Bordeaux or Lille?

Bordeaux has real beach days within reach. The Atlantic sand at Lacanau and along the Médoc is about an hour away, wild and backed by dunes, with strong surf you should respect. Arcachon's sheltered basin and the beaches below the Dune du Pilat offer calmer water for families in July and August.

Lille's seaside is a bracing outing rather than a swim. Malo-les-Bains at Dunkirk is wide and windy, the North Sea seldom passes 17-18°C, and the Opal Coast suits walking and sand yachting.

Bordeaux is the stronger table, and above all the stronger glass. You can taste Médoc, Saint-Émilion and Sauternes in a single week, eat entrecôte grilled over vine cuttings, and slurp Arcachon oysters at the counters of the Marché des Capucins, with a canelé to finish.

Lille is heartier and built around beer. Its wood-panelled estaminets serve carbonnade, potjevleesch and the cheese-drenched welsh, Maroilles goes into almost everything, and Wazemmes market brings more variety. It is satisfying, but it has less depth than Bordeaux.

The two are broadly level, but the appeal differs. In Bordeaux the city is the sight: an 18th-century UNESCO riverfront of pale stone, the Place de la Bourse with its Miroir d'eau, and Gothic towers such as Saint-Michel. Its museums are good rather than famous.

Lille reverses that. The Palais des Beaux-Arts, with its Flemish masters and relief maps of fortified towns, is the headline, and La Piscine in Roubaix is a memorable extra. Around them, Vieux-Lille offers Flemish baroque brick in place of classical limestone.

Neither city is a destination for nightlife alone, but the evenings feel different. Bordeaux leans towards wine bars and café terraces in Saint-Pierre, with students around Place de la Victoire. Clubbers have a dedicated strip of warehouses on the Quai de Paludate that runs until morning.

Lille has more student energy for its size, with loud, cheap bars on Rue Masséna and Rue Solférino on Thursday nights and beer cafés in brick cellars in Vieux-Lille. Its clubs are thin, though, and the latest nights traditionally mean a trip across the Belgian border.

Bordeaux has far more to offer outdoors, mostly on the coast an hour away. There is the Dune du Pilat, birdwatching on the tidal flats of the Arcachon basin and serious surf along the Médoc, and back inland, long flat cycle routes run through the vineyards.

Lille's surroundings are gentle and farmed: the Citadel park, canal towpaths and short walks on the low Monts de Flandre. The chalk cliffs of Cap Blanc-Nez are its one dramatic landscape, and they take a long day to reach.

Lille is the better base for day trips, and by some way. Brussels is about half an hour by fast train, Ghent and Bruges around an hour, and Paris about an hour by TGV. Arras, Amiens Cathedral, the Louvre-Lens and the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme fill the remaining days.

Bordeaux's excursions are excellent but more focused. They are mostly about wine: Saint-Émilion by train, and the Médoc and Sauternes châteaux, which really need a car or a tour. Arcachon is the seaside option.

Bordeaux has a slight edge with children. The flat, car-free centre is easy with a pushchair, the Miroir d'eau becomes a paddling pool on hot days, and the best family outings, climbing the great dune and splashing in the calm Arcachon basin, are hard to beat.

Lille relies on the Citadel park, with its small zoo and playgrounds, and on rainy-day museums. Its bigger draws, Pairi Daiza and the Nausicaá aquarium, are further out, and the cobbles of Vieux-Lille are tough going with a pushchair.

Both centres are flat, walkable and easy without a car, so the difference is in how they are laid out. Bordeaux's sights run along a few kilometres of the left bank, with trams filling the gaps and riverside paths that make cycling natural, but the vineyards beyond Saint-Émilion need wheels.

Lille is tighter still and runs on its driverless VAL metro. The two main stations sit next to the old town, so heading out for the day takes almost no effort.

The two are evenly matched as regional shopping cities, and each has one thing the other lacks. In Bordeaux that is wine: cellars stocking everything from everyday bottles to rare vintages, which will ship them home. The city also has luxury labels in the Triangle d'Or and antique dealers on Rue Notre-Dame.

In Lille it is the Braderie in early September, when kilometres of streets become one vast flea market. For the rest of the year, Vieux-Lille's independent boutiques and delicatessens are more interesting than the Euralille mall.

Neither is a budget destination, though Lille is slightly easier on the wallet. In Bordeaux, central hotels are on the pricier side, and château tastings, wine tours and good bottles at dinner add up fast. Set lunch menus are the best way to save.

In Lille, hotels are fair for most of the year apart from the Braderie and trade fairs, and estaminet meals and beer are reasonably priced, so a stay feels comfortable rather than stretched.

Bordeaux's great asset is the Grand Théâtre, a colonnaded opera house from 1780 with a gilded auditorium. Seeing the city's opera or ballet there is the most memorable night at the theatre either city offers. The rest of Bordeaux's programme is respectable rather than broad: the national orchestra, plays mostly in French, a right-bank hall for jazz and world music, and a lull in high summer when the seasons pause.

Lille offers a similar amount overall, with more variety and less grandeur. The early twentieth-century Opéra on the Place du Théâtre and the Orchestre National de Lille cover the classical side. The Théâtre du Nord is one of France's national theatres, Roubaix and Tourcoing add contemporary dance, and the Zénith and the Aéronef bring touring rock and pop acts.

Bordeaux offers more for a restful trip. Its spa hotels among the vineyards specialise in vinotherapy with grape extracts, which makes a calm day or two of retreat, and the city's long lunches and evening walks along the quays set an easy pace.

Lille has hotel and day spas, tea rooms in Vieux-Lille and a thermal bath a short train ride away at Saint-Amand-les-Eaux. Rest is not really why people come.