Avignon or Monaco?

Monaco is clearly the better place to swim. Larvotto is short and enclosed, but its water is calm and clear and the sea is warm for four months of the year. Add the beach clubs, the rocky platforms and the coves at Cap d'Ail, and you can swim every day without planning it.

Avignon has no sea and no swimming in the Rhône. The realistic swim is in the green pools of the Gardon below the Pont du Gard, or a full day out to the Camargue sands. On most days you will use the pool where you're staying.

The food is equally good, but it suits different meals. Avignon eats like a market town: Provençal stews and tians, cheese and fruit from the plain, lunch at the counters inside Les Halles, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape by the glass in the side-street bistros.

Monaco is about the occasion. It has starred dining rooms in the grand hotels, polished Italian food and terraces over the yachts, with barbagiuan and socca at the Condamine market as the local foil. Eating casually and cheaply is much harder there than in Avignon.

Avignon has more history to see. The papal palace, the cathedral, the broken bridge and the ramparts make a medieval ensemble that Monaco has no equal for. The Petit Palais and the Musée Calvet add real collections, and the charterhouse across the river at Villeneuve fills another morning.

Monaco's sights belong to a different age: the princely palace and its guard, Grace Kelly's grave, the Belle Époque Oceanographic Museum and the Casino. They are good to see but quickly seen, and they are more about setting than depth.

Monaco has more of a night out, though only of one kind: hotel bars, the Casino square and a few expensive clubs by the sea, with a dress code and the yachts as a backdrop. It peaks in summer and on Grand Prix weekend.

For eleven months of the year Avignon offers an aperitif on Place Pie and a few student bars, and the old town is quiet by midnight. July changes that, when the festival keeps the squares full until late. Neither place has a casual or underground scene, so for that people go to Nice or Marseille.

Both have fine country close by, but it looks different. From Avignon you can reach Mont Ventoux, the Luberon's ochre cliffs, the Alpilles and the gorges of the Gardon, and the Camargue lagoons with their flamingos lie to the south. It is cycling, canoeing and riding country, and you need a car to get into it.

Monaco's outdoors is coastal and steep: mule paths up to Èze, the view from Tête de Chien and the cape footpaths past the pines. It also has clear water for snorkelling and diving, which Avignon cannot offer.

Both towns make excellent bases, and Avignon has the edge. Within about half an hour it reaches the Roman sites of Nîmes, Arles and Orange and the Pont du Gard, which few places in Europe can match. Beyond those are the Châteauneuf vineyards and the Luberon villages, and those you reach by car.

Monaco's day trips run along a single coast railway: Villefranche, Nice, Menton and over the border to Sanremo, with Èze a short bus ride up the hill. You can do almost all of it without a car, which is the real practical difference.

Monaco is easier with children. The aquarium with its sharks is a proper draw, Larvotto's sheltered water suits young swimmers, and the public lifts save small legs on the climbs. It is also spotless and safe, though the formal restaurants make dinners hard work.

Avignon has the palace tablet tour, the bridge from the song and the playground on the Rocher des Doms. Most other family days, such as canoeing at the Pont du Gard or seeing horses in the Camargue, need a car, and the cobbles are tiring with a pushchair.

Avignon is flat inside its walls, and nearly everything is within twenty minutes on foot of the central station. Regional trains run easily to Arles, Nîmes and Orange, but buses to the villages and vineyards are sparse, so a hire car becomes part of the trip.

Monaco climbs steeply from the sea, yet it is the easier of the two to get around. Free lifts, escalators and stairways take care of the height, buses and a small solar ferry cover the rest, and the station puts the whole Riviera within reach by train. You never need a car.

Monaco is the stronger choice, but only if you want luxury. The Carré d'Or packs the fashion houses, jewellers and watchmakers into a few streets around the Casino, and window-shopping there is part of the evening. Ordinary shopping hardly exists.

Avignon is modest and local: chains on Rue de la République, and Provençal prints, lavender and olive wood in the lanes off Rue des Marchands. Its best buys are wine and tapenade, and the serious antiques are out at L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.

Avignon is moderately priced and Monaco is not, and the gap shows even in what is free. In Avignon you can walk the ramparts, the lanes and the Rocher des Doms garden without spending anything, and the train to Arles or Nîmes is an ordinary expense. The real extra is a hire car for the hill villages.

In Monaco the expense starts with a café coffee, and hotel rates climb higher still on event weekends such as the Grand Prix. The free public lifts, the cheap buses and the walks around the Rock, the gardens and the harbour are about the only relief.

Both have more on stage than their size suggests, but in different seasons and different art forms. Avignon is about theatre, and above all July, when the Festival d'Avignon fills the palace courtyard and the Off puts on shows in every cellar. The rest of the year there is the Opéra Grand Avignon, small theatres and a jazz club.

Monaco is about opera, orchestra and ballet, in the gilded Salle Garnier from winter to spring. Summer brings concerts by the sea. It has little spoken theatre and almost no small venues to walk into.

Avignon has no spa culture to speak of, only hotel spas and a few massage studios. Rest there comes from long lunches under the plane trees, or better, a farmhouse among the vineyards with a pool. The town is far from restful in July.

Monaco gives you more for a treatment day. The large thalassotherapy centre beside the Casino has heated seawater pools, the grand hotels have sizeable spas, and the Japanese Garden makes a calm start to the morning.