Montpellier or Zermatt?

Montpellier has a real if modest beach offer. A long run of fine, gently shelving sand stretches from Palavas-les-Flots and Carnon to the dunes of l'Espiguette, a tram and bus ride away, and Sète adds beaches backed by a lagoon. It is flat, open sand rather than coves, and it gets crowded on summer evenings.

Zermatt has nothing like it. There is no sea and no bathing lake, the tarns are icy meltwater for photographing the Matterhorn, and swimming means a hotel pool.

Montpellier eats from a wider larder: Pic Saint-Loup and Larzac wines, oysters from the Thau lagoon, Sète's tielle, and the Halles Castellane and Halles Laissac for market food. Cheap student places sit alongside good bistros.

Zermatt's best meals are long mountain lunches at the chalets of Findeln, Furi and Zum See, with raclette, fondue and Valais wines such as Petite Arvine. It is enjoyable but narrow and expensive, with a few fine-dining kitchens in the village and little in between.

Here Montpellier is a proper city and Zermatt is a village. The Écusson's lanes and courtyard mansions, the Peyrou terrace and its aqueduct, the cathedral beside the medieval medical faculty, France's oldest botanical garden, the Musée Fabre and Bofill's Antigone fill two or three days.

Zermatt's heritage is about mountaineering: the Matterhorn Museum and the story of the 1865 first ascent, the climbers' graves by the church and the old larch barns of the Hinterdorf. Together they take about a morning.

For a night out, Montpellier is the better choice by some way. One of France's largest student populations keeps the bars, pubs and wine bars around Place Jean-Jaurès and the Écusson squares busy all week, not only at weekends. Late at night the crowd takes a taxi out to the clubs towards Lattes and the coast. It is young and casual rather than smart, and it quietens down when the students are away.

Zermatt has one main kind of night out, and it depends on the season. In winter the après-ski bars on the last runs into the village are loud and cheerful, and a few places on the main street stay open past midnight. In summer the hikers and climbers want to be up early, so most evenings end after dinner.

Montpellier's surroundings are good. There are lagoons full of flamingos, the Camargue about an hour away, the climb up Pic Saint-Loup and the Hérault gorges for canoeing, and walking is best in spring and autumn.

Zermatt is in another league. The Matterhorn rises over the village and lifts reach the glacier at over 3,800m. The skiing crosses into Italy, and in summer the Five Lakes walk, the Europaweg suspension bridge and hundreds of kilometres of trails start from the lifts, with guides on hand for the four-thousanders.

Montpellier sits in one of France's richest corners for days out. Roman Nîmes is about half an hour by train, with the Pont du Gard beyond it, Arles and Avignon are around an hour away and Carcassonne a little further. Sète, Aigues-Mortes and Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert are close by.

From Zermatt every outing starts with a long train ride down the valley, and the rewards are smaller: Sion's castle hills among the vineyards, Brig's Stockalper Palace or Saas-Fee next door. Most visitors simply go back up the mountain.

Montpellier has more to fill a family week: the Lunaret zoo in its wooded park, the aquarium and planetarium at Odysseum, and warm, shallow beaches for small swimmers. Midsummer heat in the stone streets needs planning around.

Zermatt's car-free streets make it calm and safe, with ski schools and nursery slopes at Sunnegga and marmot-spotting walks in summer. Beyond that, there is no zoo or aquarium for rainy days, and the highest viewpoints are too cold and thin-aired for small children. It works best for families who ski or hike together.

Both are easy without a car, but in different ways. Montpellier's Écusson is walkable and mostly car-free, and trams link it to the station, Antigone and Odysseum, with fast trains to Nîmes and Avignon. The beaches need a slow tram and bus, though, and the hills are much easier with a car.

Zermatt bans ordinary cars entirely, so you arrive by train from Täsch and then walk the compact village. The cog railway, the funicular and the gondolas all start from the centre, but leaving the valley takes over an hour.

Neither is a place to come for shopping, but Montpellier has more to browse: small boutiques, bookshops and delicatessens in the Écusson lanes, the Polygone mall by the Comédie, and wine, olive oil and honey from the markets. Zermatt has one main street of watch and jewellery boutiques, souvenir shops and excellent ski and mountaineering outfitters. That is useful if you need gear, and offers little else.

This is one of the sharpest differences between the two. Montpellier is mid-range, with student-priced bars and counters, market halls and lunch menus to keep costs down. The main exception is July and August, when rooms get dearer.

Zermatt is among the most expensive places in the Alps. Plain rooms, meals on mountain terraces and the lifts all cost a great deal, and self-catering or sleeping down the valley in Täsch only softens the bill.

Montpellier has a real season. Opera, ballet and the national orchestra play at the Opéra Comédie and the Opéra Berlioz, Montpellier Danse and the choreographic centre make it a name in contemporary dance, and the Radio France festival brings free summer concerts.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Zermatt Unplugged in spring and a chamber music festival in late summer are worth timing a visit around. Otherwise, the evening's music is a band in an après-ski bar.

Neither has a bathing tradition of its own, and Zermatt is the better place to unwind. Montpellier's centre is lively, and its spas are hotel and day spas. Real thermal water means a half-hour trip to Balaruc-les-Bains on the Thau lagoon, so relaxing here mostly means long lunches and shaded terraces.

Zermatt has a large number of fine hotel spas with pools, saunas and mountain views, some open to day visitors. With no traffic in the village, the evenings are quiet and restful, though peak weeks feel active rather than slow.