Carcassonne or Zaragoza?

Carcassonne has the edge, though neither is a beach destination. The Lac de la Cavayère, a short drive from the Cité, gives a lifeguarded sandy shore for summer swimming, and the broad, shallow Mediterranean beaches at Gruissan and Narbonne-Plage are close enough for a day out.

Zaragoza has no such escape. The coast is more than 200km away and the Ebro is not for swimming, so in the summer heat the choice is a municipal or hotel pool.

Zaragoza is the better place to eat, mostly for the way people eat there. El Tubo's narrow lanes are lined with counters that each do one thing well, croquetas, mushroom skewers or anchovies, and grazing from one to the next with a glass of Cariñena or Somontano red makes a whole evening. Ternasco lamb and the produce in the modernist Mercado Central add to it.

Carcassonne has one great dish, cassoulet, plus fine local wine and Limoux's sparkling blanquette, but the range is narrow. Meals inside the Cité walls are often set menus for the crowds, so the better cooking is down in the Bastide around Place Carnot and the covered market.

The two are evenly matched but very different. Carcassonne is essentially one tremendous sight: La Cité's fifty-two towers, the rampart walk of the Château Comtal and the stained glass of Saint-Nazaire, with the gridded Bastide and the Canal du Midi below. Beyond that there are few museums, and two days is enough.

Zaragoza spreads its history across many periods and sites. The Basílica del Pilar with its Goya ceilings, the Mudéjar wall of La Seo, the eleventh-century Aljafería palace and the underground Roman forum and baths need two or three days, and the Goya Museum adds a serious collection, though the city around the old core is largely modern.

Zaragoza is far livelier after dark. The evening moves from El Tubo's tapas bars to Plaza San Felipe, Plaza Santa Marta and the Casco, where students pack the streets from Thursday on and a few clubs run into the early hours. During the Fiestas del Pilar in October the city stays up until dawn for days on end.

Carcassonne goes quiet once the day visitors leave. The appeal is a calm walk on the floodlit walls and a glass on a terrace or around Place Carnot, and anyone wanting a real night out has to go to Toulouse or Montpellier.

There is little to choose between them for the outdoors, but the landscapes differ. Carcassonne sits between the beech and chestnut forests of the Montagne Noire and the garrigue-covered Corbières, with rafting in the Aude gorges and the plane-shaded Canal du Midi towpath for gentle cycling.

Zaragoza's surroundings are starker: dry steppe swept by the cierzo, the badlands of the Bardenas Reales and the red towers of the Mallos de Riglos for climbers, with the beech woods of Moncayo for greener walking. It does better within the city, where the Ebro riverside, Parque Grande and Parque del Agua give room to walk and cycle without a car.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is how you travel. Carcassonne's outings are a dense rural circuit best done by car: the Cathar castles of Peyrepertuse, Quéribus and Lastours, villages such as Lagrasse and Minerve, and wine estates in between, with Toulouse and Narbonne easy by train.

Zaragoza adds something Carcassonne cannot, with Madrid and Barcelona both about an hour and a half away by high-speed train. Nearer at hand, Loarre castle, the ruins of Belchite, Tarazona's Mudéjar cathedral and the village of Albarracín are good drives through Aragon.

Zaragoza is the easier city with children, though Carcassonne has the bigger thrill. The Cité is a real castle with drawbridges, ramparts and summer jousting, and the lake, with its water park, and the animal park fill further days. But the steep cobbles, summer crowds and midday heat make it hard going with a pushchair.

Zaragoza is flat, with wide pedestrian squares and a riverside aquarium devoted to the world's rivers, and children are out with their families late into the evening. Sights there mean more to adults, and there is nowhere to swim except a pool.

Zaragoza is simpler to get around. Its sights lie on a flat line between the Pilar riverfront, the Casco and the Aljafería, and a tram, a dense bus network and bike-share fill the gaps, so a car only matters for rural Aragon.

Carcassonne's Bastide is flat and compact, but reaching the Cité means a walk of about twenty-five minutes across the Pont Vieux and uphill, or a shuttle in season. Trains serve Toulouse and Narbonne well, while the castles and villages that make a stay here worthwhile really need a hire car.

Zaragoza offers the better shopping, if mainly of the everyday Spanish kind: fashion chains and a department store along Paseo de la Independencia, old pastry shops on Calle Alfonso I and a large mall on the edge of town. Carcassonne has little beyond plastic swords and Cathar trinkets in the Cité and a modest high street in the Bastide. In both towns the best things to take home are edible: cassoulet and blanquette in Carcassonne, candied fruit and Aragonese wine in Zaragoza.

Zaragoza goes further on a budget. Central hotels are good value most of the year, tapas and set lunches are generous, transport is cheap and the Pilar basilica is free, with only the October fiestas pushing room rates up.

Carcassonne is moderately priced for southern France, but the Cité adds a premium to both beds and meals, and July and August are expensive. Most visitors also need a hire car, which is a cost Zaragoza largely avoids.

Zaragoza has the steadier programme. The Auditorio brings touring orchestras, chamber music and jazz through the season, the Teatro Principal stages plays and dance, and the jota, Aragon's leaping folk dance, comes to the fore at the Fiestas del Pilar.

Carcassonne's moment is July, when the Festival de Carcassonne puts headline acts on the open-air stage inside the Cité walls and Bastille Day ends with fireworks over the ramparts. Outside summer there is only the modest municipal theatre.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and both rely on hotel spas and spa towns about an hour away: Rennes-les-Bains and Alet-les-Bains in the Aude valley, and Alhama de Aragón for Zaragoza. Zaragoza does have an Arab-style bathhouse in town, while Carcassonne's calm depends on the season: the canal towpath and quiet ramparts are restful in spring and autumn but crowded and hot in midsummer.