Dijon or Montpellier?

Dijon is no place for a beach trip. Swimming there means Lac Kir's supervised lawn-and-sand area on a hot afternoon, or a pool.

Montpellier has real sea within about 11km. Fine sand runs from Palavas and Carnon past La Grande-Motte to the wild dunes of l'Espiguette, and the shelving water is easy for swimmers. It is a flat, sandy coast that gets crowded in high summer, but it makes beach days a natural part of the stay.

The two eat equally well, but in different regions. Dijon offers classic Burgundian cooking, boeuf bourguignon, snails, jambon persillé and Époisses, with mustard, cassis and village Burgundies poured by the glass, and a more serious fine-dining tier.

Montpellier leans towards the Mediterranean, with Thau oysters and mussels, Sète's tielle, Pic Saint-Loup wines and a lot of cheap, casual student eating. Its market halls, including Laissac's eat-in counters, are good for grazing, while Dijon's Les Halles is more a place to shop for a picnic.

Both reward two or three days, and neither has one sight of world rank. Dijon's appeal is ducal: the palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, the carved Valois tombs in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the gargoyles and lucky owl of Notre-Dame, and Sluter's Well of Moses.

Montpellier's old town has hidden courtyards, the formal Peyrou terrace with its aqueduct and France's oldest botanical garden. The Musée Fabre is the stronger picture gallery, and Bofill's Antigone adds twentieth-century architecture that has no counterpart in Dijon.

Both are university towns, but Montpellier's student population is much larger and you can feel the difference after dark. Its terraces around Place Jean-Jaurès and the Écusson fill on weeknights, and the crowd moves on to clubs towards Lattes and the coast in the small hours.

In Dijon, evenings centre on Rue Berbisey's small bars, wine and a late dinner. There are only a few clubs, and outside term time the streets are quiet by midnight.

Dijon's countryside is gentle: the wooded combes west of town for short walks and climbing, the flat Burgundy Canal towpath and the vineyard cycle route to Beaune, with the Morvan the wildest landscape within reach.

Montpellier has more variety close by. There are flamingo lagoons and the Camargue to the south, Pic Saint-Loup to climb, and the Hérault gorges for canoeing, with the Cirque de Navacelles beyond. The windy coast also brings kitesurfing, which Dijon cannot offer.

Dijon's outings mostly follow one theme, wine. The Route des Grands Crus runs south through Gevrey-Chambertin and Vougeot to walled Beaune, about twenty minutes by train, and on to Meursault. Fontenay Abbey, Semur-en-Auxois and Alésia make a second kind of day to the north-west, and Besançon's citadel is an hour away by rail.

Montpellier covers more history and more scenery. Trains reach Roman Nîmes in about half an hour, Arles and Avignon's papal palace in about an hour and Carcassonne's citadel in about an hour and a half. The Pont du Gard is a short drive beyond Nîmes. Sète, Aigues-Mortes and Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert are closer still. Around both cities, the smaller villages are far easier with a car.

Dijon is calm and safe with children, with a planetarium and natural history museum at the Arquebuse and paddling at Lac Kir. Still, most of what fills a visit, from tastings to fine-art museums, is aimed at adults.

Montpellier gives children much more. The Lunaret zoo is set in woodland, Odysseum has an aquarium and planetarium, and gently shelving beaches suit small swimmers. Plan around the summer heat with mornings at the beach and afternoons indoors.

Dijon is the easier city to cover on foot. Its compact, mostly pedestrian centre puts the station, Les Halles, the palace and the cathedral a few minutes apart. Two tram lines and the buses cover the outskirts, with a bus out to Lac Kir, and regional trains run down the wine route to Beaune.

Montpellier's Écusson is just as free of cars, but it sits on a low hill with slopes and uneven paving. The city spreads wider, so its larger tram network does more of the work, linking the station with Antigone, Port Marianne and Odysseum. Reaching the beach means a tram and then a bus, which is slow in summer. Outside town, Dijon's wine villages and Montpellier's gorges and Camargue are both far simpler with a car.

In both cities the best things to buy are edible, but Montpellier has a little more range otherwise. It has boutiques and bookshops in the Écusson lanes, plus the Polygone and Odysseum malls for big brands.

Dijon's shopping is mostly mustard, pain d'épices, cassis and Burgundy from the cellars. Rue de la Liberté has a department store and chains, and the side lanes have antiques. Neither city suits a luxury spree.

Costs are much the same, typical of a French regional city, and the bill grows for different reasons. In Dijon it is cellar tastings, wine tours and fine bottles of Burgundy, though bistro lunch menus and wine by the glass stay fair.

In Montpellier, student counters and markets keep everyday eating cheap, but rooms in town and on the coast cost noticeably more in July and August.

Montpellier has the stronger stage, especially for dance. The Montpellier Danse festival and the national choreographic centre are well known across Europe, and summer adds the Radio France festival's many free concerts and outdoor theatre at the Domaine d'O.

Dijon's opera company has a solid season at the Grand Théâtre and the acoustically fine Auditorium. It follows the academic year, though, so summer visitors find little beyond outdoor events.

Neither is a spa destination, but Montpellier has proper thermal water nearby. Balaruc-les-Bains on the Thau lagoon is about half an hour away and takes day visitors.

Dijon offers only a few hotel spas, some with grape-based treatments in the wine villages. Its restfulness comes from quiet squares and slow vineyard afternoons, and it is calmer than Montpellier's lively student centre.