Lake George or Quebec City?

In summer Lake George is a real swimming destination. It has a long, clear freshwater lake, a broad lifeguarded sand beach at the south end of the village, and smaller beaches at Shepard Park and Bolton Landing. By boat you can also reach the islands in the Narrows. The beaches are modest in size and fill early on hot weekends, but the water is the reason to come.

At Quebec City the St Lawrence is too cold and fast for real swimming, and the river beach at Baie de Beauport is for sunbathing and volleyball. To swim you drive to Lac Saint-Joseph or Lac-Beauport. Their water is a little cooler than Lake George's, and a visit is a weekend outing rather than a daily routine.

Lake George eats like an American summer resort: pizza, pancakes, ice cream and waterfront decks where you pay more for the view than the cooking. The more careful dining rooms, with Adirondack game and lake fish, are up the western shore near Bolton Landing, and many visitors drive to Saratoga Springs for a proper dinner.

In Quebec City food is part of the reason to go. French-Canadian cooking has deep roots here, from tourtière and pea soup to maple taffy pulled on snow. The bistros of Saint-Roch and Saint-Jean-Baptiste cook with cheese, duck and cider from the Île d'Orléans and Charlevoix. If you avoid the set menus inside the walls, you eat well for a city of its size.

At Lake George the history comes down to Fort William Henry, a reconstruction of the fort besieged in 1757, and a small museum in the old courthouse. The rest of the village is motels and arcades, and the region's major sites are a drive away.

Quebec City is in another league. It is the only city north of Mexico whose fortified walls still stand, and inside them are the Château Frontenac, the Citadelle, Place Royale and four centuries of churches and convents. The 1759 battlefield on the Plains of Abraham and two serious museums sit alongside. It is compact rather than deep, so a few days cover it well.

Nights out at Lake George mostly happen on summer weekends, at deck bars on Canada Street and the waterfront. They fill with boaters and day-trippers drinking beer with a view of the lake, and from autumn onwards the village is quiet.

Quebec City has more variety and keeps going for more of the year, although its club scene is small. You can choose between party terraces on the Grande Allée, taprooms and student pubs along Rue Saint-Jean, and the cocktail and wine bars in Saint-Roch where locals drink.

Both are strong bases for the outdoors, but in different ways. At Lake George the lake is the main attraction: you can kayak and sail among more than a hundred islands and through the Narrows, and climb Prospect, Black and Tongue Mountain for views over the water. The High Peaks are under two hours north, and the skiing at Gore Mountain is about an hour away.

Quebec City's nature is on a larger, wilder scale, especially in winter. Montmorency Falls is fifteen minutes out, the Jacques-Cartier valley offers canoeing and moose in boreal forest, and the runs at Le Massif drop towards the St Lawrence. For a snow vacation of skating, snowshoeing and ice canoeing, Quebec City is the better choice. For a summer on the water, choose Lake George.

Both have a short list of good outings, and all of them need a car. From Lake George the trips are mostly American history and old towns: Saratoga Springs with its spa and racecourse, Fort Ticonderoga above Lake Champlain, Olympic Lake Placid and the Vermont towns to the east.

Quebec City's outings are closer, more rural and more French. The farm road round the Île d'Orléans is twenty minutes away, and the others are the shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, the Huron-Wendat community at Wendake and the galleries of Baie-Saint-Paul in Charlevoix.

In summer Lake George is built for children. There is The Great Escape and its water park, a gently sloping lifeguarded beach, paddlewheel steamboats from the pier, and mini golf and arcades along Canada Street, with cottages and motels with pools to stay in. The drawback is that most of it shuts outside the summer.

Quebec City is good with children too. It has the polar bears and walruses at the aquarium, the cable car at Montmorency Falls and hands-on museum exhibits, and in winter there are toboggan runs and skating. Its steep stairways are hard with a pushchair, though, and in summer it has less for children than the lake does.

The walkable part of Lake George is tiny, just a few minutes from Canada Street to the pier and the fort. Seasonal trolleys help a little, but everywhere else needs a car, and summer traffic and parking are a nuisance.

In Quebec City you can manage without a car for most of a stay. You can walk between the upper and lower towns, the Plains of Abraham, Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Saint-Roch, using the stairways and the funicular, and buses and the Lévis ferry cover the rest. The cliff and winter ice make walking hard work, and you still need a car for the parks further out.

Lake George's shopping is mostly T-shirts and fudge on Canada Street and the brand outlets on Route 9. The best gifts are Adirondack crafts, maple syrup and balsam pillows.

Quebec City has more to browse, although nothing grand. There are craft workshops and milliners in Petit-Champlain, antiques on Rue Saint-Paul, and independent fashion and book shops on Rue Saint-Joseph. Good things to take home include ice cider, Québécois cheeses and Inuit art. Neither city suits a luxury shopping trip.

Neither is cheap. In July and August Lake George charges full resort rates, and boat rentals, meals and theme park tickets add up quickly for a family. You save by staying in older motels on Route 9, in cottages with kitchens or in Glens Falls, and by coming on weekdays or outside the summer.

Quebec City is a little easier on the wallet. Its best sights, the walls, the Dufferin Terrace and the Plains of Abraham, are free, and you need no car in town. Hotels inside the walls are expensive in summer and tax and tip add to every restaurant bill, so rooms in Saint-Roch and set lunches help.

At Lake George live performance is outdoors and seasonal: free concerts in Shepard Park, a September jazz weekend, an August chamber music festival and summer theatre. For bigger names you drive under an hour to the amphitheatre in Saratoga Springs.

Quebec City has a year-round home for music in the Grand Théâtre, base of Canada's oldest symphony orchestra and the city's opera company. Le Diamant, founded by Robert Lepage, stages experimental work. In July the Festival d'été fills the Plains of Abraham with international bands for a week and a half, though most theatre is in French.

Lake George offers a summer kind of rest: an early paddle on still water, a lakeside cottage, or a full spa at one of the grand resort hotels on the points near Bolton Landing. The village itself is anything but calm in July and August. For a proper soak you have to drive to the old mineral baths at Saratoga Springs, so the quietest time to come is early autumn.

Quebec City is better for a relaxing trip, because unwinding is part of local life there. Its Nordic spas take you between heat and cold outdoors, in the forest around Lac-Beauport, along the river and even down in the old port. They work in every season and are at their best when snow is on the ground, so the city stays restful even in January. Between visits, the clifftop promenades and the cafés of Saint-Jean-Baptiste keep the pace slow, which Lake George only manages once the summer crowds have gone.