Carcassonne or Colmar?

Carcassonne has the real advantage here. The Lac de la Cavayère gives it a sandy, supervised lake beach a few minutes from the Cité, and the long, shallow Mediterranean beaches at Gruissan and Narbonne-Plage make a straightforward day out by car, wind permitting.

Colmar sits deep inland on the Alsace plain, and swimming means municipal pools or a small lake up in the Vosges valleys. It is fine for cooling off, but there is nothing to plan a day around.

Both towns eat regionally, but Colmar's table is richer and more varied. Alsace cooking, with choucroute garnie, baeckeoffe, tarte flambée and munster cheese, comes in wood-panelled winstubs, the whites of the surrounding slopes are poured everywhere, and a handful of ambitious kitchens add a fine-dining tier.

Carcassonne is cassoulet country, backed by sturdy Corbières and Minervois reds and the sparkling blanquette of Limoux. The best meals are down in the Bastide around Place Carnot rather than in the Cité, and beyond southern French cooking the range is thin.

The two are evenly matched, but they offer different things. Carcassonne is one tremendous monument: the double-walled Cité with its fifty-two towers, the Château Comtal ramparts and the stained glass of Saint-Nazaire, with the Bastide's grid streets and the Canal du Midi below.

Colmar spreads its interest across a whole late-medieval townscape of painted half-timbered houses and canals, and adds what Carcassonne lacks, a museum of real stature in the Unterlinden and Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece. Both are covered well in about two days.

Neither town keeps late hours, and in both the evening is dinner followed by a drink on a terrace. Carcassonne's distinctive pleasure is a walk on the floodlit walls once the day crowds leave, with locals gathering in the Bastide cafés around Place Carnot. Colmar's evenings centre on wine bars and brasseries around Petite Venise. For a real night out, Carcassonne sends you to Toulouse or Montpellier and Colmar to Strasbourg.

Colmar has the stronger outdoors. Marked paths run through the vines between wine villages within half an hour, and above them the Route des Crêtes climbs past the Hohneck and the Grand Ballon, with glacial lakes, dense trail networks, some winter skiing and the Black Forest across the Rhine.

Carcassonne's landscape is drier and wilder: the forested Montagne Noire to the north, the garrigue and castle ridges of the Corbières to the south, and the Aude gorges with summer rafting. The flat, shaded Canal du Midi towpath is the easy option, but hot summers and strong wind push walking into spring and autumn.

Both are excellent bases, and Colmar has the edge mainly because so much lies so close. Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Kaysersberg are a few kilometres apart, Strasbourg is half an hour by train, and Basel and Freiburg add two more countries within about an hour.

Carcassonne's outings take longer but are spectacular in their own way: the Cathar castles of Peyrepertuse and Quéribus on their limestone crags, Narbonne's Roman road, Toulouse by train and villages such as Lagrasse and Minerve. Nearly all of it needs a car.

Colmar is the easier family base. The centre is flat and small, with boat rides through Petite Venise and storks on the roofs, and the surroundings are full of things built for children, from the monkey forest and eagle show at Kintzheim to the Mulhouse museums and Europa-Park.

Carcassonne has the more thrilling single attraction, a real castle with drawbridges and summer jousting, plus the lake and water park. But the Cité is steep, cobbled and hot in high summer, and after a couple of days there is less to fill the time.

Colmar is simpler to manage. Old town, museums and station are all a short, flat walk apart, and fast regional trains run to Strasbourg, Mulhouse and on to Basel, with gentle vineyard roads that make a hired bicycle a real alternative to a car.

Carcassonne splits in two: the Bastide is flat, but the Cité is a steady climb across the Pont Vieux, with a seasonal shuttle. Trains serve Toulouse and Narbonne well, yet the castles and wine villages are close to unreachable without a car or a tour.

Carcassonne's shopping rarely gets beyond the Cité lanes, which lean heavily towards plastic swords and knight costumes, and a plain provincial high street in the Bastide. The buys worth packing are edible: tinned cassoulet, Limoux blanquette and produce from the Place Carnot market.

Colmar gives you more to carry home, though it is no shopping destination either. Soufflenheim pottery, printed Alsatian linen, gingerbread, foie gras and wine bought straight from the producer fill the lanes around the Grand'Rue, and in December the Christmas markets spread over several squares.

Carcassonne is the cheaper stay. Rooms in the Bastide and by the canal are moderately priced outside high summer, and wine and set lunches are good value, though sleeping or eating inside the Cité walls costs noticeably more.

Colmar's food and wine are reasonable, with village tastings often free, but rooms are its weak point: the town is small, and summer and the Christmas market weeks push hotel prices up sharply. Staying in a nearby village helps.

The two are level, and both are essentially festival towns. Carcassonne's moment is July, when the Festival de Carcassonne brings headline acts to the open-air stage inside the Cité walls, followed by the Bastille Day fireworks over the ramparts. For the rest of the year, opera and major concerts mean the train to Toulouse.

Colmar leans more classical, with a small Italian-style theatre where the Opéra national du Rhin performs on tour, an international classical festival in early July and jazz in autumn. Outside those weeks, serious performances mean Strasbourg or Basel.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, and spa options in both come down to hotels. Carcassonne has the slight extra of the small thermal villages of the upper Aude valley, Rennes-les-Bains and Alet-les-Bains, within an hour's drive.

Their calm is otherwise of a similar kind and differs only in setting: plane-shaded walks along the Canal du Midi and the empty ramparts at dusk in Carcassonne, against canal-side evenings and unhurried walks through the vines in Colmar.