Antibes or Chamonix?

This is a straight win for Antibes. It has some of the rare sandy shore on this coast at Juan-les-Pins and La Salis, plus clear water off the flat rocks and small coves of Cap d'Antibes. Swimming runs from June into early October, though private clubs hold much of the sand and the free stretches fill early in high summer.

Chamonix sits in a high Alpine valley, so swimming means an outdoor pool in summer, Lac de Passy with its little sandy strip facing Mont Blanc, or a drive of just over an hour to Lake Annecy. It makes a nice afternoon off, but nobody comes to Chamonix for it.

Antibes eats a little better and with more variety. The morning covered market on Cours Masséna, Niçoise dishes such as socca and pissaladière, grilled fish and rosé on a terrace, and some serious dining on the cape give it the edge, as long as you avoid the tourist menus near the port.

Chamonix is about Savoyard cheese: fondue, raclette and tartiflette made with Reblochon and Beaufort, often eaten in a mountain hut facing a glacier. It is hearty and satisfying after a day outside, but menus repeat themselves and many places close between seasons.

Antibes has more to see. The Picasso Museum in the Château Grimaldi holds work he made there in 1946, and the sea ramparts, the old cathedral, the star-shaped Fort Carré and the villas of the cape fill a couple of days.

Chamonix's heritage is the story of alpinism, from the first ascent of Mont Blanc to the first Winter Olympics, told in the Musée Alpin, with the guides' quarter and the climbers' cemetery adding to it. It is a good story, but half a day covers it.

Both are modest places to go out, and both depend on the season. Antibes comes alive in July and August, when the beach bars, lounges and few clubs of Juan-les-Pins stay open late and the pubs by Port Vauban fill with yacht crews. Nice is close by for anything bigger.

Chamonix is busiest in winter, when après-ski in the late afternoon leads on to a lively lane of bars in the old town and a couple of small clubs, mostly full of a young, English-speaking crowd. Summer evenings there are quieter, with drinks on terraces.

Chamonix is in a league of its own. The Mont Blanc massif rises almost 4km above the valley floor, and the Aiguille du Midi cable car and the Mer de Glace railway take you straight into glacier terrain. There is steep skiing and the Vallée Blanche in winter, and in summer the Tour du Mont Blanc, climbing, via ferrata and paragliding, all starting from town.

Antibes is good for the coast. The path around Cap d'Antibes, snorkelling and sailing in clear water, the red cliffs of the Esterel and the hills above Grasse make for pleasant days, but the land around town itself is flat and built up.

Antibes is the better base for exploring. Nice and Cannes are a short train ride away, the same line runs on to Villefranche, Monaco and Menton, and boats cross to the Lérins Islands. Inland there are Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Eze, Grasse, Biot's glassworks and Vallauris, with Sanremo in Italy also within a day.

Chamonix has a good handful of trips across three borders: Courmayeur and the Roman town of Aosta through the tunnel, Martigny in Switzerland by rail, and Annecy and Geneva by road. After those, though, most places in reach are other ski resorts at the end of slow mountain roads.

Both work for families, but they suit different children. In Antibes the day is built around the beach: gentle sandy shallows for small children, boats in the port, ice cream on the ramparts, and snorkelling or the Lérins boat for older ones. There is little else made for children, and August heat calls for long indoor lunches.

Chamonix suits families who like to be active, with nursery slopes and sledging in winter, and lake walks, a summer luge, treetop courses and the marmots of the Merlet park in summer. The highest cable cars and glacier terrain are better for teenagers than toddlers, and wet days are hard to fill.

Chamonix is slightly easier to manage without a car. Its flat centre holds the main cable car stations, and buses and the Mont Blanc Express run the length of the valley, free with the guest card, although winter ski buses get packed.

In Antibes, the old town and port are easily walkable and the coastal railway is excellent for other Riviera towns. However, buses to the cape and hill villages are slow, Grasse and the Esterel really need a car, and summer traffic and parking on the coast road are a real headache.

Neither is a shopping destination, and for fashion both send you elsewhere, to Cannes and Nice or to Geneva and Annecy. What you can buy differs completely. Antibes offers Provençal things: olive oil, herbs and soaps from the covered market, linens and ceramics in old-town boutiques, with Biot glass and Vallauris pottery close by.

Chamonix is about technical gear. Its long-established climbing, ski and outdoor shops are worth saving big purchases for, alongside Savoyard cheeses, génépi and rock crystals from the massif.

Both are expensive, but Chamonix more so. Lift passes, cable cars, guides and paragliding add costs on top of resort-priced rooms at Christmas, in February and in high summer. Free valley transport, self-catering and trails that start without a lift help to cut the bill.

Antibes is costly in July and August, especially near Juan-les-Pins and on the cape, but there are cheaper meals in the old town, and the coastal trains are good value. In spring and autumn hotel rates drop sharply while the sea is still swimmable.

Antibes has the better stage, mostly thanks to Jazz à Juan. Running since 1960 under the pines by the sea, it has hosted the likes of Ray Charles and Miles Davis, and the Anthéa theatre keeps plays and concerts going the rest of the year, with Nice's opera close by.

Chamonix has a summer jazz festival with some sets played up in the mountains, plus church concerts and mountain film evenings, but no theatre season. For opera or orchestral music you have to go to Geneva.

Chamonix does wellness better, as a reward after exertion. Its large thermal-style day spa has hot outdoor pools looking up at the glaciers, many chalets have their own saunas, and the warm springs of Saint-Gervais are a short trip down the valley. The town itself is early-rising and busy, so the hamlets up the valley are calmer.

Antibes relies on a thalassotherapy centre and the hotel spas of the cape. Its restful side is the slow pace of May, June and September: market mornings, shaded lunches and evening walks on the ramparts, before the summer crowds arrive.