Colmar or Toulouse?

Neither city is a place to swim in the sea, and the difference is only in how you cool off. Colmar relies on municipal pools and small mountain lakes up in the Vosges valleys. Toulouse has supervised leisure lakes on the edge of town, and the Mediterranean at Gruissan is about two hours away for anyone willing to make a long day of it.

Both are serious regional food towns, and the choice comes down to which kitchen you prefer. Colmar cooks Alsatian, halfway to Germany: choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée in panelled winstubs, with munster cheese, and Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the slopes just outside town.

Toulouse is duck country, built around cassoulet, confit and foie gras, with Fronton and Gaillac wines and Armagnac. The Victor Hugo market, with its lunch counters upstairs, is a livelier place to eat than Colmar's covered market, and student quarters keep casual meals cheap. Colmar's wine-route restaurants give it a slightly stronger top tier.

These two are evenly matched but feel very different. Colmar is a near-intact half-timbered town of painted façades and canals, small enough to see as a whole, with one world-class masterpiece in Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece at the Unterlinden.

Toulouse works on a larger scale in rose-red brick: Saint-Sernin, one of Europe's biggest Romanesque churches, the palm-tree vault of the Jacobins, the Capitole's state rooms and merchants' mansions turned galleries. Its aircraft museums and space centre add a modern strand that Colmar has nothing to match.

Toulouse is by far the better place for an evening out. Thousands of students crowd the terraces of Place Saint-Pierre and the quays, older drinkers settle into the wine bars around Carmes and the Daurade, and there are clubs and a decent electronic scene, though it goes quieter in high summer.

Colmar's evenings end with dinner and a glass of wine by the canals. A few bars and brasseries stay open, but the town goes to bed early, and locals in search of a night out take the train to Strasbourg.

Colmar has the better countryside on its doorstep. Vineyard paths start within half an hour, and the Munster and Kaysersberg valleys climb to the Route des Crêtes, with views over the Black Forest and sometimes the Alps. Autumn colour on the vines is a highlight.

Around Toulouse the land is flat farmland, with the Canal du Midi towpaths for long, easy rides. The Pyrenees offer far bigger mountains, with high hiking and proper ski stations, but they are a drive of up to two hours, so they make a separate excursion rather than an afternoon out.

Colmar is the stronger base. Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg are a few kilometres apart along the wine route, Strasbourg is half an hour by train, and two other countries, with Basel and Freiburg, are about an hour away. The catch is that the villages are hard to reach without a car or bike.

Toulouse has fewer outings, but they are excellent and easy by train: Carcassonne's ramparts and brick Albi with its Toulouse-Lautrec museum are each about an hour away, and Moissac's cloister is close. Most of the rest, such as Cordes-sur-Ciel and Foix, requires a car.

Families do equally well in either city, but the outings are spread differently. In Colmar the town itself offers boat rides, storks and a children's Christmas market, while the bigger draws, such as the monkey park at Kintzheim, Hunawihr's otters and Europa-Park, need a car.

Toulouse keeps its star attraction close to town: the Cité de l'espace, with its walk-through Mir module, and the aircraft museum with a Concorde are a bus ride away. Summer heat is the thing to plan around there.

Toulouse is easier without a car. Its centre is walkable, and two automated metro lines, trams and a bike scheme cover the rest, though the space centre and Pyrenees still take a bus or a drive.

Colmar is even smaller on foot, with everything a few minutes apart and fast trains to Strasbourg. Beyond town, buses to the wine villages and the Vosges are thin, so most visitors end up hiring a car or bicycle.

Toulouse is the better shopping city, with chains and a department store on Rue d'Alsace-Lorraine, independent and designer boutiques in Saint-Étienne, and a large Sunday market at Saint-Sernin. Its best buys are edible: violet sweets, Armagnac and cassoulet in jars.

Colmar is about regional souvenirs: wine bought from the grower, Soufflenheim pottery, kougelhopf moulds and Alsatian linen. Its Christmas markets are a high point of the year, but for fashion there is little.

Costs are much the same in both, moderate by Western European standards, with good set lunches in each. In Colmar the pressure point is rooms, which get scarce and expensive in summer and during the Christmas markets, though free tastings in the villages help.

Toulouse is a larger city with more hotels, so rooms cost more only around big trade fairs. Cheap student bars and free museum days make it easier on a tight budget.

Toulouse is well ahead. The Théâtre du Capitole runs a full opera and ballet season with its own company, the Orchestre National du Capitole plays in the round Halle aux Grains, and there are small theatres, jazz bars and the Rio Loco festival by the river.

Colmar's small municipal theatre and touring Opéra du Rhin give it a modest season, with the life concentrated in the July classical festival, autumn jazz and wine-fair concerts. For more, people travel to Strasbourg or Basel.

Neither has a spa culture, so both come down to hotel spas and a slow pace. Colmar's calm is that of a small town after the day-trippers leave, with canal-side evenings and walks among the vines. Toulouse offers shaded squares and Canal du Midi rides, and the thermal towns of Luchon and Ax-les-Thermes in the Pyrenees, which are best visited overnight.