French Alps or French Riviera?

The French Alps have no sea, only lakes. Lake Annecy is clear and pleasant in high summer, with grassy beaches and jetties at Sévrier and Talloires. Still, the beaches are small, the season is short and swimming is a side pleasure of a lake stay.

The Riviera is a proper beach destination. You can choose between pebbles at Nice and Menton, sand at Cannes, Juan-les-Pins and Pampelonne, and rocky coves in the Esterel, and the sea stays warm enough to swim from June into early October. The catch is the private concessions and the crowded public stretches in July and August.

Alpine food has far less range than the Riviera's. Everyday cooking in the mountains means melted cheese: fondue, raclette and tartiflette, made with Beaufort and Reblochon bought from the farm. It is hearty after a day outside but gets repetitive over a week, and the decorated kitchens around Lake Annecy and in Courchevel are the exception.

The Riviera's cooking is lighter and more varied. Nice has a cuisine of its own, built on olive oil, vegetables and herbs, with socca, pissaladière and daube with ravioli, and the Cours Saleya market is a better place to graze than any resort menu. Serious restaurants also run from Menton to Cannes, so once you move away from the set menus on the seafront, the coast is the better place to eat.

Sightseeing in the Alps fills half days: Annecy's canals and the Palais de l'Isle, the ducal château in Chambéry, Grenoble's fine-arts museum and the Vauban walls at Briançon. They are pleasant, but few people plan a trip around them.

The Riviera has a modern-art circuit of real weight. There are Matisse and Chagall museums in Nice, Picasso in Antibes, Matisse's chapel at Vence and the Fondation Maeght, plus Monaco's palace, the Villa Ephrussi and the Roman trophy at La Turbie. A visitor interested in culture will be much busier here.

The two go out in opposite seasons. Alpine nightlife is winter après-ski: dancing on tables at mountain restaurants and late clubs in Val Thorens or Val d'Isère, while many family villages are quiet by ten. In summer, evenings come down to Annecy's terraces and Grenoble's student bars.

The Riviera's season is summer, and it has more on offer. There are beach clubs in Saint-Tropez and Monaco, late bars in Cannes and Juan-les-Pins, and wine bars and pubs in the lanes of Nice's old town and port, where students keep things going all year. It is the more varied night out, though rarely a cheap one.

Both have mountains, but the Alps have them on a far greater scale. The Aiguille du Midi cable car takes you up among the glaciers above Chamonix, the Vanoise and Écrins hold ibex and wild passes, and in winter the Tarentaise ski areas are among the largest anywhere.

The Riviera's appeal is mountains meeting the sea. It has paths round Cap Ferrat and Cap d'Antibes, red rock in the Esterel, diving off the Lérins islands, and the Mercantour about one and a half hours inland. It offers more on the water but less in scale, and summer heat and fire closures shut some trails.

Both offer plenty of outings, but of different kinds. From Annecy or Lake Geneva, the Alps reach out to cities and neighbouring countries: Geneva, the ferries to Lausanne and Lavaux, Lyon by train, and Aosta through the Mont Blanc tunnel. Deep in the Tarentaise valleys, though, the drive takes up most of the day.

The Riviera's trips are shorter and closer together. The coastal train runs to Villefranche, Monaco and Menton, and there are hilltop villages such as Eze and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Grasse, the Lérins islands by boat and Italian market towns just over the border. Many are variations on a pretty village, where the Alps offer bigger changes of scene.

The Alps are set up for children in a way the coast is not. Ski schools with snow gardens, car-free resorts such as Avoriaz and Flaine, and summer outings on the Mer de Glace railway or spotting marmots give families a ready-made programme, though cold mornings and transfer days take effort.

On the Riviera, family days centre on gently shelving sand at Juan-les-Pins and Fréjus, Monaco's aquarium and Parc Phoenix. Summer heat, traffic, expensive family rooms and hill villages full of steps make it harder going, so early summer or September works best.

In the Alps, lifts make a resort easy to get around once you are there. Getting there means a transfer from Geneva, Lyon or Grenoble, Saturday queues up the Tarentaise and patchy buses to the higher villages. In summer the lakes and passes lie in separate valleys, so a car is close to essential.

The Riviera is far easier without one. A single coastal railway links Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Monaco and Menton, and Nice has a tram to the airport and a walkable centre. Only Saint-Tropez and the hill villages call for more patience.

Shopping in the Alps is narrow but useful. Chamonix is one of Europe's best places for technical mountain gear, and Courchevel and Megève have luxury boutiques for the winter crowd. Beaufort cheese, Génépi and Opinel knives make good things to take home.

The Riviera has much more to browse. The big fashion names line the Croisette in Cannes and the streets around the Monte-Carlo casino, and Nice has department stores. Its crafts are distinctive too: perfume in Grasse, bubbled glass in Biot, pottery in Vallauris and a Monday antiques market on the Cours Saleya.

Neither is a budget destination, and each is dearest in a different season. In the Alps the big costs come in winter: lift passes, equipment hire, ski school and chalets in school-vacation weeks. Summer stays and towns such as Grenoble and Chambéry have ordinary French prices.

The Riviera is dearest in summer, when rooms in Saint-Tropez, Monaco and Cannes cost as much as anywhere in Europe. Nice is the sensible base, the trains and buses are cheap, and the public beaches and coastal paths are free. In both regions, the quieter months between seasons cost noticeably less.

There is little music or theatre in the Alps. Grenoble has an arts centre and a chamber orchestra, Annecy and Chambéry have small civic stages, and summer brings chamber music at Évian and concerts in mountain churches. In the ski season it is mostly bands in après-ski bars.

The Riviera has a real programme. Monte-Carlo's gilded opera house, its philharmonic orchestra and the Ballets de Monte-Carlo fill the winter, and Nice has its own opera and orchestra. Summer adds jazz in the pine grove at Juan-les-Pins and on Place Masséna in Nice.

The Alps have a spa tradition that goes back to Roman times. Aix-les-Bains has its Belle Époque hotels, Évian its lakeside promenades and Saint-Gervais its baths in a gorge below Mont Blanc, and small towns such as Brides-les-Bains exist for the cure. Add quiet summer days by Lake Annecy and the region is an easy place to slow down, as long as you avoid a resort in full ski season.

The Riviera offers thalassotherapy in Monaco and on the capes, and large hotel spas on Cap Ferrat and Cap d'Antibes. Whether you get any rest depends on timing: July and August are loud, and spring or autumn in the hill villages suits a slower stay better.