Corsica or French Riviera?

Both coasts give excellent summer swimming, so the real difference is the kind of beach. Corsica has a slight edge for sand and for space. In the far south there are Palombaggia, Santa Giulia and Rondinara, the Agriates beaches can only be reached by boat or a long track, and granite coves run down the west coast.

The Riviera's shore is more urban. Nice and Menton sit on pebbles, the sand is at Cannes, Juan-les-Pins and Pampelonne, and private beach concessions take much of it. In return you can swim straight from town and walk back to dinner.

Corsica's table is narrower but very much its own, mountain food rather than seaside food: lonzu and figatellu, brocciu in omelettes and fiadone, wild boar and dishes made with chestnut flour. It is best eaten in inland village inns with a bottle from Patrimonio, and there is little beyond Corsican and French cooking.

The Riviera eats better and with more range. Nice has a cuisine of its own, with socca from wood ovens, pissaladière and stuffed vegetables, and the morning market on the Cours Saleya sells olives, citrus and goat's cheese. Serious restaurants sit close together from Menton to Cannes, so a food lover can plan a whole trip around them. On both coasts, the seafront menus are the ones to avoid.

For sightseeing the Riviera is the richer choice. It is built around modern art made on this coast: Matisse and Chagall in Nice, Picasso in the castle at Antibes and the Fondation Maeght. Monaco's palace and the Belle Epoque front of Nice add to it.

Corsica's history is of a different kind: Genoese citadels and watchtowers, Bonifacio on its white cliffs, the upper town of Corte and the carved stones of Filitosa. It rewards a road trip, but there is no museum circuit to compare.

A night out is far easier on the Riviera. The bars in Nice's old town and port keep going all year, and in summer Saint-Tropez, Monaco, Cannes and Juan-les-Pins add beach clubs and late bars. Corsica's evenings are long dinners and harbour terraces. In summer there are a few open-air clubs behind Porto-Vecchio and some busy bars in Calvi, and little else.

Corsica has the wilder landscape. Peaks of more than 2,700m rise close to the shore, the GR20 runs along the island's spine, and there are the Calanques de Piana, the sea cliffs of Scandola, Bavella and the lakes above the Restonica, with rivers for canyoning in between.

The Riviera's scenery is fine but tamer: cape paths past villa gardens, the red rock of the Esterel, and the Mercantour about one and a half hours from Nice. It fits easily into a city stay but is less of an adventure in itself.

Outings from the Riviera are quicker and more varied. The coastal train makes Villefranche, Monaco and Menton easy half-days, the hill villages and Grasse are just inland, and Sanremo and Dolceacqua in Italy are close by.

On Corsica each base has its own handful of trips. From the south there is Sartène or the ferry to Sardinia, from Calvi the Balagne villages, from Bastia Cap Corse, and Corte is reachable by the railway. Slow mountain roads put the rest of the island out of reach in a day.

For families, both work best as a beach vacation and neither is perfect. Corsica offers calm, shallow water at Santa Giulia, campsites and resort villages with pools, river pools and a safe, unhurried feel. The costs are long, twisting drives and almost nothing built for children.

The Riviera has gently shelving sand at Juan-les-Pins, Cannes and Fréjus, and it also has places made for children: the aquarium in Monaco's Oceanographic Museum, Parc Phoenix and the water parks near Antibes. Against that come summer crowds, expensive family rooms and hill villages that no pushchair can manage.

The Riviera is much simpler to get around. A railway along the shore links Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Monaco and Menton, and Nice has a tram to the airport, so if you stay near a station you do not need a car.

Corsica almost requires one. Its roads are narrow and slow and buses are rare. The scenic little railway between Ajaccio, Corte, Bastia and Calvi never reaches the south, where the best beaches are.

The Riviera is the place to shop. There are luxury boutiques in Cannes, Monte-Carlo and Saint-Tropez and department stores in Nice, and you can buy perfume in Grasse, glass in Biot and pottery in Vallauris. Corsica's shopping is mostly things to take home: charcuterie, cheese, wine, honey and hand-forged knives from the Ajaccio and Bastia markets, or crafts from the Balagne villages.

Neither is cheap in summer, and they are about equally hard on a budget, for different reasons. In Corsica the costs come from coastal rooms in Porto-Vecchio, Bonifacio and Calvi and from the car and ferry you can hardly do without. Campsites and inland villages are where it gets cheaper.

On the Riviera the trains and buses are the one bargain, while Saint-Tropez, Monaco and Cannes are among the most expensive places to stay in Europe. Nice is the sensible base. In both places, travelling in June or September helps.

The Riviera has a real stage life. The opera house in the Monte-Carlo casino building, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic and the Ballets de Monte-Carlo perform in winter, Nice has its own opera and orchestra, and summer brings jazz at Juan-les-Pins and in Place Masséna.

Corsica's own tradition is polyphonic singing in village churches, and summer adds jazz in Calvi and guitar evenings near Patrimonio. Outside summer there is little to go to.

The two offer rest of different kinds, with the Riviera slightly ahead for anyone who wants treatments. It has thalassotherapy centres in Monaco and on the capes and large spas in the grand hotels of Cap Ferrat and Cap d'Antibes, though the resorts are loud in July and August.

Corsica has few spas and only modest springs such as Pietrapola. Its slow pace, siestas and quiet mountain villages make it easy to unwind without any treatment at all.