La Spezia or Montpellier?

Neither city has a beach in town, and both suit beach days rather than a beach vacation, but the coastlines are very different. Around La Spezia the swimming is in small coves of pebble and sand at Lerici, Fiascherino and Tellaro, or off the rocks at Portovenere and Palmaria in very clear water. Much of the shore is taken up by paid bathing establishments, and the sea is a little warmer at its peak.

Montpellier has one long, flat sweep of fine sand, from Palavas and Carnon to the dunes of l'Espiguette. The water is shallow and easy, but there are no coves or rocks to snorkel round.

Montpellier eats better, mainly because the Languedoc vineyards and the Thau lagoon's oysters are on its doorstep. Its covered halls and student-priced counters also give more range at every level, from market lunches to good bistros.

La Spezia's cooking is narrower but very much its own: farinata from wood ovens, mesciua soup, the gulf's rope-grown mussels and pesto on testaroli, with Cinque Terre whites and sweet Sciacchetrà to drink. It is honest port food, with little fine dining.

Montpellier has the richer centre. The car-free Écusson has stone mansions around hidden courtyards, and the Peyrou terrace looks out along its aqueduct. Add France's oldest botanical garden and the Musée Fabre, a collection that justifies a trip of its own.

La Spezia is a nineteenth-century naval town of arcaded avenues with no medieval core. The Amedeo Lia collection and the Lunigiana stele statues in the castle are worth a morning each, but the region's history lies out in Portovenere and the villages.

Montpellier is much the livelier place after dark. Its huge student population fills the bars around Place Jean-Jaurès even on weeknights, and later the crowd takes taxis to clubs towards Lattes and the coast.

La Spezia's evening is the aperitivo on Via del Prione or the Lerici waterfront, and then it is largely over. Most visitors are saving their energy for an early start on the trails.

La Spezia has the edge, because the landscape is right there. The terraced cliffs of the Cinque Terre national park, the Sentiero Azzurro and the quieter ridge paths, Palmaria's forts and sea caves, and diving and kayaking in the gulf are all reachable without a car. The marble peaks of the Apuan Alps add serious hiking.

Montpellier's outdoors is gentler and more spread out. There are flamingo lagoons and the Camargue to the south, and to the north the climb up Pic Saint-Loup and canoeing in the Hérault gorges. Its windy coast is better for kitesurfing and windsurfing.

Both are excellent bases, but for different kinds of outing. From La Spezia the trips are coastal and quick: the five Cinque Terre villages by train, Portovenere by boat, Lerici across the gulf, with Pisa, Lucca and the Riviera towards Portofino as longer days.

Montpellier's trips are about history. There are Roman Nîmes and the Pont du Gard, Arles, Avignon's papal palace and Carcassonne's walls, plus Sète and Aigues-Mortes nearer by. The main sights are on the rail line, but the smaller villages go much better with a car.

Montpellier gives children more to do. There are the Lunaret zoo, the aquarium and planetarium at Odysseum, pedestrian streets and trams that take a pushchair, and beaches where the water stays shallow for a long way out.

La Spezia is safe and calm, and boat trips round the islands and the sheltered sand at San Terenzo make good days. Beyond the naval museum's torpedoes, though, there is little made for children, and the steep paths and crowded trains favour older ones.

Both are easy without a car, in different ways. La Spezia's flat centre is a short walk from end to end, and the town is a rail hub. Coastal trains, buses and ferries reach everything worth seeing, and a car is more trouble than help, though summer trains get crowded.

Montpellier runs on its tram network, which crosses the wider city. The Écusson itself sits on a low hill with slopes and uneven paving. Reaching the beach takes a tram and then a bus, and the hills and Camargue really call for a car.

Montpellier offers somewhat more. There are small boutiques, bookshops and delicatessens in the Écusson lanes, plus the Polygone mall and Odysseum for big brands. La Spezia has chain stores and a few independents along Via del Prione and Corso Cavour. In both, the best things to take home are edible: pesto, Sciacchetrà and anchovies from one, Languedoc wine, olive oil and honey from the other.

Costs come out about the same, but they build up in different places. In La Spezia, a room in town is the way to avoid Cinque Terre village prices, and trains and street food are cheap, but trail passes, boat trips and beach loungers add up.

In Montpellier, the student economy keeps casual food and drink cheap, and lunch menus help. Restaurant dinners with wine are where the money goes. In both cities, rooms cost noticeably more in high summer.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Montpellier has a national orchestra, opera and ballet in the Opéra Comédie and the Corum, and the Montpellier Danse festival, one of Europe's most respected. In summer the Radio France festival adds many free concerts.

La Spezia has the Teatro Civico's season and a long-running summer jazz festival, but for most of the year little is on. Opera means a trip to Genoa or Pisa.

Montpellier is slightly better placed. The spa town of Balaruc-les-Bains is half an hour away on the Thau lagoon, while La Spezia's nearest thermal water is the small baths at Equi Terme, an hour inland. For rest without a spa, quiet Palmaria and off-season Lerici are calmer than Montpellier's lively student centre.