Nantes or Saint-Tropez?

Nantes is an inland river city. Its beaches at La Baule, Pornic and the Jade coast are an outing of about an hour, on a cool Atlantic with a short season. They are wide, clean and good for a family day, but they are a side trip.

Saint-Tropez revolves around the beach in summer. Pampelonne's long pale sand, the quieter coves at Escalet, Cap Taillat and Gigaro, and the clearer, warmer Mediterranean make swimming the centre of the day from June to September. Small town beaches such as Les Graniers are there for a quick dip.

Nantes is the better place to eat day to day. It has beurre blanc, which was born here, oysters from the nearby coast, galettes and crisp Muscadet from the vineyards just outside town. Fairly priced bistros line the Bouffay lanes and the streets around Graslin, and the Talensac market shows off the region's produce.

Saint-Tropez has polished Provençal cooking, rosé lunches on the sand and the tarte tropézienne, and its top tables are genuinely good. Below that level, many quayside places trade on the view, simple meals are hard to find, and in winter much of the town shuts.

Nantes has far more to see. There is the moated Château des Ducs de Bretagne with its frank history museum, the Gothic cathedral, the Musée d'Arts, the leaning merchant façades of the Ile Feydeau and the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery. Together they fill two or three days.

Saint-Tropez has one fine museum, the Annonciade, with its Signac and Fauvist paintings. Add the maritime museum in the citadel and the lanes of La Ponche and you have a day's worth. People come for the setting more than the heritage.

Nantes cannot match Saint-Tropez on a summer night, but it offers something the Riviera town lacks: a scene that runs all year and needs no dress code. Students fill the pubs and wine bars of Bouffay, and later the crowd drifts to the riverside bars and clubs in the old docks on the Ile de Nantes. It is easy to join, though it stays a regional city's night out.

From June to September, Saint-Tropez is clearly the stronger place to go out. Long afternoons at the Pampelonne beach clubs lead to champagne on the harbour terraces and then to a few famous clubs that stay open until dawn, all glamour and table service. Once the season ends the harbour goes quiet, and the choice narrows to a café on the Place des Lices.

Around Nantes the landscape is flat and watery, and the pleasures are gentle. You can take a boat on the Erdre, cycle the Loire à Vélo route, watch birds in the Brière marshes or walk the Côte Sauvage near Le Croisic.

Saint-Tropez has the more striking outdoors. The Sentier du Littoral runs past pine-backed coves to the capes of Camarat and Taillat, and the Massif des Maures has cork-oak forests. You can sail and snorkel in the gulf, and the national park islands of Port-Cros and Porquerolles are within reach. Summer heat and the risk of fire can close some trails.

Nantes has the wider range of outings, most of them reachable by train. They include Guérande and its salt marshes, Angers and the Apocalypse Tapestry, Saumur and the Loire châteaux, Vannes and Rennes, and Clisson, the Italian-style town among the Muscadet vineyards.

From Saint-Tropez the trips are shorter and lighter: the hilltop villages of Ramatuelle and Gassin, Grimaud's castle, the canals of Port Grimaud by boat, and wine tastings at nearby estates. Porquerolles or Fréjus make a full day. All of it depends on roads that jam in high summer.

Nantes is the easier base for a family. The mechanical elephant and the sea-creature carousel at the Machines de l'Ile are made for children, and the Jardin des Plantes has playgrounds. The safari park at Port-Saint-Père and Puy du Fou are within driving distance, and the trams make life easy with a buggy.

Saint-Tropez has gently shelving sand at Pampelonne and Gigaro and a small, safe old town, but little else for children. The prices, the traffic and the adult crowd at the beach clubs lead many families to stay across the gulf instead.

Nantes is simple to get around. The centre is flat and compact, with trams, a busway and river shuttles across the Loire. The central station has fast trains to Paris and regional trains to the coast.

Saint-Tropez itself takes a few minutes to cross on foot, but there is no railway, the buses are slow and the beaches lie several kilometres out. Most visitors rely on a car, a scooter or taxis. In July and August the road along the gulf jams for hours, and the passenger boats from Sainte-Maxime and Port Grimaud are often the best way in.

Saint-Tropez has the stronger shopping for its size. Big fashion houses keep summer shops behind the port, alongside resort wear and jewellery, and the hand-stitched Tropézienne sandal is made in small workshops in the old town. Beyond luxury, though, the choice is narrow, and many shops close in winter.

Nantes is more ordinary but open all year. It has the three-level Passage Pommeraye, chain stores on Rue Crébillon and independent shops around Bouffay and Decré. Its souvenirs are things to eat and drink, such as salted-butter biscuits, berlingots and Guérande salt.

Nantes is priced like any large French regional city, which puts it well below the Riviera. A bed costs much less than in Paris, and because the sights sit close together, many days pass with almost no transport spending. The main outlay is dinner and drinks at ordinary French levels, and summer day trips to La Baule or Pornic come at seaside prices.

Saint-Tropez is at the very top of the Mediterranean range, and July and August are when it costs most: lunch on the quay, a lounger at a Pampelonne beach club and an evening cocktail all carry luxury-resort mark-ups. With no railway and few buses, taxis or parking add a daily charge that Nantes does not have. Sleeping in a village across the gulf, picnicking from the Place des Lices market and using the public stretches of sand all help, as do late spring and autumn, but the town never turns inexpensive.

Nantes has real stage life. There is La Folle Journée in winter, opera at the Théâtre Graslin, the national orchestra and contemporary work at the Lieu Unique, along with the city's tradition of giant street puppetry.

Saint-Tropez has summer concerts in gardens and on the citadel and the Bravade procession in May, but very little the rest of the year.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, so both rely on spas. Nantes sends you out to the seawater thalassotherapy centres at La Baule and Pornic, or to slow afternoons by the Erdre.

Saint-Tropez keeps its spas in luxury hotels and villas for their guests, and how calm it feels depends on the season. It is loud in high summer but restful in May, June and September, when there is pétanque under the plane trees.