Cannes or Pisa?

In Cannes the beach is the point of the stay. The fine sand of the Croisette lies right in front of the hotels, the broad Plage du Midi offers free space west of the port, and clearer water is a short boat ride away on the Lérins islands or among the Esterel's red-rock coves.

Pisa's coast is a bus ride out of town. The pine-backed sands of Tirrenia and Calambrone are long and shallow, which is good for paddling, but the water near the Arno mouth is rarely clear. Most visitors there treat the sea as a summer afternoon off from the monuments.

Neither town is a food destination, but they eat very differently. Cannes cooks from the Mediterranean and Provence: the Forville market, bouillabaisse, socca and a glass of rosé on a terrace, plus a proper fine-dining tier in the palace hotels and up towards Mougins.

Pisa has plain Tuscan cooking, ribollita, game and hot cecina from wood ovens, served cheaply in the trattorias around Piazza delle Vettovaglie. It has no real high end. In both places, the menus closest to the famous sights are the ones to skip.

Pisa has far more to see. Even before you leave the Piazza dei Miracoli there are the cathedral, the baptistery, the climbable tower and the frescoed Camposanto. Beyond it are Piazza dei Cavalieri, Santa Maria della Spina on the Arno and the medieval painting at San Matteo, enough for two unhurried days.

Cannes offers a pleasant morning: the climb up Le Suquet to the castle museum, the Belle Époque hotels along the seafront and a photo on the festival steps. Anyone serious about art will spend most of their time elsewhere.

Both are quiet for most of the year, but the nights out are of different kinds. Cannes comes alive in summer and during its festivals, with beach clubs turning into party venues, a few clubs open until dawn and a dressed-up, champagne-priced crowd.

Pisa's evenings belong to its students. During term they drink outside small bars around the old market and along the river. It is cheap, casual and conversational, with almost no clubs and nothing at all near the tower after dark.

Cannes has the more dramatic setting close at hand. The volcanic red Esterel massif lies about twenty minutes west, the Lérins islands have pine paths, and Cap d'Antibes has a wild coastal footpath. There is also kayaking, sailing and diving around the islands.

Pisa's outdoors is gentler and flatter. The San Rossore park of pine forest, wetland and dunes begins at the city's edge and suits cycling and spotting deer, and the Monte Pisano has olive-terrace walks. The proper mountains of the Apuan Alps are a longer trip away.

Cannes makes a good base, but Pisa's day trips carry more weight, because they reach some of the great art cities of Italy. From Cannes the coastal train links Antibes and its Picasso museum, Nice, Villefranche, Monaco and Menton, while the perched villages of Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Èze and the perfume town of Grasse lie just behind the coast. These are seaside and village days rather than big-city ones.

From Pisa, Florence and the Uffizi are about an hour away by train, walled Lucca is under half an hour, and the Cinque Terre is a little over an hour north. With a car, Volterra, San Gimignano, Siena and the Chianti vineyards add a run of hill towns and Renaissance art that the Riviera cannot match.

For families, the difference is where the easy days happen. In Cannes, gently sloping sand and calm water are right in town, and the flat Croisette has carousels, play areas and room for scooters and pushchairs. A boat to the shady pine woods of the Lérins islands makes a good picnic outing.

Pisa's sandy beaches at Tirrenia and Calambrone are a bus ride away, so its family moments happen inland: running about on the tower lawn, taking the photo of holding the tower up, and cycling or riding in San Rossore. Younger children are not allowed up the tower itself.

Pisa is the easier of the two. It is small and flat, the airport is linked to the central station by a shuttle train, and that station is a rail hub for western Tuscany, so the main day trips need no car.

Central Cannes is just as walkable, apart from the steep climb up Le Suquet, and the coastal trains are simple to use. Once you head inland to Grasse, the perched villages or the Esterel corniche, though, a car becomes useful, and summer traffic and scarce parking make driving a chore.

Cannes is the far better shopping town. The big Paris fashion and jewellery houses face the sea along the Croisette, Rue d'Antibes has a long run of French mid-range labels and chocolatiers, and Rue Meynadier sells olive oil, soaps and Provençal fabrics.

Pisa offers ordinary Italian high-street shopping on Corso Italia and smarter shops under the arcades of Borgo Stretto. For serious shopping, people there go to Florence or Lucca.

Pisa is much kinder to a budget. Rooms are mid-range, student trattorias keep meals cheap and walking costs nothing. The main costs are the tower climb and the umbrellas on the beach in summer.

Cannes charges heavily for seafront rooms, cocktails and private-beach loungers, and prices rise further in festival and trade-fair weeks. You can soften the cost with market picnics, public beaches and cheap regional trains, or by staying in a neighbouring town.

Neither has much of a live scene, and what they do have runs in opposite seasons. Cannes is at its liveliest in summer, with classical concerts in the castle courtyard on Le Suquet, open-air seafront shows, free beach screenings during the film festival and the jazz festival at nearby Juan-les-Pins.

Pisa's highlight is indoors and in the cooler months. From autumn to spring, the horseshoe-shaped Teatro Verdi stages opera, ballet and concerts in a relaxed 19th-century setting.

They are about equal for unwinding, but the ways of doing it differ. In Cannes it means polished palace-hotel spas and seawater thalassotherapy, along with slow mornings on a terrace, best in spring or autumn and well away from festival weeks.

Pisa has what Cannes lacks: thermal springs. The Roman-era waters of San Giuliano Terme are just outside the city, and Casciana Terme has a larger public pool inland.