scala is a train ride away for anything bigger.

Aix has the stronger claim, because the Romans founded it for its warm springs. The water still feeds the Fontaine d'Eau Chaude and the Thermes Sextius spa on the site of the old baths, and the slow market-and-lunch rhythm adds to the calm.

Como has no springs, so wellness means a spa in a grand lakeside hotel. Its restful side is the setting instead: still water, gardens and unhurried ferry rides, best enjoyed outside the busy midsummer weeks.