Antibes or Nantes?

This is Antibes' strongest card. Juan-les-Pins and La Salis offer the sandy, gently shelving shore that most of this coast lacks, and the cape adds rocky coves such as La Garoupe for swimming in very clear water. Beach clubs take much of the sand, though, and the free stretches fill early in high summer.

From Nantes the beach is an excursion of about 50km. La Baule's broad sheltered bay and the coves around Pornic are clean and good for children, but the Atlantic stays cooler and the season is shorter.

Nantes eats a little better. This is the home of beurre blanc, served on pike-perch or sole, with oysters from the nearby coast, buckwheat galettes and crisp Muscadet from the vineyards just outside town. Bistros in the Bouffay lanes and around Graslin are fairly priced, and the Talensac market shows off the region's produce.

Antibes offers Niçoise cooking: socca, pissaladière, stuffed vegetables and grilled fish with rosé, centred on the morning market on Cours Masséna. It has fine dining on the cape, but tourist menus near the port mean you have to choose carefully. Neither town is worth the journey for food alone.

Nantes has more depth. The Château des Ducs de Bretagne houses a well-made city museum that deals openly with the Atlantic slave trade, and the riverside memorial to abolition continues that story. The Gothic cathedral, the Musée d'Arts, the leaning merchant façades of Ile Feydeau and the Jules Verne museum fill two or three days.

Antibes has one outstanding sight, the Picasso Museum in the Château Grimaldi, which holds the works he made there in 1946. The old town lanes, the ramparts, the star-shaped Fort Carré and the Villa Eilenroc on the cape make up the rest, and two days covers it all.

Nantes has the better night out, largely because a big student population keeps it going all year. Evenings start in the pubs and terraces of the medieval Bouffay quarter and move later to riverside bars and clubs in the old banana warehouses on the Ile de Nantes.

Antibes comes alive only in summer, when the beach bars and clubs of Juan-les-Pins stay open late and yacht crews fill the English-speaking pubs near Port Vauban. Out of season much of it shuts, and anyone wanting more heads to Nice.

Antibes has the more dramatic outdoors. The coastal path around the cape crosses wind-carved limestone with views to the Alps, and the clear water is good for snorkelling and diving. The red cliffs of the Esterel, the Gorges du Loup and the pre-Alps above Grasse offer real hiking within an hour or so.

Around Nantes the country is flat and full of water. You can canoe or take a boat up the Erdre, cycle the Loire à Vélo route through the vineyards, or punt and birdwatch in the Brière marshes. The best walking there is on the cliffs of the Côte Sauvage and around Pornic.

Antibes sits in one of Europe's densest stretches of places to visit. Nice, Cannes, Villefranche, Monaco and Menton are all on one coastal line, boats cross to the Lérins Islands, and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Eze, Grasse, Biot and Vallauris are close by. Italy is an easy day.

Nantes is a good base too, but the places are further apart. Angers and its Apocalypse Tapestry are under an hour by train, Guérande's salt marshes and the walled town of Vannes are about an hour away, and Saumur and the Loire châteaux are within two hours. Expect more travelling between sights than on the Riviera.

Nantes is the easier family city. Children can ride the giant mechanical elephant and the sea-creature carousel at the Machines de l'Ile, the Jardin des Plantes has playgrounds, and trams make a buggy simple. The safari park at Port-Saint-Père and the Puy du Fou are within driving range.

Antibes relies on its beach. Its sandy, shallow shore suits small children better than the pebbles elsewhere on the coast, and the town is safe and small. Beyond the boats in Port Vauban and the trip to the Lérins Islands, though, there is little built for children, and August heat shapes the day.

Nantes is simpler. Its compact, flat centre walks easily, three tram lines and a busway connect everything, river shuttles cross the Loire, and fast trains reach Paris in about two hours. You only need a car for the vineyards and the marshes.

Antibes works well on foot between the old town and the port, and its coastal railway handles the Riviera towns. Further out it gets harder. Buses to the cape and the hill villages are slow, and summer traffic and parking on the coast road are a real nuisance.

Nantes has more to browse. The three-level 19th-century Passage Pommeraye is a pleasure in itself, Rue Crébillon has a department store and the main fashion chains, and the streets around Bouffay and Decré hold independent designers and second-hand shops.

Antibes keeps things small and Provençal: olive oil, soaps and herbs from the covered market, and linens and ceramics in the old town lanes. For fashion, people take the train to Cannes or Nice. Neither town has much luxury retail.

Antibes asks a good deal more of your budget, and high summer is when it costs most. A beachside room at Juan-les-Pins or on the cape in July and August, a hired lounger and an aperitif on a seafront terrace all carry Riviera mark-ups. Coming in spring or autumn cuts hotel bills sharply while the sea is still swimmable, and shopping at the Cours Masséna market to cook for yourself saves a lot, as do the cheap coastal trains.

Nantes is the gentler spend. Beds are easy to come by, so your evenings out in Graslin or Bouffay decide the bill more than your room does, with dinner and drinks at ordinary French levels. The one thing that raises it is a high-summer trip to La Baule or Pornic, where seaside prices apply.

Nantes has the fuller calendar. La Folle Journée packs short classical concerts into a few winter days, the Théâtre Graslin is home to the regional opera, and the national orchestra plays in the city. The Lieu Unique in the old biscuit factory stages contemporary work, and the city's tradition of giant street puppetry spills into public squares.

Antibes has one landmark event: Jazz à Juan, held each July under the pines of the Pinède Gould since 1960. Outside it there is the Anthéa theatre and open-air summer shows, and opera means a trip to Nice.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, and both turn to the French seawater cure. In Antibes the thalassotherapy centre and the grand hotel spas on Cap d'Antibes are close at hand, and May, June and September bring a gentle pace, though July and August are crowded and far from restful.

In Nantes the established thalassotherapy centres are at La Baule and Pornic, about an hour away. In the city, relaxing means a day spa or a slow afternoon in the Jardin des Plantes or by the Erdre, and the unhurried pace stays much the same all year.