Aix-en-Provence or Strasbourg?

Neither is a seaside town, but Aix at least has the Mediterranean within an hour. There are pebbly coves on the Cote Bleue, the small city beaches of Marseille and the calanques near Cassis. Without a car it means a bus and then a local connection, so many visitors settle for a pool.

Strasbourg has no sea within reach at all. People swim in former gravel pits such as the Baggersee, which the tram serves. These lakes have grassy banks and lifeguards in high summer, so they are pleasant on a hot afternoon but never a reason to go.

Aix cooks for the sun, Strasbourg for the cold. In Aix the day starts at the market on Place Richelme with goat's cheese and olives, and builds to a long terrace lunch of daube, grilled fish and vegetable tians with chilled rosé, with calissons to finish.

Strasbourg's cooking is heavier and half German, served in wood-panelled winstubs: choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée with a pichet of Riesling. Foie gras, local beer and a stronger fine-dining tier give it more depth. In both towns the prettiest spots, the Cours Mirabeau in Aix and the streets around the cathedral in Strasbourg, serve the weakest menus.

Strasbourg has more substantial sightseeing. The pink sandstone cathedral with its astronomical clock, the timber-framed Grande Ile, Petite France and the imperial Neustadt form a single UNESCO-listed ensemble. Behind them are the three museums of the Palais Rohan, a large modern art museum and the European institutions.

Aix is more about the beauty of the town itself: the plane trees and mossy fountains of the Cours Mirabeau and the honey-coloured mansions of the Mazarin quarter. Its great name is Cezanne, whose studio, family house and quarries can all be visited. It makes a lovely few days of gentle looking, but with fewer major collections.

Both are student towns where evenings mean a drink outside rather than a night of dancing. Aix gathers on the terraces of Place des Cardeurs and the lanes behind the town hall, and goes noticeably quiet during term breaks, so a proper club night means a trip to Marseille. Strasbourg has slightly more variety, with beer cellars and student bars in the Krutenau and river terraces in summer, though it too is quiet by midnight on weeknights.

Aix has far more dramatic country on its doorstep. Montagne Sainte-Victoire rises just east of town, and the white cliffs of the Calanques give some of the finest coastal walking in the Mediterranean. The Verdon gorge and the Luberon's lavender are an easy drive away. The catch is midsummer, when heat and fire closures can shut the massifs.

Strasbourg itself is flat and green, a superb cycling city with Rhine forests where storks and beavers live. Its real hills are an hour away in the Vosges and the Black Forest. They are wooded rather than rocky, and trains reach the main trailheads as well as cars.

Both are first-rate bases, with Aix slightly ahead. Marseille is half an hour away, the TGV reaches Avignon in about twenty minutes, and Arles, Nimes and the Pont du Gard form a chain of Roman sites. The Luberon villages, Les Baux and Cassis can fill the rest of a week, mostly by car.

Strasbourg's appeal is two countries from one base. Colmar and the Alsace wine route lie on one side of the Rhine, Baden-Baden, Freiburg and Heidelberg on the other, and Basel and Nancy are reachable by train. Its cities are easier to reach without a car than the hill villages of Provence.

Strasbourg is much more rewarding with children. Boat trips around the Grande Ile, the storks and rowing boats of the Orangerie, the Le Vaisseau science centre and the moving figures of the astronomical clock can fill a day in town. One of Europe's largest theme parks, and the stork and monkey parks of the Vosges, are about an hour away.

Aix is safe and pleasant, with pedestrian streets, fountains and ice cream, but its sights are mansions and museums and summer afternoons are very hot. Families tend to stay somewhere with a pool and drive out to the zoo at La Barben or to the coast.

Both old towns are easy to explore on foot, but Strasbourg lets you go much further without a car. Trams run from the Grande Ile to the station, the European quarter and across the Rhine to Kehl, and separated cycle lanes make a hired bike the quickest way about.

Aix's centre is just as walkable, but beyond it things get harder. The TGV station is out on the plateau, buses and the local train cover Marseille, and the Provencal villages more or less require a hire car. Parking in the centre is tight.

Neither is a luxury shopping destination, and the real difference is in what you bring home. Aix is better for markets, with produce every morning and textile and flower stalls on market days. Its lanes around Rue d'Italie and Rue Fabrot sell French fashion, calissons, santons, olive wood and Provencal fabrics.

Strasbourg has the chains and a department store around Place Kléber, plus independents and bookshops near the cathedral. Typical things to take home are Alsace pottery, printed linens and kougelhopf moulds, and the Christmas market makes December its peak season.

Neither is cheap, but Strasbourg is noticeably easier on the wallet. Winstub meals, wine by the pichet, cheap trams and bike hire, and a free cathedral and old town keep daily costs reasonable. The exception is the Christmas market and the weeks when the European Parliament sits, when rooms rise steeply.

Aix has few hotels in its centre and leans towards boutique and country-house stays. Rates rise further during the July opera festival, and a hire car adds to the bill. Lunch menus in the back streets and market picnics are the way to save.

The two are closely matched, but their strengths fall at different times of year. Aix packs its best into July, when the opera festival fills the Archbishop's Palace courtyard and the town's theatres. Outside July it still has the Grand Theatre de Provence and Ballet Preljocaj at the Pavillon Noir.

Strasbourg spreads its programme across a full season, with the Opéra national du Rhin, the Philharmonic and the Théâtre National de Strasbourg. The Musica contemporary music festival comes each autumn, and there is also jazz and a few small rock venues.

Aix has a single thermal spa, the Thermes Sextius on the site of the Roman baths, and a few warm fountains to remind you the town was founded on its springs. Mostly it relaxes you through its pace, with market mornings and slow afternoons under the plane trees, at least outside July.

Strasbourg has its early twentieth-century municipal bathhouse with tiled pools and a hammam, and the grand thermal baths of Baden-Baden less than an hour away. That gives it the deeper bathing culture of the two, though the December crowds disturb the calm.