Brighton or Lille?

Brighton has a real seafront and Lille doesn't, so this one is clear. Brighton's shingle runs from the Marina to Hove, has lifeguards on the central stretches in summer and gives the town a place to gather on warm days. The water is cold, and you get pebbles rather than sand.

From Lille, the nearest beach is the wide, windy sand at Malo-les-Bains in Dunkirk, about an hour away by train. It makes a bracing day out rather than beach time on your doorstep.

Lille edges ahead because it has a cuisine of its own. Its wood-panelled estaminets serve carbonnade in beer, potjevleesch and the cheese-heavy welsh, Maroilles cheese turns up everywhere, and the evenings run on Belgian and northern French beer. The Sunday market at Wazemmes adds a multicultural food market.

Brighton has no regional dish to match that. What it has instead is a wide spread of small independent kitchens in the North Laine and Kemptown, strong vegetarian and vegan cooking, serious coffee, seafood stalls under the seafront arches and Sussex sparkling wine.

Lille has more to see. The Palais des Beaux-Arts is a major collection by any standard, and Vieux-Lille, the Vieille Bourse, the UNESCO-listed belfry and Vauban's citadel easily fill two or three days. With art museums in Roubaix and Villeneuve-d'Ascq as well, it rewards visitors who like galleries.

Brighton has one outstanding building, the Royal Pavilion, with its Indian domes and chinoiserie interiors. Around it are Regency crescents, the piers and the alleys of the Lanes, which are better for wandering than for sightseeing.

Brighton is the bigger night out, and for many visitors it's part of the reason to go. Kemptown's long-established LGBTQ+ scene, the clubs in the seafront arches and busy pubs every night of the week give it a range Lille can't match. Friday and Saturday on West Street can get rowdy.

Lille's evenings revolve around students and beer. Cheap bars on Rue Masséna fill up on Thursdays, and Vieux-Lille has calmer cellar bars. There are few clubs, and for a really late night people have traditionally headed over the Belgian border.

Brighton wins easily. The South Downs National Park starts at the city's edge, with chalk grassland at Devil's Dyke and the South Downs Way for walking and riding. The cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head are close, and the sea adds sailing and kitesurfing.

Around Lille, French Flanders is flat and farmed. The Citadel park, the towpaths along the Deûle and short climbs on Mont Noir or Mont des Cats are pleasant, but for the coastal cliffs at Cap Blanc-Nez you need a long day.

Brighton is a strong base in its own right. London is about an hour away by fast train, Lewes and its castle are a quarter of an hour up the line, and Arundel, Chichester with the Roman palace at Fishbourne, medieval Rye and the abbey at Battle are all within reach. Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard is further west. The vineyards and Wealden country houses are easier by car.

Lille reaches further still, because its stations are so well connected. Brussels is about half an hour away, Ghent and Bruges about an hour, and Paris an hour by TGV. London is close enough by Eurostar for a long day, so one hotel can cover three countries. Closer to home there are the arcaded squares of Arras, Amiens Cathedral, the Louvre-Lens and the Western Front memorials at Vimy and the Somme.

Brighton is the more natural choice with children. It has the pier rides, the Victorian aquarium, Volk's Electric Railway and paddling at Hove Lagoon, all within a walk of each other. The cold shingle beach is better for skimming stones than building sandcastles.

In Lille, children's days centre on the Citadel park, with its small zoo, playgrounds and flat paths, plus the hands-on science centre reachable by metro. The biggest family attractions, a large zoo park in Belgium and the aquarium at Boulogne, mean a day out.

Both are easy without a car, but in different ways. Brighton's centre is compact and served by a dense bus network, but the climb back up to the station and the streets around Kemptown is steep.

Lille is flat, and its two stations sit right by the old town. The automated VAL metro and the tram reach Roubaix and Tourcoing, though the cobbles of Vieux-Lille are hard on the feet.

There's not much between them, but they suit different shoppers. Brighton is for browsing independent shops: vintage clothes, records and alternative fashion in the North Laine, and jewellers and antique dealers in the Lanes.

Lille has more mainstream shopping, with chains on Rue Neuve, the Euralille mall and a few luxury labels in Vieux-Lille. Its standout is the Braderie in early September, when the whole city turns into a flea market.

Lille is noticeably easier on the wallet. Rooms are fairly priced for most of the year apart from the Braderie and big trade fairs, and estaminet meals and the metro are cheap.

In Brighton, accommodation is the main expense, especially on summer weekends when the guesthouses fill up. Once you've paid for the room, the beach, piers and Downs are free, but train fares add up if you plan several day trips.

Brighton has the busier calendar, thanks largely to May, when the Brighton Festival and England's largest fringe take over theatres, churches and pubs for weeks. The rest of the year there's a deep live-music circuit, strong comedy and the Theatre Royal, with Glyndebourne's opera festival in the Downs nearby.

Lille's programme is more classical and more institutional. The Opéra de Lille, the Orchestre National de Lille and the Théâtre du Nord offer a dependable season of opera, symphonic music and drama.

Neither is a place to come for relaxation, and neither has a bathing tradition. Brighton's version is the year-round dawn sea swim followed by a seafront sauna, or a quiet off-season walk past the beach huts on Hove's lawns.

Lille offers slow afternoons in Vieux-Lille's tea rooms. For actual thermal baths, take the short train ride to Saint-Amand-les-Eaux.