Dijon or Nantes?

Dijon is deep inland, and the nearest it has to a beach is the supervised lawn-and-sand area at Lac Kir, which is fine for a hot afternoon and no more.

Nantes is also inland, but the Atlantic is within reach. La Baule, Pornic and the Jade coast are around an hour away, and their beaches are wide, clean and calm enough for families. The sea is cool and the swimming season short, so beach days work as an extra for a summer trip rather than its purpose.

Dijon has the deeper food culture. It is the classic Burgundian table of boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin, snails and gougères, alongside its own mustard, pain d'épices and cassis. Les Halles is busy with Bresse poultry and Époisses, there is a real fine-dining tier, and the Cité de la Gastronomie gives the subject a home of its own.

Nantes leans towards fish and white wine: beurre blanc, which was born here, oysters from the nearby coast, galettes and Muscadet. Its bistros in Bouffay and around Graslin are good and fairly priced, but this is a city where you eat well rather than one you travel to for its food.

These two are closely matched, and each is built around a ducal seat. In Dijon it is the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, home to the Musée des Beaux-Arts and the carved Valois tombs, set in a medieval and Renaissance core of half-timbered houses, glazed roofs and the gargoyles of Notre-Dame.

Nantes centres on the moated castle of the Dukes of Brittany, but the story it tells is mostly the later one of an Atlantic port. That means the merchant houses of the Ile Feydeau, an honest account of the slave trade at the castle museum and the riverside memorial, and the Jules Verne museum. Either fills two or three days.

An evening out in Dijon and a night out in Nantes are different things. In Dijon it usually means wine, beer and a late dinner, in the small student bars along Rue Berbisey or on the terraces around Place Émile Zola. There are only a few clubs, and outside term time and summer weekends the streets are quiet by around midnight.

Nantes keeps going much later. The pubs and terraces packed into the medieval Bouffay lanes are only the start. From there the crowd moves to the riverside bars and clubs in the old banana warehouses on the Ile de Nantes, which stay open into the early hours, while Graslin and Madeleine suit a quieter cocktail.

There is little between them on quality, but the landscapes are quite different. Dijon has some relief: the limestone combes just west of town offer trails and climbing cliffs, the canal towpath and the vineyard route to Beaune make easy cycling, and the granite Morvan is about an hour and a half away.

Around Nantes the country is flat and watery. You can paddle or take a boat on the Erdre, cycle the Loire à Vélo route, go birdwatching in the Brière marshes, or walk the cliff paths on the Côte Sauvage. Choose Dijon for wooded hills and Nantes for rivers and the coast.

Dijon has the edge because its best day out starts at the edge of town. The Route des Grands Crus runs through Gevrey-Chambertin and Vougeot to Beaune, with Fontenay Abbey and the hill towns of Auxois further afield. Most of the wine villages are easiest by car, bike or tour, though.

Nantes covers more varied ground: the salt marshes and walls of Guérande, Angers and its Apocalypse Tapestry, Saumur and the Loire châteaux, and Vannes on the Gulf of Morbihan. It has more variety, but less of the single focus that makes Dijon's excursions so rewarding.

Nantes is clearly the better choice with children. The Machines de l'Ile, with its rideable elephant and carousel, is made for them, and the safari park at Port-Saint-Père, Puy du Fou and the sandy beaches can all be done as days out.

Dijon is safe and relaxed, with a small pedestrian centre, a planetarium and Lac Kir for paddling. But most of what fills a stay there, the tastings and fine-art museums, is aimed at adults.

Both are easy to manage on foot and by tram, and both are under two hours or so from Paris by TGV. Dijon is the tighter of the two: the station, market, palace and cathedral are minutes apart, and its two tram lines are mainly useful for the outskirts.

Nantes is larger but flat, with three tram lines, a busway, river shuttles across the Loire and easy cycling. The bigger difference is in getting out of town. Regional trains reach the Nantes beaches, while Dijon's wine villages away from the railway need a car, bike or tour.

Nantes is a little more rewarding to browse. The three-level Passage Pommeraye is a sight in itself, and independent designers and second-hand shops cluster around Bouffay and Decré.

In Dijon, shopping mostly means mustard, cassis, pain d'épices and bottles of Burgundy, plus a few antiques shops off Rue de la Liberté. Neither city is a destination for luxury or fashion.

Dijon works out slightly cheaper day to day. Bistro lunch menus are fair, wine by the glass costs less than in most of France, and the tiny centre means you spend almost nothing on transport. The catch is that cellar tastings, wine tours and serious dinners, the reasons most people come, push the bill up quickly.

In Nantes, hotels are easy to find and good value, but dinners and drinks are at normal French prices, and prices rise on the coast in high summer if you add beach days.

For a city its size, Dijon puts on a respectable season, built around its opera company. It stages opera, concerts and dance in the nineteenth-century Grand Théâtre and in the Auditorium, which is known for its acoustics. The programme follows the academic year, though, and in summer it thins out to a few outdoor events.

In Nantes there is more on, and more of it is out of the ordinary. La Folle Journée fills a few winter days with short classical concerts, and the Lieu Unique in the old biscuit factory hosts contemporary theatre and dance. The city's tradition of giant street puppets also brings performance out into its squares and streets, so summer is a good time for the stage there too.

Neither city has a bathing culture of its own, but Nantes has the stronger option nearby: the long-established thalassotherapy centres at La Baule and Pornic, about an hour away.

Dijon's spas are limited to a few hotels, some offering grape-based treatments in the wine villages. Its restfulness comes from long lunches, quiet squares and slow afternoons among the vines.