Arles or Interlaken?

Arles has the better swimming, though neither is a beach destination. Its sea lies about 40km away across the Camargue, where Saintes-Maries, Piémanson and Beauduc offer long, wild sand and shallow, warm Mediterranean water in summer, at the cost of a drive, little shade and mosquitoes.

Interlaken swaps salt water for lakes. Lake Thun's lidos at Neuhaus and towards Spiez are pleasant for a dip under snowy peaks, and turquoise Lake Brienz is colder still, but the water is cool for most of the year and swimming is an afterthought here.

Food is a real reason to visit Arles and barely one for Interlaken. Arles cooks with its own produce: bull stew, Camargue rice, tellines and Alpilles olive oil, with the long Saturday market on the Boulevard des Lices at the heart of it and rosé on the squares at lunch.

In Interlaken, town restaurants serve dependable fondue, rösti and international dishes for visitors without much character. The memorable meals are up on mountain hut terraces or bought as cheese from Alpine dairies, and many visitors simply picnic.

This is where the two part company most sharply. Arles packs an arena, a Roman theatre, the cryptoporticus, the Alyscamps and the Romanesque cloister of Saint-Trophime into a walkable centre, then adds the barge in the Museum of Ancient Arles, the Musée Réattu, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh and Gehry's Luma tower.

Interlaken was built as a base for the mountains, and it shows. A row of grand hotels, the Kursaal and a few timber houses in Unterseen are about all there is, so anyone with cultural appetite takes the train to Bern or Thun.

Neither town is made for late nights, but Arles has the edge, mainly because of its ferias at Easter and in September, when bodegas spill into the streets for days. The rest of the year it means dinner on a square and a drink on the Place du Forum. Interlaken has a small backpacker scene of pubs and a couple of basement clubs, plus the casino, though early starts for the mountains empty the streets before midnight.

Arles has fine nature on its doorstep: the lagoons and salt flats of the Camargue, with flamingos, white horses and black bulls, explored on horseback, by bike or on foot, and the Alpilles ridges for hiking among olive groves.

Interlaken, though, sits among some of the grandest scenery in Europe. The Lauterbrunnen valley, the Jungfraujoch over the Aletsch glacier and trails from Grindelwald First or Schynige Platte are all reached easily by rail, and adventure sports and winter skiing are run from the town itself.

Both are excellent bases, but Arles has the richer spread of places close at hand. Avignon and Nîmes are a short train ride away, the Pont du Gard, Les Baux, Saint-Rémy and Aigues-Mortes are easy drives, and Marseille and Aix are about an hour off.

Interlaken's outings are mostly about lakes and small towns: Bern's arcaded old town under an hour away, castles at Thun, Spiez and Oberhofen by paddle steamer, and the Ballenberg open-air museum. Lucerne takes about two hours, so it is further than anything in Arles's main circle.

Interlaken works better with children. Cog railways, gondolas and steamers are an adventure in themselves, and the summit stations have playgrounds, cliff walks and summer toboggan runs, with the St Beatus caves and Ballenberg's farm animals as easy extras. Wet days and high altitude for toddlers are the drawbacks.

Arles appeals more to older children who like history and animals: clambering round the arena, then pony rides and flamingos in the Camargue. Cobbles, summer heat, mosquitoes and the need for a car make it harder work with little ones.

Both towns are easy on foot, but beyond the centre Interlaken is far simpler. Its mainline trains, narrow-gauge mountain lines, cog railways, gondolas and lake steamers are timed to connect, so the whole Jungfrau region needs no car at all, crowded summer trains aside.

Arles has a compact centre with a free shuttle and good trains to Avignon, Nîmes and Marseille. The Camargue ranches, wild beaches and Alpilles villages, though, are poorly served by bus, and most people staying a few days hire a car.

Arles is the more rewarding place to browse, on a small scale. Its market sells olive oil, Camargue salt and rice, linens and soaps, and the old town has Provençal prints, santons, gardian shirts and good bookshops for photography. Interlaken's Höheweg is mainly watch and jewellery stores for tour groups, cuckoo clocks, army knives and chocolate, with Brienz woodcarving the one craft worth seeking out.

Arles is much the cheaper of the two. Rooms, lunch menus and market food cost what they do in a provincial French town, and a combined pass covers the sights, though summer festivals and a hire car add to the bill.

Interlaken runs at full Swiss prices for everything, and the mountain railways, especially to the Jungfraujoch, are the biggest expense of all. Hostels, passes and picnics help, but the region is never cheap.

Arles offers more, nearly all of it in summer and outdoors: concerts in the Roman theatre and arena, the Les Suds world music festival in July, and the ferias with brass bands and the bloodless course camarguaise. Interlaken's signature is a summer production of Schiller's William Tell, staged by local amateurs in the woods, along with folklore evenings of yodelling and alphorns. In both cases the serious year-round venues are elsewhere, in Avignon or Marseille and in Bern.

Interlaken has slightly more to offer for proper pampering. The grand hotels on the Höheweg have sizeable spas and the town has a public wellness area, while dawn on the lakeshore and the quiet villages of Wengen and Mürren do the rest, away from the activity crowds in town.

Arles offers rest through its pace rather than treatments: shaded squares, long lunches, summer siestas and evenings by the Rhône, with a few farmhouse retreats with pools in the Camargue and Alpilles.