Monaco or Nice?

Monaco has only one real city beach, Larvotto. It is short and groomed, with calm water behind breakwaters. Beyond it, swimming means rocky platforms, hotel pools and private clubs, and most beach-minded visitors end up taking the train to Menton or Nice.

Nice has much more shore: about 7km of pebbles below the Promenade des Anglais, with public stretches between the clubs that rent loungers. The stones are hard on the feet, but the sandy bays of Villefranche and Beaulieu are a short ride east.

Monaco's food is concentrated at the top end, in starred hotel dining rooms, polished Italian restaurants and harbour terraces where you dress for dinner. Barbagiuan from the Condamine market is the main local touch, and there is little cheap, casual eating.

Nice is the better place to eat day to day. It has a full local cuisine of socca from wood ovens, pissaladière, pan bagnat and daube, along with the Cours Saleya market and wine from the Bellet hills. Its best meals are in simple family places in Vieux Nice and around the port.

Monaco's sights fit into a day or two. On the Rock there are the palace and its guard ceremony, the cathedral with Grace Kelly's tomb and the Belle Époque Oceanographic Museum. Across the harbour are the Casino and its gardens. The setting impresses more than what lies behind it.

Nice has more depth. The baroque chapels of Vieux Nice, the resort-era villas of Cimiez and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral are all worth seeing, but the art is the real draw. The Matisse Museum among Roman ruins, Chagall's biblical cycle and MAMAC easily fill two or three days.

The two are about even, but the nights feel completely different. In Monaco you dress up for hotel bars around the Casino square and glossy clubs on the Larvotto seafront and the port, with champagne and yachts as part of the scene. It is at its liveliest in summer and on Grand Prix weekend.

Nice is casual. Students, locals and visitors fill the pubs, wine bars and cocktail bars in the lanes of Vieux Nice, and it has few clubs worth seeking out. Outside summer, both cities go quiet early.

Monaco is almost entirely built up, so its outdoors begins at the border. You can climb to the Tête de Chien viewpoint, take the old mule path from Èze-sur-Mer up to Èze, or follow the coastal paths around Cap d'Ail and Cap Martin.

Nice has more variety and more within its own limits, with walks on Castle Hill and Mont Boron. The corniches are classic cycling roads and the Esterel lies to the west. The Mercantour is about two hours away, and the ski resorts are close enough to ski in the morning and see the sea in the afternoon.

Both are excellent bases on the same coastal railway, so the difference is which way you lean. Monaco is closer to the east: Menton's lemon gardens, Èze up the hill, La Turbie's Roman trophy, and Italian towns such as Sanremo and Dolceacqua.

Nice sits in the middle of the coast, which makes the west much easier. Antibes, Cannes and the Lérins islands, Grasse and Saint-Paul-de-Vence are mostly under an hour away, and Monaco itself is a twenty-minute train ride.

Monaco is spotless, safe and small, with lifts to save little legs. The aquarium with its sharks, Larvotto's sheltered water and the palace guards make a very good day or two. After that there is little more to do, and the restaurants are formal.

Nice has more for a longer stay. There are the water jets and playgrounds of the Promenade du Paillon, the gardens and animals of Parc Phoenix, and restaurants that welcome children. The downsides are pebble beaches, summer crowds and old town steps that are awkward with a pushchair.

Both are easy without a car, but in different ways. Monaco is only about 3km end to end, and the challenge is height rather than distance. Free public lifts, escalators and a small solar ferry across the harbour do much of the work once you know where they are.

Nice is flat at its core, with the old town, the port and Place Massena within a half-hour walk of each other. A tram runs straight from the airport, and buses climb to the Cimiez museums.

There is little to choose between them overall, but they suit different shoppers. Monaco is luxury and almost nothing else: fashion houses, jewellers and watchmakers clustered in the Carré d'Or around the Casino gardens, with no high-street chains and no flea markets.

Nice has more range. Avenue Jean Médecin is the high street, Vieux Nice sells olive oil, soaps and Provençal fabrics, and the Cours Saleya becomes a flea and antiques market on Mondays.

Monaco is one of the most expensive places in the world to visit. Rooms, meals and even a coffee are priced for the very wealthy, and only the free lifts and walks around the Rock and harbour cost nothing. Many visitors stay elsewhere and come in for the day.

Nice is not cheap either, especially by the sea in summer, but it is far easier on the budget. Trams and coastal trains are inexpensive, many city museums cost little to enter, and socca and market food keep meals simple. Spring and late autumn are cheaper still.

Monaco has the stronger stage. The Monte-Carlo Opera performs in the gilded Salle Garnier, built into the Casino in 1879, and the Philharmonic and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo both have international reputations. The Printemps des Arts and an autumn jazz festival round out the year.

Nice has a respectable regional calendar: its nineteenth-century opera house, French-language drama, the long-running July jazz festival and the February Carnival. Unlike Monaco, it also has small bars in the old town where you can catch live music on an ordinary night.

Monaco is the better place to be pampered. Beside the Casino, the thalassotherapy centre carries on the principality's old sea-bathing cures with heated seawater pools and treatments. There are sizeable hotel spas too, and the Japanese Garden is calm on a quiet morning.

Nice has no spa culture of its own beyond hotel treatment rooms, so its restfulness comes from routine: an early swim, a long lunch and an evening walk along the promenade. That works best out of season, before the summer heat and crowds.