Milan or Montpellier?

Montpellier wins this one easily. A long strip of fine, gently shelving sand starts about 11km away at Palavas and Carnon and runs east to the dunes of l'Espiguette, with Sète's lagoon-backed beaches to the west. It is open, flat coast rather than coves, and busy in high summer.

Milan has no sea at all. Swimming means the Idroscalo basin, a city pool or an hour's train to the pebbly lidos of Como and Maggiore, which works as an occasional summer outing and nothing more.

Milan gives you more range and more depth. Alongside its buttery northern cooking, risotto alla milanese and cotoletta, it serves the cuisines of the whole of Italy and has a serious tier of fine dining. The aperitivo ritual in the Navigli, Brera and Isola is a meal in itself.

Montpellier eats closer to the land: Thau oysters, tielle from Sète, Pic Saint-Loup wines and the produce of the Halles Castellane and the Arceaux market. Its strength is honest bistros and market cooking, cheap student places and terrace evenings, not a long list of ambitious tables.

Milan has the heavier sights: the Duomo, the Last Supper, the Brera gallery and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà in the Castello Sforzesco, with Sant'Ambrogio and the Ambrosiana behind them. These come in clusters within a largely modern city, and the big names need booking.

Montpellier is the opposite in kind, a single, coherent medieval old town of courtyards and stone mansions where wandering is the main pleasure. The Musée Fabre, the Peyrou terrace and France's oldest botanical garden reward a visit, but two or three days see it all.

Milan offers more choice and a dressier evening. Aperitivo leads to bars on the Navigli towpaths, Porta Venezia carries the gay scene, and clubs run from image-conscious Corso Como to warehouse nights on the edge of town. It quietens in August.

Montpellier's nights are younger and louder, fed by students on the terraces of Place Jean-Jaurès and the Écusson, with clubs out towards Lattes reached by taxi. It is fun and casual but goes quiet outside term time.

Montpellier has more variety right on the doorstep: flamingos on the lagoons, the Camargue an hour away, the climb up Pic Saint-Loup and canoeing in the Hérault gorges near Saint-Guilhem. The windy coast also suits kitesurfers, though summer in the garrigue is hot.

Milan itself is flat and hazy, but the train takes you to dramatic scenery: the wooded slopes of Como and Maggiore, the Grigne ridges for serious hiking and via ferrata, and ski resorts in winter. You simply have to travel further to reach it.

Both are excellent bases, and Milan has the edge because of its high-speed rail. Verona, Turin, Bergamo and Lake Como are all about an hour away, and Bologna, Mantua, Parma, the Certosa di Pavia and Swiss Lugano are also within reach, nearly all without a car.

Montpellier's trips lean towards Roman and medieval southern France. Nîmes, Arles, Avignon and Carcassonne are easy by train, and Sète and Aigues-Mortes are close by. The Pont du Gard is a short drive beyond Nîmes, though, and several of the smaller villages are much easier to reach with a car.

Montpellier is the easier choice with children. A pedestrian old town, pushchair-friendly trams, calm shallow beaches, the Lunaret zoo and the Odysseum aquarium and planetarium give a simple routine of beach mornings and indoor afternoons.

Milan works but is built for adults. The science and technology museum, with its submarine, is a strong rainy-day choice, and the theme parks at Leolandia and Gardaland please older children, but the main sights and the humid summers do little for younger ones.

Both have compact, walkable centres and need no car in town, so the difference is in the system. Milan has five metro lines plus a dense tram network on flat streets, and direct trains to the lakes, though the Malpensa transfer is long.

Montpellier runs on trams across a smaller city, and its hilltop old town has slopes and uneven paving. The beach means a slow tram and bus in summer, and the gorges and Camargue really call for a car.

This is Milan's strongest suit by a wide margin. The fashion houses' flagships on Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga, the historic shops of the Galleria, La Rinascente, design showrooms and vintage in Brera and Porta Ticinese make shopping a reason to go.

Montpellier offers agreeable boutiques and bookshops in the Écusson, the Polygone mall and chain stores at Odysseum. The best things to take home are wine, olive oil and honey from the markets.

Montpellier is noticeably kinder to a budget. Central hotels are moderately priced most of the year, and student-driven cafés, market halls and lunch menus keep daily costs down, though July and August push room rates up.

Milan is Italy's most expensive city, with hotel rooms that become hard to find at sensible rates during fairs and fashion weeks, and pricey dinners in Brera. Aperitivo snacks, office-worker set lunches and a room near a metro stop outside the centre help.

Milan has the more famous stages. La Scala's opera and ballet season is a draw in itself, with gallery seats for the determined, and the Piccolo Teatro, a fine orchestra and large summer concerts at San Siro add depth. Summer is its quiet time for classical music.

Montpellier is stronger in summer and in one field: contemporary dance, with the Montpellier Danse festival and a national choreographic centre. The Radio France festival and the Printemps des Comédiens fill the warm months, and the two opera houses run a regular season.

Neither city is a place to unwind, so the difference lies in where you go for it. Milan has a thermal spa complex in town and the 1930s Bagni Misteriosi pools, and real rest is an hour away at the lakes.

Montpellier has thermal water at Balaruc-les-Bains on the Thau lagoon about half an hour away, and long lunches on shaded squares give everyday life a slower pace.