Biarritz or Nice?

Nice wins for straightforward swimming. Its sea is clear, warmer and usually calm, though the 7km city shore below the Promenade des Anglais is all pebbles, and for sand you take a short trip to Villefranche, Beaulieu or Juan-les-Pins.

Biarritz offers the opposite: sandy beaches from the Grande Plage up through Miramar to Anglet, but on the open Atlantic, where big waves and strong currents keep swimmers between the flags. Only the little Port Vieux cove offers an easy dip.

Both have a regional cuisine worth travelling for, and they are broadly level. What differs is the flavour. Biarritz is Basque: pintxos and local wine at the bars around Les Halles, Bayonne ham, sheep's cheese, axoa and gâteau basque.

Nice cooks closer to Liguria, with socca from wood ovens in Vieux Nice, pissaladière, stuffed vegetables and the rare Bellet wines. In both places the seafront terraces are the ones to skip.

The gap is wide. In Biarritz the sight is the resort itself: the imperial villa, the Art Deco casino, the Rocher de la Vierge and a small museum or two, all covered in a couple of days.

Nice has layers that Biarritz lacks. There is the ochre old town of the Savoy era below Castle Hill, Belle Époque Cimiez with its Roman ruins, and a serious art collection in the Matisse and Chagall museums and MAMAC. Visitors to Biarritz who want old towns and museums end up driving to Bayonne or San Sebastián.

Nice has more going on after dark. Vieux Nice's lanes are packed with wine bars, pubs and cocktail bars all year, and the port adds a few more grown-up places. Biarritz comes alive mainly in summer, with pintxos around Les Halles, surfers' sundowners above the Côte des Basques and the casino, then goes quiet out of season. Its best big night is across the border in San Sebastián.

Nice has the edge because of its range. There are coastal paths on Cap Ferrat, cycling on the corniches, the Mercantour's high lakes and ibex about two hours away, and winter skiing within reach of the sea.

Biarritz's outdoors are built around the ocean, with surf, bodyboarding and paddling. On land there is the Basque Corniche path and the green Pyrenean foothills around La Rhune, Sare and Ainhoa, gentler country made lush by all that rain.

Both are excellent bases, but Nice is slightly better, mainly because everything is reachable by train or bus. Monaco, Èze, Menton, Antibes, Cannes and Saint-Paul-de-Vence are mostly under an hour away, and Italian Sanremo is close too.

Biarritz gives you two countries, with San Sebastián under an hour away, Bayonne next door, Saint-Jean-de-Luz by train and Bilbao's Guggenheim as a long day out. Its best inland villages and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port are much easier with a car.

Neither is ideal with children, and they come out about even, in different ways. Biarritz offers sand, surf lessons for kids and the aquarium with its seals and sharks, but the waves are rough and the steep streets are hard work with a pushchair.

In Nice the pushchair problem goes away on the flat promenade, and the Promenade du Paillon has water jets and playgrounds. The catch there is pebbles underfoot and fierce midsummer heat.

Nice is easier. Its centre, old town, port and seafront are a flat walk apart, and trams run straight from the airport to the centre. Regional trains then cover the whole coast.

Biarritz is compact but hilly, with steps and steep streets between the cliffs and the beaches. Buses and coastal trains reach Bayonne and the Spanish border, but most visitors hire a car for the villages and mountains.

Biarritz sells what a surf town with Basque roots makes: boards and wetsuits in the surf shops, boutiques between Place Clemenceau and the market, striped Basque linen, handmade espadrilles, chocolate, and Espelette pepper from Les Halles. It makes a pleasant afternoon of browsing, but there are no department stores, and for a few more streets of shops you go next door to Bayonne.

Nice gives you far more to work through. Avenue Jean Médecin is a proper high street with a Galeries Lafayette, the luxury fashion houses are around rue Paradis, and Vieux Nice adds Provençal soaps, olive oil and candied fruit. On Mondays the Cours Saleya turns into a flea and antiques market.

Neither is cheap, and summer is expensive in both, though spring and autumn bring real relief. Nice saves you money on getting around, because cheap trams and coastal trains make its day trips inexpensive and you can eat cheaply on socca and market picnics. In Biarritz the savings come from eating at the market bars and from staying in Anglet or Bayonne rather than on the seafront.

Nice has the fuller calendar. Its nineteenth-century opera house hosts opera, ballet and the Philharmonic, and every July brings one of Europe's oldest jazz festivals, plus February's Carnival. Biarritz has no opera, but it has a real strength in dance. Its resident ballet company performs at the Gare du Midi, and an autumn dance festival fills the town's stages.

Biarritz is clearly the better place to unwind. Seawater cures have been part of the town since the nineteenth century, and its large seafront thalassotherapy spas, with heated seawater pools and multi-day programmes, are a reason to come in their own right.

Nice has no bathing tradition of its own, only hotel spas and centres down the coast. What it offers instead is a slow Riviera routine of early swims and evening walks along the bay. Both towns are at their calmest outside July and August.