Nantes or Strasbourg?

Neither is a beach city, but Nantes at least has the sea. Trains reach the wide sand at La Baule and the coves around Pornic in about an hour, and the Jade coast is a short drive, so a summer stay can include real Atlantic days, cool water and all.

Strasbourg has no coast within reach. People swim in lifeguarded gravel-pit lakes such as the Baggersee, which the tram serves, with grassy banks and calm fresh water. That is pleasant for an afternoon, but not a reason to go.

Strasbourg's cooking has the stronger identity. Choucroute, baeckeoffe or tarte flambée in a wood-panelled winstub with a pichet of Riesling feels like a regional occasion, and there is fine dining in the city and the nearby villages. It is heavy food, better in the cold months, and the menus around the cathedral are best skipped.

Nantes eats lighter and closer to the sea: oysters, pike-perch with beurre blanc, galettes and a glass of Muscadet. A morning at the Talensac market is worth it and the bistros are honest, but this is a city to eat well in rather than to travel to for its food.

Both take two or three days of sightseeing, but Strasbourg's centre is grander and more complete. The pink sandstone cathedral, the half-timbered houses on the locks of Petite France and the imperial avenues of the Neustadt together make a UNESCO-listed ensemble, and the Palais Rohan and the modern art museum give it more depth indoors.

Nantes is strongest on its story. The Château des Ducs de Bretagne tells the city's past frankly, including its part in the slave trade, which the riverside memorial also marks. The leaning façades of the Ile Feydeau and the Passage Pommeraye add charm, and the Jules Verne museum is a draw in its own right.

Nantes goes out later. The Bouffay lanes fill with pubs and wine bars early in the evening, and then the crowd moves to the old banana warehouses on the Ile de Nantes, where clubs stay open into the early hours.

Strasbourg's evenings are pleasant but end sooner. There are student bars and beer cellars in Krutenau, terraces on the quays in summer and only a handful of clubs, and the streets are quiet by midnight on weeknights.

Strasbourg has hills within reach, which Nantes lacks. Within about an hour are the forest trails and castle ruins of the Vosges and the higher fir-covered ridges of the Black Forest, and level cycle routes follow the Rhine into Germany.

Around Nantes the land is flat and watery: boat trips on the Erdre, the Loire à Vélo route, the reed beds of the Brière for birdwatching and the cliff paths of the Côte Sauvage. It is gentle and pretty, but there is nothing to climb.

Both make good bases, and Strasbourg is the better one. Colmar is half an hour by train, the Alsace wine route links Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Kaysersberg below Haut-Koenigsbourg, and Baden-Baden, Freiburg and Heidelberg are across the Rhine, so one week can take in two countries.

From Nantes the trips are less dense but varied: the salt marshes of Guérande, Angers and its Apocalypse Tapestry, Clisson among the Muscadet estates, and the Loire châteaux around Saumur within two hours.

Both are easy with children. The difference is where the main attraction sits. In Nantes it is right in town: the mechanical elephant and the sea-creature carousel at the Machines de l'Ile, with Puy du Fou and the beaches further out.

Strasbourg's big draw is Europa-Park, an hour away in Germany. In the city itself, families have boat trips, the storks and rowing boats of the Orangerie, and the Le Vaisseau science centre.

Both are flat, compact and served by trams, so you will not need a car in either city. Nantes adds river shuttles across the Loire and fast trains to Paris in about two hours. Strasbourg has a largely pedestrianised island centre, an extensive network of separated cycle lanes that often makes a bike the quickest option, and a tram that crosses the Rhine to Kehl.

Neither is a shopping destination, and neither has much luxury retail. Nantes has the more memorable setting in the three-level Passage Pommeraye, plus independent and second-hand shops around Bouffay and Decré. Strasbourg is better for crafts to take home, such as Soufflenheim pottery and printed linens, and in December its Christmas market becomes the shopping event of the year.

Costs are much the same: both are priced like large French regional cities, well below Paris. In Nantes the thing to watch is summer, when prices on the coast go up for beach days. In Strasbourg it is the calendar, because hotel rooms climb during the Christmas market and the European Parliament's sitting weeks, while winstub meals and wine by the pichet stay good value.

Both have more on stage than their size suggests, and each has a regional opera and an orchestra. Nantes leans towards the popular and the public: La Folle Journée packs short classical concerts into a few winter days, the Lieu Unique puts on contemporary work, and giant street puppetry is part of the city's character.

Strasbourg is more formal and takes drama and new music more seriously, with the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, the autumn Musica festival and a jazz festival. Little happens in its streets by chance, so plan evenings around the season.

Strasbourg offers more for a restful stay. The city's own Bains municipaux have tiled pools, a hammam and saunas, and the large thermal baths of Baden-Baden are under an hour away.

In Nantes, wellness means hotel spas and quiet afternoons by the Erdre. Its real tradition is on the coast, at the thalassotherapy centres in La Baule and Pornic about an hour away.