Girona or Nice?

Girona is an inland river city, so going to the beach means a trip of about 40 minutes to the Costa Brava. When you get there, the coves around Begur and the long bays near Sant Feliu are excellent, and the water is very clear. Without a car, though, the infrequent buses limit how much of the coast you can see.

Nice has its beach in the city, a 7km pebble shore running along the promenade. You can swim before breakfast and be back at your hotel by lunchtime. The stones make the beach clubs' loungers and water shoes worthwhile, and the sand is a short train ride away in Villefranche, Beaulieu or Antibes.

Girona is the place for a long Catalan lunch at a table. Nice is the place for socca eaten hot from the pan in the street. Girona's reputation rests on home cooking such as mar i muntanya and botifarra with beans, on its serious tasting-menu kitchens and on Empordà wine and cava. Street food and international cooking are thin.

In Nice, pissaladière and pan bagnat come from counters in the old town, and the Cours Saleya market sells olives and produce for a picnic. Each city has its tourist traps: the Barri Vell menus in Girona, and in Nice the terraces along the promenade.

Girona is a medieval townscape to walk through, while Nice is a city of art museums. In Girona you walk the walls, see the cathedral's enormous single Gothic nave and the Arab Baths, and get lost in the narrow alleys of the Call, its old Jewish quarter. A day or two covers it, and the museums are small.

Nice has the Matisse and Chagall museums in Cimiez and the Yves Klein works at MAMAC, which give it a depth Girona's collections lack. Its Belle Époque villas and the Russian cathedral add the history of a winter resort to the baroque old town, enough for two or three days.

Neither is a clubbing city, but Nice clearly offers more of a night out. The lanes of Vieux Nice fill with pubs and wine bars that spill onto the street, the port has more grown-up bars, and in summer the beach clubs keep going late. Monaco and Cannes are close if you want something glossier.

In Girona the evening usually ends after a slow dinner on a terrace. There are student bars in term time and a few late music bars at weekends, and most people who want a big night take the train to Barcelona.

Both are strong outdoor bases, with different scenery. Girona is one of the world's great road-cycling towns. Flat greenways on old railway lines run to Olot and the sea, and the beech woods and cinder cones of the Garrotxa volcanic zone are within about an hour.

Nice has the higher mountains closer to the sea. The Mercantour's lakes and ibex are about two hours inland, and the coastal paths around Cap Ferrat start just east of the city. Both have skiing about an hour and a half away, but from Nice you can be back at the sea the same afternoon.

Both make excellent bases for day trips, and the difference lies in how you travel. From Girona, Barcelona is a fast train ride away and Figueres has the Dalí Theatre-Museum. The best of the rest, such as Besalú's fortified bridge, the stone villages of Pals and Peratallada and the ruins at Empúries, are much easier to reach by car.

From Nice, almost everything is a train or bus ride along the coast: Monaco, Menton, Èze, Antibes and Cannes, with Grasse and Saint-Paul-de-Vence inland and Italy just over the border. You never need a car.

Nice is the easier choice with children. The flat promenade suits pushchairs and bikes, the Promenade du Paillon has playgrounds and water jets, and Parc Phoenix and the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco fill a day. The pebble beaches are the main drawback for small children.

Girona is calm and safe, the Devesa park has shade and play areas, and walking the walls feels like an adventure. Almost nothing is built for children, though, and the old town's stairs and cobbles are hard work with a pushchair. Families usually head to the Costa Brava for beach days.

Nice is clearly easier without a car. Its centre is flat and walkable, trams run from the airport to the port, and coastal trains go to the main day-trip towns. You only need to drive into the mountains.

Girona is small enough to walk in about twenty minutes, but the Barri Vell is steep and full of steps. Trains to Barcelona and Figueres are fast. Beyond those, the buses are sparse, and the villages, wineries and coves are why so many visitors hire a car for part of their stay.

Nice has the wider choice. Avenue Jean Médecin has the chain stores and Galeries Lafayette, the streets around rue Paradis have the fashion houses, and the old town sells Provençal soaps, fabrics and olive oil. The Cours Saleya also has a flea and antiques market on Mondays.

Girona is browsing on a small scale: independent shops along the Rambla, Empordà cheeses and sausages from the Mercat del Lleó, and a lot of cycling kit. For anything more, people go to Barcelona.

Girona is the cheaper of the two. Set lunches and everyday taverns are fairly priced, and you can walk almost everywhere. The costs to watch are old-town rooms in summer, during the flower festival and in the cycling season, plus a hire car if you want to see the region.

Nice is expensive in summer, and seafront hotels, beach loungers and promenade terraces all add to the bill. It gets some of that back with cheap trains, inexpensive city museums and socca for lunch. Spring and late autumn are easier on the budget.

Nice has the fuller programme. The nineteenth-century Opéra de Nice stages opera, ballet and the Philharmonic through the season, the Jazz Festival brings big names every July, and Carnival fills February with parades.

Girona has no resident opera or orchestra. Its Auditori hosts touring concerts, and its high point is Temporada Alta, the autumn festival of theatre and dance. Much of the drama is in Catalan, just as much of Nice's is in French.

Near Girona the water to soak in is thermal. Caldes de Malavella, a spring town with Roman roots about 20 minutes south, has hotels with spring-water pools and treatments. In town, quiet lanes in the morning and long lunches set an easy pace.

Nice has the sea instead. You can swim early before the crowds, book a session at one of the thalassotherapy centres towards Monaco or Antibes, and walk the promenade in the evening as the light fades over the bay. It is at its calmest outside high summer.