Avignon or Lyon?

Neither is a beach destination, but Avignon gets you to the water more easily. On hot afternoons you can swim in the green river pools of the Gardon below the Pont du Gard, about half an hour away. The Camargue sands and Le Grau-du-Roi are a longer day out.

In Lyon, swimming means the supervised lake at Miribel-Jonage on the city's edge. Otherwise you are looking at a drive of an hour and a half or more to Lake Annecy or the Lac du Bourget, and the open sea is too far for a day.

Avignon eats well in a Provençal way: daube, tians, tapenade and summer fruit, with the covered market on Place Pie as the place to see it. Its real advantage is wine, since Châteauneuf-du-Pape is next door. Away from the tourist terraces, though, the choice of restaurants is modest.

Lyon is in another league. The bouchon is a dining tradition with its own menu of quenelles, andouillette and praline tart, and behind it sits a long line of fine-dining chefs. Generous set lunches mean you can eat seriously on every day of the trip.

Avignon has the single grander monument. The Palais des Papes, the broken bridge and the ramparts make a striking UNESCO ensemble, and the Petit Palais and Collection Lambert round it off. You can see it all well in two unhurried days.

Lyon offers more depth. You get Roman theatres on Fourvière, the Renaissance quarter of Vieux Lyon with its traboules, a fine art museum in a former abbey, the silk-weavers' hill of Croix-Rousse and the Institut Lumière. It fills several full days without a single headline sight.

For eleven months of the year, Avignon's evenings are an aperitif on a plane-shaded square and bed by midnight. July is the exception, when the festival keeps the old town awake until the small hours.

Lyon has a real night out all year: cocktail and wine bars on the Presqu'île, pubs in Vieux Lyon and bars on barges along the Rhône. There are also warehouse clubs towards Gerland for anyone who wants to dance.

Avignon stands at the edge of some of France's best-loved country. Mont Ventoux draws cyclists and hikers, and the Luberon, Dentelles and Alpilles offer cliffs and ochre trails. The Camargue's flamingos and white horses are just to the south. Summer heat and the mistral make spring and autumn the seasons for it.

Lyon's strength is outdoor life inside the city: car-free river quays, the Parc de la Tête d'Or and the stairways up its two hills. Beyond them the Monts d'Or and the Beaujolais are gentle. The Vercors and Chartreuse are the wilder option, but they need a longer drive.

Avignon is one of the best bases in France for day trips. Within half an hour you can reach the arenas of Nîmes and Arles, Orange's Roman theatre and the Pont du Gard. Gordes, Roussillon, Les Baux and L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue are not much further, and Marseille is a short high-speed train ride away.

Lyon's day trips are good but more spread out. Roman Vienne is twenty minutes south, and Pérouges and the Beaujolais villages are close. Burgundy and Annecy take longer, and they are trips for wine and old towns rather than a run of major monuments.

Avignon works best with children in short doses. The walled centre is small and calm, the augmented-reality tablets turn the Palais des Papes into a game, and the Rocher des Doms has a playground and ducks above the river. The cobbled lanes are hard work with a pushchair, though, and July brings fierce heat and festival crowds together. Spring or early autumn is the time to bring a family.

Lyon simply has more to fill the days. Older children tend to love the Musée Miniature et Cinéma in Vieux Lyon, there is an aquarium on the southern edge of the city, and a theme park lies about an hour east. The flat centre is safe and easy going, but the stepped lanes up Fourvière and Croix-Rousse are no place for a pushchair.

Avignon is simply a town you walk. Everything inside the ramparts is within twenty minutes of the station, and regional trains reach Arles, Nîmes and Orange easily. The vineyards, hill villages and Ventoux, though, really need a hire car.

Lyon is larger but better served. The flat Presqu'île is good for walking, and four metro lines, trams, funiculars and bike-share fill in the rest. A tram runs to the airport, so you will not need a car at any point in the city.

Avignon's shopping is small and local: printed cottons, lavender, olive wood and soap in the lanes off Rue Joseph Vernet, plus edible souvenirs from Les Halles. Serious antique hunters head out to L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.

Lyon has far more choice. There are chains on the main streets, luxury labels near Place des Jacobins and the big Part-Dieu mall. For something more personal, look for silk from the old weaving trade and designer workshops on Croix-Rousse.

Overall the two cost much the same, but the costs fall in different places. In Avignon, rooms are cheap or expensive depending on whether you come in July, and the countryside usually adds a hire car. On the other side, wine bought from producers is excellent value.

Lyon's rooms are reasonable most of the year, though they get scarce at trade fair times and during December's Fête des Lumières. Its savings come from the generous bouchon lunches, the free zoo and not needing a car.

Both towns are strong on the stage, but they run on different calendars. Avignon puts nearly everything into three weeks of July, with major productions in the Cour d'honneur of the Palais and a vast fringe in every cellar and courtyard. Outside July there is the opera house and a handful of small theatres.

Lyon spreads its programme across the year. It has an opera and ballet company under a glass vault, a national orchestra and grand playhouses, and dance is its specialism. In summer the Nuits de Fourvière festival puts concerts and dance in the Roman theatres above the city.

Neither city has a bathing tradition of its own, and the way you unwind differs. Around Avignon, rest means a farmhouse guesthouse with a pool among the vineyards and lavender, though July crowds and a long mistral can spoil the calm in town.

Lyon offers hammams, day spas and an open-air pool on the Rhône quays. Real thermal bathing is a day out to Aix-les-Bains on its Alpine lake.