Aix-en-Provence or Dijon?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Aix at least has the sea within reach. Marseille's city beaches, the coves of the Côte Bleue and Cassis are all about an hour's drive away, though they are mostly small pebbly or rocky inlets.

Dijon is several hours from any coast. Swimming there means the supervised bathing lawn at Lac Kir on a hot afternoon, or a pool. That is pleasant enough, but it is no substitute for the Mediterranean.

Lunch in Aix is the long Provençal kind: produce from the morning market on Place Richelme, then tapenade, daube, grilled fish and chilled rosé on a shaded terrace, with a calisson to finish. The cooking is lighter and sunnier, though the best-known terraces lean on their setting more than their kitchens.

Dijon gives a food-minded traveller more to work with. Boeuf bourguignon, snails, mustard and cassis come from a deeper regional tradition, Les Halles is stacked with Époisses and Bresse poultry, and wine bars pour village Burgundies by the glass. A serious fine-dining tier rounds it out, though neither city offers much beyond French cooking.

The two are evenly matched, each worth a good two or three days, but the pleasures are different. Aix is a town of fountains, plane trees and the honey-coloured mansions of the Mazarin quarter, and Cézanne's studio and the landscapes he painted run through a visit.

Dijon carries the weight of a medieval capital: the ducal palace with its Valois tombs, the half-timbered streets, the owl on Notre-Dame and Sluter's Well of Moses. Choose Dijon for medieval sculpture and Aix for a painter's town and its classical streets.

Both are student towns with more going on in the evening than their size suggests, and in both a night out means a terrace, a glass of wine and a late dinner. Aix comes out a little ahead. Warm nights fill Place des Cardeurs and the lanes behind the town hall, and Marseille's clubs are half an hour away.

Dijon's evenings centre on the small bars and pubs of Rue Berbisey and the terraces around Place Émile Zola, where beer and wine bars set the tone. Outside term time the streets are quiet by midnight.

Aix has far more dramatic country around it. Montagne Sainte-Victoire rises just east of town, the white cliffs and turquoise inlets of the Calanques are within an hour, and the Verdon canyon makes a day out. Because of summer fire closures, spring and autumn work best.

Dijon's surroundings are gentler. There is climbing and walking in the combes west of town, flat cycling on the Burgundy Canal towpath and the signed vineyard route to Beaune. The Morvan, about an hour and a half away, is as wild as it gets.

From Aix the choice runs from a port city to Roman ruins and hill villages. Marseille is half an hour away, the TGV reaches the papal palace at Avignon in minutes, Roman Arles, Nîmes and the Pont du Gard follow, and the Luberon villages and Cassis on the coast are within an hour.

Dijon's outings are narrower but rich in their own way: wine and abbeys. The Route des Grands Crus leads to Beaune, and Fontenay's Cistercian cloisters, Semur-en-Auxois and, on a longer day, Vézelay lie to the north-west. Beaune and Besançon are easy by train, but in both regions the villages are best reached by car.

Neither city is built around children, though both are safe and have pedestrian centres that make wandering easy. Families in Aix tend to treat the town as a base for pool days and drives to the zoo at La Barben or the coast, and older children can walk on Sainte-Victoire.

Dijon has a little more within the city: the natural history museum and planetarium at the Jardin de l'Arquebuse, the play areas of the Parc de la Colombière and paddling at Lac Kir. It also spares children the fierce summer afternoons of Provence.

Aix is a walking town inside its old centre and the Mazarin quarter, with small electric shuttles in the narrow lanes. Leaving it is the hard part: the TGV station is out on the plateau and needs a shuttle bus, buses serve the Provence villages poorly, and most visitors hire a car and then hunt for parking at the edge of the old town.

Dijon is just as walkable and far easier beyond the centre. The station is a few minutes from the palace and the market, two tram lines reach the outskirts and Lac Kir, and regional trains run down the wine route to Beaune.

Aix makes a better afternoon of browsing. The lanes around Rue d'Italie and Rue Fabrot have French fashion and shoe boutiques, the Allées Provençales have the chains, and market days bring textile, flower and bric-a-brac stalls. Calissons, santons, olive wood and printed fabrics are the things to take home.

Dijon's shopping is mostly edible: mustard in dozens of flavours, pain d'épices, cassis and Burgundy from the wine merchants. Rue de la Liberté has a department store and chains, but there is no luxury shopping in either city.

Dijon is the more affordable stay. Rooms are moderately priced, bistro set lunches give good food at a fair price, and Burgundy by the glass costs less than in most of France. Cellar tastings and good bottles soon add up, though.

Aix costs more. Hotels near the old town are few and expensive, especially during the July festival, the terraces on the Cours Mirabeau charge for the view, and a hire car for Provence adds to the bill. Market picnics and lunch menus in the back streets help.

Aix has the bigger stage thanks to its July opera festival, which brings the opera world to the courtyard of the Archbishop's Palace. The rest of the year there is the Grand Théâtre de Provence, Ballet Preljocaj at the Pavillon Noir and an Easter classical festival.

Dijon's season runs the other way and is strongest in the academic year, with opera, concerts and dance at the Grand Théâtre and the Auditorium, which is known for its acoustics, plus a national drama centre. Its programme thins out in summer, just when Aix is at its peak.

Aix has something Dijon lacks: warm springs. The Romans founded the town for them, the Fontaine d'Eau Chaude still runs on the Cours Mirabeau, and the Thermes Sextius has thermal pools on the site of the Roman baths.

Dijon has no bathing tradition and only a few hotel spas, some in the wine villages offering grape-based treatments. Both towns share an unhurried provincial pace of long lunches and quiet squares, so for rest without treatments either one will do.