Chamonix or Nice?

These two are far apart on swimming. Chamonix is a high valley with no sea. The best it offers is Lac de Passy, with its grassy shore and view of Mont Blanc, or a drive of a little over an hour to Lake Annecy, and both are only warm enough in July and August.

Nice has a 7km pebble shore right in the city and clear water from June into October. Loungers and water shoes help on the stones. If you want sand, the bays at Villefranche and Beaulieu or the beaches at Juan-les-Pins are an easy trip away.

Chamonix eats like the mountain resort it is: fondue, raclette and tartiflette made with Reblochon and Beaufort, often on a refuge terrace facing a glacier. It is satisfying after a day in the hills, but the menus repeat and many places close between seasons.

Nice gives you more to explore. Socca hot from the oven in the old town, pissaladière, stuffed vegetables and the Cours Saleya market make for a cuisine with real local character. Bellet wine from the hills above the city is a find you will rarely see elsewhere. Avoid the promenade terraces and eating well is easy.

Chamonix's heritage is the story of alpinism: the 1786 ascent of Mont Blanc, the 1924 Winter Olympics, the Musée Alpin and the climbers' cemetery. It is moving if mountains matter to you, but half a day covers it.

Nice has far more to see. Matisse's museum stands among the Roman ruins of Cimiez, Chagall's biblical cycle hangs nearby, and MAMAC covers Yves Klein and the Nouveau Réalistes. Add the ochre lanes of Vieux Nice and the onion domes of the Russian cathedral, and there are two or three full days of sightseeing.

Neither is a clubbing destination, and Nice has the wider choice. Chamonix's nights are après-ski first: a loud, young, largely English-speaking crowd of seasonal workers and guides in the pubs along one old-town lane, mostly in winter, with a lot shut in the shoulder seasons.

Nice spreads its evenings across the wine and cocktail bars of Vieux Nice, a few more grown-up places at the port and summer beach clubs. The crowd is a broader mix of students, locals and visitors. Dinner and drinks are the usual night out, and Monaco or Cannes are where you go for anything glossier.

Nice has an outdoor range most seaside cities would envy: the coastal paths of Cap Ferrat, cycling on the corniches, the Esterel's red rocks, and the Mercantour about two hours inland. But Chamonix is one of the great mountain bases on earth.

From the Chamonix valley floor the Mont Blanc massif rises almost 4km, and cable cars lift you to 3,842m on the Aiguille du Midi without a single step of climbing. The Vallée Blanche, Lac Blanc, the Grand Balcon trails and the oldest guiding company in the world are all right there. Nice can offer a morning on the ski slopes and an afternoon by the sea, while Chamonix offers high-mountain terrain in every season.

Chamonix's outings depend on three borders. Courmayeur and Roman Aosta lie through the tunnel, the Mont Blanc Express runs to Martigny in Switzerland, and Annecy and Geneva are a little over an hour by road. Beyond those, mountain roads mostly lead to other resorts.

Nice is the better base by some distance. Monaco, Èze, Villefranche, Menton, Antibes, Cannes, Grasse and Saint-Paul-de-Vence are almost all under an hour away by train or bus, and Sanremo is just over the Italian border. You could fill a week without hiring a car and without repeating yourself.

Both work for families, in quite different ways. Chamonix suits active children: ski schools and sledging in winter, and in summer the luge, treetop courses, the ibex and marmots of the Merlet park and the little red train to the Mer de Glace. The highest cable cars are a poor idea for toddlers, though, and wet days are hard to fill.

Nice is a city break with a beach for children. There are playgrounds and water jets along the Promenade du Paillon, Parc Phoenix, a flat promenade for pushchairs, and Monaco's aquarium close by. Its weak spots are the pebbles under small feet and the strong summer heat.

Both are easy to manage without a car. Chamonix's buses and train serve one long valley, and they are free with the guest card. The trade-off is crowded ski buses in winter and thin evening services.

Nice's trams run straight from the airport to the centre and the port, and regional trains serve a whole coastline, so the network takes you much further. Summer crowds on coastal trains are the main nuisance.

Chamonix's shops have one real strength: technical climbing, ski and outdoor gear, some from family firms going back generations. Serious mountaineers plan purchases around a visit. Otherwise it is cheese, génépi, rock crystals and souvenirs.

Nice offers more general browsing. There is Galeries Lafayette and the chains on avenue Jean Médecin, luxury houses around rue Paradis, Provençal soaps and olive oil in the old town, and the Monday antiques market on the Cours Saleya. It is pleasant rather than a destination in itself.

Neither is cheap, but Chamonix is the harder place to keep within a budget. Lift passes, the big cable cars, guides and paragliding all add up fast, and peak-season chalets are expensive. Free valley transport and picnic lunches on the trails soften it.

Nice's costs centre on seafront hotels and private beach loungers in summer. Cheap trams and coastal trains make day trips inexpensive, the city's museums cost little to enter, and socca and market food keep meals modest.

Each town has a jazz festival, and that is where the similarity ends. Chamonix's festival puts some sets high in the mountains in summer, but outside that there are only church concerts and mountain film evenings.

Nice has a full season. The red-and-gold Opéra stages opera, ballet and the Nice Philharmonic, the Théâtre National puts on drama, and the February Carnival with its flower battles is a long tradition. Its July jazz festival is one of Europe's oldest.

Chamonix does recovery better. Its large day spa on the Italian thermal model has hot outdoor pools facing the glaciers, many chalets have their own saunas, and Saint-Gervais has warm springs in a wooded gorge down the valley. The town itself is early-rising and busy, so the calm comes from soaking rather than from the setting.

Nice has no bathing tradition, and spa time means hotel treatment rooms or thalassotherapy centres along the coast. Its kind of rest is softer: an early swim, a long lunch and a stroll along the bay, which works best outside the hot, crowded summer.