Bath or Paris?

Neither city is a beach destination, so a sea vacation belongs elsewhere. In Bath, summer swimming means the Avon at a weir east of town or a few river spots upstream, and the nearest seaside at Weston-super-Mare has a brown, shallow sea and a long tidal retreat.

Paris has more organised options in town: sand and deckchairs laid along the Seine in summer, outdoor swimming at the Bassin de la Villette, and handsome Art Deco public pools. For real coast, Normandy is about two hours by train, against the long drive from Bath to Dorset or Devon.

Paris is one of the world's great food cities, and the gap with Bath is wide. Daily life revolves around boulangeries, cheese shops and street markets like the Marché d'Aligre, and the range runs from zinc-counter bistros to haute cuisine, with North African, Vietnamese and West African cooking across the city and pastry treated as an art.

Bath eats well for its size, with gastropubs, West Country cheese, Somerset cider and its own buns and biscuits, plus a good farmers' market at Green Park station and plenty of afternoon tea. What it lacks is variety: little cooking from elsewhere, almost no street food and early evenings.

Bath is a beautiful, complete set piece: the Royal Crescent, the Circus, Pulteney Bridge and the Roman Baths all lie within a short walk in honey-coloured stone, and two or three days cover it well, with smaller museums like the Holburne filling gaps.

Paris works on another scale entirely. The Louvre alone could take a week, and the Orsay, Pompidou, Orangerie, Rodin and Cluny would each headline a smaller city, alongside Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle and the Eiffel Tower. The trade-off is queues and the need to book, which Bath rarely asks of you.

Paris offers a full night out: terraces and wine bars leading into packed, easy-going bars around Oberkampf, the Canal Saint-Martin and Belleville, cocktail bars in South Pigalle, a gay scene in the Marais, and clubs and riverside barges playing house and techno until dawn.

Bath's evenings are about the pub, from Georgian taverns to real-ale houses on Walcot Street, with a few student clubs in term time. Most nights it is quiet soon after dinner, and locals in search of a late night take the train to Bristol.

Bath has the edge for anyone who wants to walk into countryside from the hotel door. The Skyline loop runs along the ridges above the city, the Kennet and Avon towpath and the Two Tunnels Greenway head into the Somerset valleys, and the Cotswolds and Cheddar Gorge are within an hour.

Paris gives you parks and woods rather than open country: the Luxembourg and the Buttes-Chaumont in town, the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes at the edges, and the forest of Fontainebleau, with its climbing boulders, about forty minutes away by train. Both landscapes are gentle; Bath's is simply closer to hand.

Both make excellent bases, but Paris has the longer reach. Versailles, Fontainebleau, Chartres and Giverny are each about an hour or less, and fast trains bring Champagne country at Reims, Rouen, the Loire at Tours and even Brussels within a day.

From Bath the classics are Stonehenge and Avebury, Wells and Glastonbury, Lacock and the Cotswold villages, with Bristol fifteen minutes away by train. The difference is practical: many of Bath's best trips need a car or a small-group tour, whereas most from Paris are a simple train ride.

Paris gives families far more to do. Disneyland and Parc Astérix are a short trip out, the Cité des Sciences is a vast hands-on museum, and the Jardin d'Acclimatation, the Jardin des Plantes and the zoo at Vincennes fill other days, with carousels and toy boats on the Luxembourg pond for younger children. Stair-only metro stations and small hotel rooms are the price.

Bath is safe and easy to manage, and the steaming Roman Baths and the playground in Royal Victoria Park go down well. Beyond those, the city is aimed at adults, its steep streets are hard with a pushchair, and families tend to head to Bristol or the safari park at Longleat.

Both centres are best on foot, but Paris covers a much larger city with ease. The walk along the Seine from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower is a pleasure in itself, and the dense metro means a station is rarely far away, with the RER reaching Versailles and the airports. Long corridors, stairs and rush-hour crowds are the drawbacks.

Bath's centre takes about twenty minutes to cross, with the station at the foot of town and much of it pedestrianised, so within the city you barely need transport. Its weakness lies outside: the villages and country sights around it are poorly served by buses and trains.

Paris is a shopping destination in its own right. The fashion houses on Avenue Montaigne and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché, Marais designers, the covered passages and the Saint-Ouen flea market give a range few cities match, and chocolate, cheese and mustard make easy things to take home.

Bath is gentler and smaller. Milsom Street and SouthGate cover British brands and chains, and the appeal lies in browsing independent bookshops and jewellers around the Abbey, antiques on Bartlett Street and the craft and salvage shops of Walcot Street, though without luxury or a department-store scene.

Neither is a cheap stay, and the costs come from different places. In Bath the squeeze is a small supply of rooms for many visitors, especially on summer weekends and at Christmas, and the spa and Roman Baths are dear. Pub lunches and a walkable centre help, and sleeping in Bristol cuts the bill most.

In Paris the expense is small, costly hotel rooms, terrace drinks and full-price monuments. It offers more ways round them: the city's own museums have free permanent collections, bakeries and market picnics feed you well, and the outer arrondissements are cheaper bases.

Paris has a full cultural calendar. Ballet at the Palais Garnier, opera at the Bastille, orchestras at the Philharmonie and the Maison de la Radio, Molière at the Comédie-Française, cellar jazz around the rue des Lombards and cabaret in Pigalle mean there is something worth seeing every night, though much theatre is in French.

Bath centres on the Theatre Royal, a gilded Georgian playhouse with touring drama, opera, dance and pantomime, plus concerts in the Abbey and the Assembly Rooms and its literature and music festivals. There is no resident company, and on an ordinary evening the choice is small.

This is Bath's great strength. It is the only place in Britain where you can bathe in natural thermal water, and the rooftop pool at Thermae Bath Spa, looking over the Abbey after dark, is the kind of experience Paris cannot offer. The quieter Cross Bath, tea in the Pump Room and slow walks in the riverside gardens complete a restful stay.

Paris has no springs of its own. Its best option is the tiled hammam of the Grande Mosquée, along with hotel spas, and otherwise rest comes in small moments on a café terrace or a chair in the Luxembourg gardens, set against a fast, loud city.