Arles or Barcelona?

Arles is a river town, and its sea is a drive of about 40km across the Camargue to Saintes-Maries or the empty strands of Piémanson and Beauduc. These beaches are wild, wide and shallow, but they have little shade, mosquitoes and wind, and they make a day out rather than a reason to come.

Barcelona has sand right at the city's edge, from Barceloneta to Mar Bella, with warmer water and the metro to get you there. The catch is the summer crush on those man-made city beaches, though Sitges and the Maresme coast offer more space a short train ride away.

Arles eats well but simply: gardiane bull stew, Camargue rice, tellines and long lunches built around the Saturday market on the Boulevard des Lices. The choice of restaurants is small, and many shut in winter.

Barcelona is in another league for eating out. Catalan cooking has real depth, the neighbourhood markets of Santa Caterina and Sant Antoni feed locals at their counters, and the range runs from workers' set lunches to serious tasting menus. Just keep off the Rambla and get used to dinner after nine.

Arles packs a remarkable Roman and Romanesque heritage into a few streets: the arena, the antique theatre, the Alyscamps and the cloister of Saint-Trophime, with the Luma tower and the photography festival adding a modern note. Two full days cover it.

Barcelona offers more and fills a week. Gaudí's Sagrada Família, Casa Batlló and Park Güell have no equivalent anywhere, and beneath them sit the Gothic Quarter, Santa Maria del Mar, the Picasso Museum and the Romanesque frescoes of the MNAC.

After a late dinner and a drink on the Place du Forum, Arles goes to bed, and only the Easter and September ferias keep it up late. Barcelona barely starts before midnight: cellar cocktail bars in the Born, scruffy Raval bars, Gràcia's squares on warm nights and electronic club nights running to dawn. For a night out, there is no contest.

Both have fine outdoors on the doorstep, but of very different kinds. Arles opens onto the flat Camargue delta of lagoons, salt flats and reed beds, with flamingos, white horses and black bulls, and the limestone Alpilles for hiking among olive groves.

Barcelona's nature is hills and sea: the wooded Collserola park with the Carretera de les Aigües above the city, paddleboarding and windsurfing off Mar Bella, and Montserrat's pinnacles or the Costa Brava cliff paths further out. In both, summer heat pushes serious walking into spring and autumn.

Arles is the better base, because so much lies so close. Avignon and Nîmes are a short train ride away, and Les Baux, Saint-Rémy, Tarascon, Montmajour and the Pont du Gard are all within an hour, with Aigues-Mortes and Aix not much further. A car makes the villages far easier.

Barcelona's outings are fewer and more spread out, but fast trains make them simple without driving: Girona's walled old town, Dalí in Figueres, Roman Tarragona, Montserrat, Sitges and the cava cellars of the Penedès.

Barcelona is the far easier city with children, with the aquarium, CosmoCaixa, the zoo, Tibidabo's funfair, beaches by metro and PortAventura an hour south. Children are welcome in restaurants late in the evening, and every square has a playground.

Arles is safe and small, and older children enjoy the arena towers and the dark cryptoporticus, but the best family outings, pony rides and flamingos, mean driving into the Camargue in summer heat and mosquitoes.

Arles is easy on foot, with every sight within about fifteen minutes of the next, but beyond town the buses are sparse and the Camargue really needs a car or bike. Barcelona works without one: a flat, walkable centre, a simple metro with shared tickets, and funiculars and cable cars for the uphill sights. There a car is a burden; in Arles, for any stay of several days, it is close to essential.

In Arles shopping means Provençal fabrics, santons, Camargue salt, gardian shirts and good bookshops, with the Saturday market as the highlight and no fashion to speak of. Barcelona has the Passeig de Gràcia for luxury and Spanish labels, independent designers in the Born, small craft shops in Gràcia and vintage and records in the Raval, which makes it a proper shopping destination.

The overall cost is much the same, but the money goes on different things. In Arles, meals and mid-range hotels are at French provincial levels and cheaper than the smart Luberon villages, but the hire car most visitors need adds up, and rooms tighten during the ferias and the photography festival.

In Barcelona the expense is the bed, plus a tourist tax and steep tickets for the Gaudí buildings. Set lunches, tapas bars and transport passes keep the daily spend down.

Barcelona has a full year-round calendar: opera and ballet at the Liceu, concerts under the stained glass of the Palau de la Música, the symphony at L'Auditori, jazz cellars and flamenco, then Sónar, Primavera Sound and the Grec festival in early summer.

Arles comes alive mainly in summer and outdoors, with concerts in the Roman theatre, the Les Suds world music week and the course camarguaise in the arena. The rest of the year its stages are modest.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, but Barcelona has more you can actually book, with its Arab-style bath houses in the old town and the spas of its larger hotels. Arles offers only a few hotel spas.

What Arles has instead is quiet: siestas, shaded squares, evenings by the Rhône and farmhouse retreats with pools out in the Camargue and Alpilles. Barcelona's calm lies in Gràcia's terraces and the Collserola paths, away from the crowded, late-night centre.