Bath or Lille?

Neither city is a beach destination, and from both you travel about an hour to reach a cold, tidal sea. Lille's option is slightly better: a train to the wide sands of Malo-les-Bains at Dunkirk, with longer dune beaches on the Opal Coast further on.

Bath's nearest shore, Weston-super-Mare, has murky water and a tide that goes out a very long way, so locals swim in the Avon instead. For clear water you need the Dorset or Devon coast, two hours or more each way.

Lille's food has more character. Its Flemish estaminets serve beer-braised carbonnade, potjevleesch and the welsh, Maroilles cheese turns up in everything, and specialist beer bars make drinking part of the meal. Wazemmes market adds a multi-ethnic Sunday morning.

Bath does the English version well, with gastropubs, West Country cheese and cider, afternoon tea in Georgian tearooms and its own buns and biscuits. The range is narrower, though: there is little street food, and kitchens wind down early.

Both reward two or three days, but in different ways. In Bath the city itself is the sight. The whole townscape is Georgian, in honey-coloured stone, with the Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge a few minutes apart and the Roman Baths steaming below them.

Lille's strength is one great collection: the Palais des Beaux-Arts, with its Flemish masters, Goya and relief maps, in a Flemish baroque old town around the Vieille Bourse. Its other highlights are more spread out, from Vauban's citadel to La Piscine in Roubaix, which you reach by metro or tram.

Lille is the much better night out. A large student population fills the bars of Rue Masséna and Rue Solférino, Vieux-Lille adds beer cafés and cocktail bars in brick cellars, and Belgium is close for clubbing late.

Bath's evenings centre on old coaching inns and real-ale pubs, with a few late bars in term time. On weeknights the streets empty after dinner, and anyone who wants more takes the short train to Bristol.

Bath has much more to offer outdoors. Steep green hills ring the city, so the Skyline loop, the Kennet and Avon towpath and the Two Tunnels Greenway start almost at the door, and the southern Cotswolds and the Mendips are close by.

Around Lille the land is flat and farmed. The Citadel park and the Deûle towpaths are pleasant for easy cycling, and the Monts de Flandre give short walks, but for real scenery you need a long day out to the cliffs of the Opal Coast.

Both are excellent bases, but Lille's rail links give it the edge. Brussels is about half an hour away and Ghent, Bruges and Paris roughly an hour. Amiens, Arras and the First World War battlefields are close too, so you can spend days in different countries without a car.

Bath's day trips are rich as well, from Stonehenge and Avebury to Wells, Glastonbury, Lacock and the Cotswolds, and Bristol is a quarter of an hour away by train. The difference is that many of Bath's best are villages and country sights that need a car or a tour.

Neither city is built around children, and both work best for a few days with outings further afield. The big hit in Bath is the Roman Baths, and Royal Victoria Park has a playground below the Royal Crescent. The steep streets are hard on pushchairs, and the larger attractions are in Bristol or at Longleat.

Lille is flat, and the Citadel park, with its small zoo, playgrounds and paths for scooters, easily fills a morning. A hands-on science centre is a metro ride away, and the main family day out is the large zoo park over the Belgian border, though the cobbles of the old town slow a pushchair down.

Both centres are easy to walk, and in either a car is more trouble than help. Lille is a touch easier: the centre is flat, both main stations stand beside the old town, and the automated VAL metro and the tram reach the outlying museums.

Bath is compact too, about twenty minutes from end to end, but its hills are steep and it is buses that climb to the viewpoints and the university.

For shopping the two are about equal, with a different flavour in each. Bath's appeal is its independent shops: bookshops and jewellers in the lanes around the Abbey, antiques on Bartlett Street, furniture makers and salvage dealers on Walcot Street, and the centuries-old Guildhall Market.

Lille feels more like a big city, with chains on Rue Neuve, a large mall by the stations and independent fashion and delicatessens in Vieux-Lille. Its trump card is the Braderie each September, when the whole city turns into a vast flea market.

Lille is easier on the wallet. Hotels are reasonable for most of the year, estaminet meals and beer are fairly priced, and the metro and the main museums cost little.

Bath is an expensive place to stay, especially on summer weekends and at Christmas, and entry to the Roman Baths and the spa adds up. Walking everywhere and eating pub lunches help, and staying midweek or sleeping in Bristol saves the most.

Lille has the fuller programme. The Opéra de Lille, the symphonic season of the Orchestre National de Lille and the Théâtre du Nord give it resident companies that Bath lacks. Roubaix and Tourcoing add contemporary dance, and the Zénith and the Aéronef bring in touring bands.

Bath's stage life centres on the gilded Georgian Theatre Royal, with touring drama, opera, dance and pantomime. There are also concerts in the Abbey and the Assembly Rooms, and long-running literature and music festivals, but on an ordinary night the choice is small.

This is where the two differ most. Bath grew up around its hot springs, and you can bathe in them in an open-air rooftop pool looking over the Abbey, best after dark in winter, or in the small Georgian Cross Bath. Tea in the Pump Room and the riverside gardens set an unhurried pace.

Lille has no bathing tradition of its own, so relaxing there means hotel spas and long afternoons on café terraces. The nearest thermal bath is a train ride away at Saint-Amand-les-Eaux.