Assisi or Nice?

This is the clearest difference between the two. Assisi sits on a hill in central Umbria, far from either coast. Its only swimming is at the small lido beaches of Lake Trasimeno or in a hotel pool.

Nice has about 7km of pebble shore below the Promenade des Anglais, with clear water from June into October. If you want sand and calmer coves, Villefranche, Paloma beach and Juan-les-Pins are all a short train or bus ride away.

Both cities have a real regional kitchen, but Nice gives you more ways to enjoy it. You can have socca hot from wood ovens in Vieux Nice, browse olives and produce at the Cours Saleya market and try the rare Bellet wines from the hills, with a few serious kitchens on the coast as well.

Assisi's food is honest and rooted in the land: strangozzi with black truffle, Castelluccio lentils, Subasio olive oil and Montefalco Sagrantino. The choice is narrower, though. There is no market hall or street food, and the best meals are on the side lanes or at agriturismi below the town.

Assisi has the single greater sight. The Basilica of San Francesco, with its two churches painted by Cimabue, Simone Martini and the Giotto school, is a world monument, and the whole pink-stone town around it shares its UNESCO status. Add Santa Chiara, the Temple of Minerva and the Porziuncola, and two calm days are enough.

Nice has more variety but nothing on that scale. Its strength is modern art: Matisse in Cimiez, Chagall's biblical cycle and MAMAC, set against the Savoyard old town and the Belle Époque villas of the resort years.

Nice has a proper night out in Vieux Nice, where pubs and cocktail bars spill into the lanes, plus summer beach clubs and a few grown-up bars by the port. It is mostly bars rather than clubs, and the glamorous late nights happen in Monaco and Cannes.

Assisi has almost nothing after dinner. A wine bar and a walk through floodlit lanes are the evening, and anyone wanting more has to go to Perugia.

Nice covers much more ground outdoors. Within the city you have Castle Hill and Mont Boron, the coastal paths of Cap Ferrat run just east, and the Mercantour's high lakes and the ski slopes of Isola 2000 lie inland. There is also diving, kayaking and sailing in the bay.

Assisi's outdoors is gentler and closer to hand. You can climb Monte Subasio through holm oaks to the Eremo delle Carceri and on to open summit meadows, or cycle the flat valley between Spello and Montefalco. The Sibillini mountains need a car.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is in the kind of trip. From Assisi you tour Umbrian hill towns: Spello, Perugia, Gubbio, Todi and Orvieto's cathedral, with Montepulciano across the Tuscan border. Beyond the valley rail line, a car makes this far easier.

From Nice the outings are a string of different coastal towns, including Monaco, Èze, Menton, Antibes and Cannes, as well as Grasse, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the Italian Riviera at Sanremo. All of them are reachable without a car.

Nice is clearly easier with children. The flat promenade suits pushchairs and bikes, the Promenade du Paillon has playgrounds and water jets, and Parc Phoenix and Monaco's Oceanographic Museum make easy outings. The pebbles and the summer crowds are the main drawbacks.

Assisi is safe and welcoming, but its churches call for silence and its stepped lanes defeat pushchairs. Older children may enjoy the Rocca Maggiore, but most families are happier at a valley agriturismo with a pool.

Nice is simpler to get around. Its centre is flat, the tram runs from the airport through to the port, and regional trains run the length of the coast. You only need a car for the mountains.

Assisi's centre is small but steep, all stairs between the basilica and the cathedral. The station is about 4km below in Santa Maria degli Angeli, and once you leave the valley rail line most visitors find a hire car close to essential.

Nice offers more, though it is browsing rather than a reason to go. There are chain stores on Avenue Jean Médecin, fashion houses around rue Paradis, Provençal soaps and fabrics in Vieux Nice and a Monday flea market on the Cours Saleya.

Assisi's streets are mostly rosaries and Tau crosses. The things worth carrying home are Assisi-embroidered linens, Deruta ceramics, truffle products and Sagrantino.

Your money goes further in Assisi. The great basilicas cost nothing to enter, convent guesthouses offer simple rooms at low prices, and eating a lane or two away from the basilicas keeps meals reasonable.

Nice is expensive, especially from June to September, when sea-view rooms, beach loungers and promenade terraces add up. Cheap trams and trains, socca and market picnics help, and spring or late autumn bring prices down.

Nice has a real season. The nineteenth-century Opéra de Nice puts on opera, ballet and the Philharmonic, the Nice Jazz Festival comes every July, and the February Carnival brings parades and flower battles.

In Assisi, music means organ recitals and choirs in the basilicas, together with the medieval costume and song of Calendimaggio in spring. For opera or jazz, visitors go to Perugia.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and both offer calm rather than treatments, though the calm is different. In Assisi it is spiritual: convent retreats, silent walks to the hermitage and empty lanes once the tour groups leave.

In Nice it is the Riviera's slow pace: an early swim, a long lunch and a promenade at dusk, with thalassotherapy centres along the coast. The city is most restful outside the summer crowds.