Antibes or Lucerne?

This is Antibes' strongest card. It has real sand on a coast mostly given over to pebbles, with long beaches at Juan-les-Pins and La Salis and rocky coves round Cap d'Antibes for clear-water swimming. The catch is that beach clubs take much of the sand, and the free stretches fill early in high summer.

Lucerne offers lake bathing rather than a beach. Swimming from the old wooden baths or the lawns at Ufschötti, with mountains behind, is a lovely break on a hot day, but the water is cooler and the season only lasts a few weeks.

Antibes eats better, mainly because of what grows and swims nearby. The covered Provençal market on Cours Masséna, Niçoise dishes like socca and pissaladière, grilled fish and rosé on a terrace make meals a pleasure, as long as you avoid the tourist menus near the port.

Lucerne's cooking is hearty and well made but narrow: Chügelipastete, fondue, rösti and lake perch in wood-panelled guild houses. It costs more and offers less variety, so most people eat well enough there without remembering it.

Lucerne has the fuller set of sights. Its well-kept medieval Old Town, the Chapel Bridge and Water Tower, the Musegg towers you can climb and the carved Lion Monument give it a depth of history that Antibes, for all its ramparts, does not match.

Oddly, Picasso links the two, in different ways. In Antibes you see what he painted in the Château Grimaldi in the autumn of 1946, in the very rooms where he made it, with the sea outside. Lucerne's Rosengart Collection is a collector's choice instead, setting his work beside Klee's. Beyond the museum, Antibes adds Fort Carré over the harbour and the lighthouse chapel on the cape, enough for an unhurried weekend.

Neither is a party town, but Antibes has more going on after dark in summer. Juan-les-Pins keeps beach bars and a few clubs open into the early hours, and the yacht crews fill the pubs and wine bars near Port Vauban. Out of season it goes quiet, and Nice is the place for a bigger night.

Lucerne's evenings mean a drink by the river and an early night, except during Fasnacht, when the town stays out in costume until dawn.

Lucerne is in another league here. A branching lake surrounded by mountains, with Pilatus, Rigi and the Stanserhorn reached by cogwheel train and cable car, and Titlis's glacier about an hour away, makes the outdoors the reason to come. Low cloud can hide it all for days, though.

Antibes is more about the sea. The cape's coastal path, snorkelling, sailing and paddleboarding are lovely, and the red cliffs of the Esterel and gorges inland offer real hiking, but they need a trip out of a flat, built-up town.

Both make excellent bases, and Antibes has slightly more within easy reach. Nice, Cannes, Monaco and Menton are on the same coastal line, with hill villages such as Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Eze, the Lérins Islands by boat, and Italy for a longer day.

Lucerne's trips are more varied in kind: Bern, Basel and Zurich by train within the hour, and a lake that is a day out in itself, ending at the Rütli meadow where the Swiss Confederation began.

Lucerne has a little more for children. The Swiss Museum of Transport fills a whole day, and paddle steamers, cogwheel trains and the summer toboggan run on Pilatus make the getting there part of the fun, though costs add up and rain can spoil plans.

In Antibes, the shallow sandy beaches are the whole story, ideal for small children, with boats in the harbour and ice cream on the ramparts in between. Outside the beach, there is little made for children, and August heat needs managing.

Lucerne is easier to get around. Station, piers and Old Town sit together on the lakefront, and one integrated ticket system takes you from steamer to cogwheel railway to cable car, so a car is never needed.

Antibes is simple on foot and by the coastal train to the other Riviera towns, but buses to the cape and hill villages are slow. Reaching Grasse or the Esterel is far easier by car, and summer traffic on the coast road is heavy.

Lucerne has the edge, but only for one thing: Swiss watches, sold in the big houses on Schwanenplatz, plus chocolate and army knives. For clothes or design it is thin.

Antibes is smaller and more local, built around the Provençal market's olive oil, soaps and herbs and old-town boutiques selling linens and ceramics. For serious fashion you take the train to Cannes or Nice.

Neither is cheap, but Antibes is the more manageable of the two. Rooms are expensive in high summer, yet spring and autumn bring big reductions, regional trains are good value and market shopping keeps meals down.

Lucerne is expensive in every season. Simple meals cost a lot, and the mountain railways that make the trip worthwhile take a large share of the budget. A Swiss travel pass and picnics by the lake help, but they do not make it a budget trip.

For live music, Lucerne goes much deeper. The Lucerne Festival brings the world's leading orchestras to Jean Nouvel's lakefront hall, famous for its acoustics, which has a year-round programme alongside opera and drama at the city theatre.

Antibes has one great event in Jazz à Juan, held each July under the pines by the sea since 1960. The rest of the year means regional theatre at Anthéa, with Nice the nearest place for opera.

The two are fairly level, and neither has a bathing tradition of its own. Antibes offers seawater thalassotherapy and the spas of the grand hotels on the cape, at its most restful in May, June and September.

Lucerne's calm comes from the setting: quiet evenings, lakeside promenades and slow steamer afternoons, with Mario Botta's mineral bath high on the Rigi for a soak with a mountain view.