Nantes or Nice?

From Nantes the sea is an outing. The sandy bay at La Baule and the coves at Pornic are about an hour away by train, and the Atlantic stays cool even at the end of summer.

In Nice the Mediterranean is at the end of the street. About 7km of pebble shore runs below the Promenade des Anglais, and the water is clear and warm for months. The stones mean you will want a lounger or water shoes, and anyone who wants sand can go to Villefranche or Juan-les-Pins, but here swimming can be part of every day.

Nantes eats from the Atlantic and the Loire. Beurre blanc was created here and is served over pike-perch or sole. Oysters come from the nearby coast, buckwheat galettes are everyday fare, and Muscadet from the vineyards just south-east of town is made to go with all of it. The bistros in the Bouffay lanes and around Graslin are fairly priced, and the Talensac market shows off the region's produce.

Nice has the more distinctive cooking, leaning towards Liguria rather than Paris. Socca, the chickpea pancake served hot from the wood oven, is the city's own, while pissaladière, stuffed vegetables and pan bagnat are typical of its everyday eating. The Cours Saleya market makes a morning outing in itself. Neither city is a food capital, but in Nice the best meals are in the family places of Vieux Nice and around the port, not on the seafront terraces.

There is about as much to see in each city, and both fill two or three days, but the subjects are different. Nantes tells a story of history and trade: the moated ducal château with a museum that is frank about the slave trade, the merchant houses of the Ile Feydeau, the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery and the Jules Verne museum.

Nice is the place for art. Matisse is among the Roman ruins of Cimiez, Chagall's biblical cycle has its own museum, and MAMAC covers Yves Klein. Around them are the ochre lanes of the Italianate old town and the Belle Époque villas of the old winter resort.

Both cities offer a similar, regional kind of night out, centred on an old town full of bars. The difference is timing and style. In Nantes, students fill the Bouffay pubs and then move to the docks on the Ile de Nantes, where clubs stay open until the early hours, although midweek outside term is quiet.

Nice is better for long summer evenings outside, with old-town wine bars, the port and the beach clubs. Its clubs are ordinary, though, and the glossier nights out happen in Monaco and Cannes.

This is where Nice pulls well ahead. The Alps run down to the sea, so the coastal paths around Cap Ferrat, the corniche cycling roads, the Esterel's red rocks and the high lakes of the Mercantour are all within reach. In winter you can ski at Isola 2000. Diving and paddleboarding are easy to arrange too.

The landscape around Nantes is flat and gentle. You can canoe or take a boat up the Erdre, cycle the Loire à Vélo through the vineyards, or watch birds from a punt in the Brière marshes. It is lovely, but there are no hills to climb.

Nantes makes a good base for western France. Angers and its Apocalypse Tapestry are under an hour by fast train, and the walled town of Guérande, above its salt marshes, is about an hour away. Vannes on the Gulf of Morbihan is about an hour and a quarter by train, and Saumur's château is within two hours. Clisson, with the Muscadet estates around it, and the salt pans of Noirmoutier are easier to reach by car.

Nice puts more variety even closer, and you never need a car. Monaco is about twenty minutes away by train, Villefranche and Beaulieu only a few minutes, and most of the coast, from Menton and Èze to Antibes and Cannes, is under an hour away. The perfume houses of Grasse and the Fondation Maeght at Saint-Paul-de-Vence make good days inland, and Sanremo, across the Italian border, is an easy train ride.

Nantes is the better choice for children. The Machines de l'Ile, with a walking mechanical elephant and a sea-creature carousel, is something no other city has. The safari park at Port-Saint-Père and the Puy du Fou theme park are both an easy drive, and the sandy beaches at La Baule are calm.

Nice is relaxed with children, with water jets on the Promenade du Paillon and the gardens of Parc Phoenix. However, the pebbles are hard on small feet, there is no theme park, and July and August are hot and crowded.

Both are compact and flat, with the main sights within a half-hour walk and trams that are simple to use, so getting about is easy in either. Nantes adds river shuttles across the Loire, easy cycling and fast trains to Paris.

What Nice adds is a tram straight from the airport and the coastal railway that makes its day trips simple. Buses climb to the museums in Cimiez. In summer, though, coastal trains are packed and the roads along the Riviera are slow.

Nice offers somewhat more range. The luxury fashion houses are around rue Paradis, Avenue Jean Médecin is the main high street, and Vieux Nice sells olive oil, soaps and Provençal fabrics. On Mondays the Cours Saleya has a flea and antiques market.

Nantes is smaller in scale but has more character. Browse the three levels of the Passage Pommeraye, independent and second-hand shops around Bouffay and Decré, and salted-butter biscuits and Guérande salt to take home. Neither city is worth planning a vacation around shopping.

Your money goes further in Nantes. Hotels cost what they do in any large French regional city and are easy to find, and the walkable centre keeps other costs down. Prices only rise if you head to the coast in high summer.

Nice is expensive, especially for seafront and old-town rooms from June to September, and beach loungers add up. Trams, coastal trains and the city's museums are cheap, and socca or a market picnic keeps meals cheap too. Spring and late autumn are noticeably cheaper.

Nantes has the richer stage for a city of its size. La Folle Journée fills a few winter days with hundreds of short classical concerts. The regional opera company performs at the Théâtre Graslin, and the Lieu Unique in the old LU biscuit factory stages contemporary dance and theatre. The giant street puppets give the city its taste for spectacle in public spaces.

Nice has a fine red-and-gold opera house and two big moments in the year: the Jazz Festival in July and the Carnival in February. Otherwise live music mostly means small bars in the old town.

Neither city has a bathing tradition of its own, and both rely on the seawater cures of thalassotherapy. In Nantes that means a trip of about an hour to La Baule or Pornic, while in Nice there are centres along the coast and spas in the bigger seafront hotels.

The difference is in how you slow down. Nice offers an early swim and an evening walk on the promenade, and it is most restful out of season. In Nantes, rest means quiet afternoons in the Jardin des Plantes or beside the Erdre.