Marseille or Montpellier?

Marseille has the better swimming, and the variety is wider. The Prado beaches suit families, locals swim off the rocks at the Vallon des Auffes before work, and the clear turquoise inlets of the Calanques and the coves of the Frioul islands give you water that the Languedoc coast simply cannot match.

Montpellier's sea is a tram and bus ride away at Palavas and Carnon, on a long flat strip of fine sand running to the dunes of l'Espiguette. The shallow, gently shelving water is easy for weaker swimmers, but there are no coves or rocky inlets, and the nearer beaches fill up in July and August.

Both cities eat well, but differently. Marseille cooks like a port: bouillabaisse as a long, serious meal in the Corniche harbours, fish sold on the Vieux-Port quay in the morning, and Noailles full of North African, Comorian and Armenian shops. It has the more cosmopolitan street food, though the set menus around the old port need avoiding.

Montpellier eats the Languedoc around it: Pic Saint-Loup wines, oysters and mussels from the Thau lagoon, and Sète's octopus tielle. The market halls and student bistros are its strength, rather than range or high-end dining.

The two are well matched, but the experience differs. Marseille's heritage is big and scattered through a rough-edged working city: Notre-Dame de la Garde on its hill, the forts and the MuCEM at the harbour mouth, the Château d'If offshore and Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse out in the suburbs.

Montpellier keeps its history in one compact, mostly car-free old town of stone mansions and courtyards, from the Peyrou terrace and its aqueduct to the medieval medical faculty. The Musée Fabre gives it the stronger painting collection, and two or three days cover it.

Neither city is a reason to come for nightlife on its own, and both are informal rather than polished. Marseille's evenings centre on the graffiti-painted bars of Cours Julien and La Plaine and the pastis terraces of the Vieux-Port, with electronic nights in old warehouses, though some central streets feel edgy late at night.

Montpellier's large student population fills the bars around Place Jean-Jaurès on weeknights too. Clubs sit out towards Lattes and the coast, and the centre goes noticeably quiet outside term time.

Marseille is clearly ahead, because it has a national park within its city limits. The white limestone ridges and deep blue inlets of Sormiou, Sugiton and En-Vau are walking, climbing, kayaking and diving country, and Sainte-Victoire and the Sainte-Baume forest are within an hour. In summer, fire risk can close the massifs.

Montpellier's outdoors is gentler and further spread: flamingos on the coastal lagoons, the Camargue about an hour away, the climb up Pic Saint-Loup and canoeing in the Hérault gorges. Its flat cycle paths and windy coast suit cyclists and kitesurfers more than walkers after drama.

Both are excellent bases, and they overlap: Arles, Avignon, Nîmes and the Pont du Gard are reachable from either. The difference is direction. Marseille looks east into Provence, with Aix-en-Provence about half an hour away, Cassis under its cliffs, the Luberon hill villages and the Bandol wine estates.

Montpellier looks west and south, with Carcassonne's walled citadel, the canals of Sète, Aigues-Mortes in the salt marshes and Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert in its gorge. From both, the smaller villages are much easier with a car.

Montpellier is the easier city with children. It has the Lunaret zoo in its wooded park, an aquarium and a planetarium side by side at Odysseum, a pedestrian old town and trams that take a pushchair without fuss.

Marseille has good moments, such as the lawns of the Prado beaches, the lake in Parc Borély and boat trips to the Château d'If, but there is no zoo, aquarium or theme park. Steep streets, traffic and narrow pavements make a buggy hard work, so families tend to stay near the southern beaches.

Montpellier is much simpler to get around. Its small, mostly car-free centre is easy on foot, and the tram links the station, the old town, Antigone, Odysseum and the universities in one network. The beaches need a tram and then a slow summer bus.

Marseille's core is walkable but steep. Two metro lines and the trams cover the centre, but the city sprawls across hills and bays, and buses to the beaches and Calanques trailheads get stuck in traffic. The little ferries across the Vieux-Port and out to L'Estaque are the pleasant exception.

Neither is a shopping destination, and neither has a real luxury street. What differs is what you bring home. Marseille's buys are craft and local: green cubes of olive-oil soap, painted santon figures from Le Panier workshops, and fabrics, spices and kitchenware in the narrow streets of Noailles.

Montpellier's best buys are edible, with wine, olive oil and honey from the market halls, and its old-town lanes have pleasant small boutiques and bookshops beside the big Polygone mall.

Costs are broadly similar, both sitting in the middle for a French city, and in both places rooms get much dearer in July and August. Marseille keeps everyday eating cheap through pizza, North African snacks and market food, and walking in the Calanques costs nothing.

Montpellier's student population gives it a deep layer of inexpensive bars and casual counters, and the market halls and lunch menus help a budget stretch a little further.

Montpellier has the more serious stage for its size. The Opéra Comédie and the modern Opéra Berlioz share a season with the national orchestra, the Montpellier Danse festival is one of Europe's most respected, and the Radio France festival in summer brings many free classical and jazz concerts.

Marseille leans more popular and Mediterranean. It has a full opera season, serious drama at La Criée and mixed programmes at the Friche la Belle de Mai, and its real strength is hip-hop and world music, with the Fiesta des Suds in autumn.

Neither city is a place to come for rest, and neither has a bathing tradition of its own. The difference is what lies nearby. From Montpellier, the thermal spa at Balaruc-les-Bains on the Thau lagoon is about half an hour away and takes day visitors, and the old town's shaded squares slow the pace a little.

Marseille is louder and more intense, with only a few local hammams. Visitors who want calm usually sleep in Cassis or inland and come into the city for the day.