Biarritz or Nantes?

In Biarritz the beach is right there: the Grande Plage below the casino, the Côte des Basques under the cliffs, the sheltered Port Vieux cove and Anglet's long sands to the north. The surf is big and the currents strong, so this sea is better for surfers and confident swimmers than for floating about.

Nantes has no beach of its own. La Baule's sheltered bay and the coves around Pornic are about 50km off and roughly an hour by train. Those beaches are calmer than Biarritz's, which helps with small children, but every swim means a day out.

Both eat well without being places to travel to just for the food, and the difference is regional. Biarritz cooks Basque: pintxos and Txakoli at the bars around Les Halles, Bayonne ham, Espelette pepper, axoa and gâteau basque. Nantes belongs to the Loire and Brittany, with beurre blanc on pike-perch, oysters, buckwheat galettes and Muscadet from just outside town, and its Bouffay bistros are kinder on the bill than Biarritz's seafront terraces.

Nantes has much more history to explore. The moated Château des Ducs de Bretagne holds a city museum that is open about the slave trade, and the Gothic cathedral, the Musée d'Arts and the merchant façades of Ile Feydeau and Graslin fill out the days. The Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery and the Jules Verne museum add more.

Biarritz's heritage is the resort itself: the imperial villa, the Art Deco casino, the Russian Orthodox church, the Rocher de la Vierge and the lighthouse. For museums it has the aquarium and the Cité de l'Océan. Anyone wanting old towns and serious collections ends up taking the train to Bayonne or heading over to San Sebastián.

Nantes has the more reliable night out, thanks to its students. Pubs and wine bars fill the medieval Bouffay lanes, and later the crowd moves to clubs in the old banana warehouses on the Ile de Nantes. Biarritz comes alive mainly in summer, with pintxos and wine around Les Halles and sundowners above the Côte des Basques, and out of season most evenings end after dinner, though San Sebastián's bar streets are a short drive away.

Biarritz is the stronger choice outdoors, and that means surf and hills. There are beginner breaks at the Côte des Basques and Anglet, a cliff path along the Basque Corniche, and the Pyrenean foothills within half an hour, where you can walk up La Rhune or ride the rack railway.

Nantes is flat and watery. Its outdoors means paddling or walking the Erdre, cycling the Loire à Vélo route through the vineyards, watching birds in the Brière marshes and walking the Côte Sauvage. There is nothing to climb.

Biarritz has the richer choice because two countries are within reach. San Sebastián is under an hour away, Bayonne is next door and Saint-Jean-de-Luz is a short train ride down the coast. Inland are Espelette, Ainhoa and Sare, and Bilbao's Guggenheim makes a full day by car.

Nantes is a good base too, with Guérande above its salt marshes, Angers and the Apocalypse Tapestry, Clisson among the Muscadet vineyards and the Loire châteaux around Saumur. Many of these are easy by fast train, while several of Biarritz's Basque villages are easier with a car.

Both work well with children, but in different ways. Biarritz means a beach vacation with surf lessons and the aquarium's seals and sharks, though the big waves keep the youngest in Port Vieux and the steep streets are hard with a pushchair. Nantes offers a city stay instead: a ride on the mechanical elephant at the Machines de l'Ile, playgrounds in the Jardin des Plantes, easy trams for a buggy, and Puy du Fou within driving distance.

Nantes is much easier to get around. The centre is flat and compact, three tram lines and a busway are simple to learn, river shuttles cross the Loire and cycling is easy. The central station has fast trains to Paris in about two hours.

You can walk around central Biarritz too, but it is steep, with steps between the cliffs and the seafront. Buses reach Anglet and Bayonne and coastal trains run to the Spanish border, but for the villages and mountains most visitors hire a car. The airport on the edge of town is convenient.

Neither is worth a trip for the shopping alone, but Nantes has a little more. There is the three-level Passage Pommeraye, a department store near Rue Crébillon and independent designers around Bouffay and Decré. Biarritz is a seaside town with fashion boutiques and surf shops between Place Clemenceau and the market. Its best buys are striped Basque linen, espadrilles and chocolate, where Nantes offers salted-butter biscuits, berlingots and Guérande salt.

Nantes is the cheaper stay. Hotels are easy to find at regional-city rates, set lunches are good value and the trams keep transport cheap. Only dinners and drinks cost what they do anywhere in France.

Biarritz charges like the fashionable resort it is, especially in July and August, when rooms book up early. Eating pintxos at the market counters, staying in Anglet or Bayonne, or coming outside summer brings the cost down, but it remains the more expensive trip.

Nantes has much more on stage. There is opera at the Théâtre Graslin, the regional national orchestra, contemporary work at the Lieu Unique, touring bands on the Ile de Nantes and the La Folle Journée classical festival every winter.

Biarritz's strength is dance. A national choreographic centre and its ballet company perform at the Gare du Midi, and an autumn festival fills the town's stages. Beyond that there are touring shows and summer events on the seafront, and no opera house.

Biarritz has treated visitors with seawater since the sea-bathing cures of the nineteenth century, and its seafront spas are built around that idea: heated seawater pools, hydrotherapy jets and algae wraps, a short walk from the hotel. The rest here is the resort kind, an hour on the promenade watching the surf after a morning of treatments, though the crowds of high summer work against it.

Nantes offers a city's version of calm. Hotel and day spas cover the treatments, and the unwinding happens outdoors, under the trees of the Jardin des Plantes or along the quiet banks of the Erdre. It is an unhurried place to spend a few days, but on a Nantes trip rest comes as a bonus rather than being the reason to go.