Nantes or Toulouse?

Neither city is on the sea, but Nantes is much closer to it. La Baule's sheltered sandy bay and the coves around Pornic are about an hour by train, so a beach day fits easily into a stay. The Atlantic stays cool, though, and the season is short.

From Toulouse the nearest sea is the Mediterranean at Narbonne and Gruissan. The water is warmer, but it is two hours each way. In practice, swimming in summer means the supervised leisure lakes at Sesquières and La Ramée, or a hotel pool.

Both are good places to eat well at fair French prices, but Toulouse has the stronger food identity. Cassoulet, duck confit and foie gras are reasons in themselves to stay longer. The Victor Hugo market, with its lunch counters upstairs, shows it all off, and Fronton, Gaillac and Armagnac come from nearby.

Nantes cooks lighter and closer to the sea: river fish with beurre blanc, oysters from the coast, buckwheat galettes and crisp Muscadet from vineyards just outside town. Talensac market is the place to see it, and the cooking is reliable rather than a reason to make the trip.

Both reward two or three days, and the difference is in character. Nantes tells the story of a merchant port. There is the moated ducal château with its frank history museum, the leaning 18th-century façades of Ile Feydeau and the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery on the riverbank, with Jules Verne as a local son.

Toulouse is a single, unified cityscape of rose-red brick built around great churches. These include Saint-Sernin, a stop on the pilgrim road to Santiago, and the palm-tree vault of the Jacobins. Its Renaissance woad mansions and its aircraft and space museums add a side that Nantes does not have.

Students drive the night in both cities, but Toulouse goes out harder. On warm nights the terraces and cheap bars of Place Saint-Pierre spill onto the Garonne quays. An older crowd fills the Carmes, Daurade and Saint-Georges squares, and the electronic scene carries on later.

Nantes has a similar mix on a smaller scale. The Bouffay lanes have pubs and wine bars, and the old docks on the Ile de Nantes have the clubs. Both cities go quiet when the students leave, which in Toulouse means high summer.

Close to town, both are flat river country: the Erdre and the Loire à Vélo route at Nantes, the shaded Canal du Midi towpaths at Toulouse. The difference is further out. Nantes looks to the water, with the reed beds of the Brière for birdwatching and punt trips and cliff walks on the Côte Sauvage.

Toulouse looks to the mountains. The Pyrenees are up to two hours away and offer proper hiking, long cycling climbs and winter skiing. The Aveyron gorges and the Montagne Noire are nearer.

Both are excellent bases, with plenty to see within an hour or so by train. From Nantes the trips lean towards the coast and the Loire. There is the salt-marsh town of Guérande, Angers with the Apocalypse Tapestry, Saumur's cave villages and Vannes on the Gulf of Morbihan.

Toulouse offers the south's medieval showpieces. Carcassonne's walled Cité and brick-built Albi, with the Toulouse-Lautrec museum, come first, then Moissac's cloister. With a car you can reach hilltop Cordes-sur-Ciel and the Pyrenean castle town of Foix.

Children do well in either city. Nantes has the more playful highlight: the mechanical elephant of the Machines de l'Ile, which you can actually ride. Puy du Fou is within reach, and calm sandy beaches round off a summer stay.

Toulouse leans to science. The Cité de l'espace, with its Ariane rocket and Mir module, fills a whole day, and at the aircraft museum families can walk through a Concorde. Its midsummer heat is harder going with small children than Nantes' milder weather.

Both have flat, compact centres that are easy on foot. Nantes runs on three tram lines and a busway that a visitor learns at once, plus small river shuttles across the Loire. Its central station has fast trains to Paris in about two hours.

Toulouse adds two automated metro lines to its trams and buses. More of its sights are on the edges of the city, though. The space centre, the aircraft museum and the lakes need a bus ride, and the Pyrenees really need a car.

Neither city is a shopping destination. Both have the mainstream chains, a department store and a few streets of independent shops. Nantes has the more memorable setting in the three-level Passage Pommeraye, while Toulouse has the sprawling Sunday market around Saint-Sernin.

The souvenirs show the regions they come from: salted-butter biscuits, berlingots and Guérande salt from Nantes, and violet sweets, Armagnac and cassoulet in jars from Toulouse.

Costs are much the same in both. Hotels are well below Paris prices, transport is cheap, and the set lunch is the best way to eat well, though dinners cost what they do anywhere in France.

What pushes prices up is different in each. In Nantes it is the coast in high summer, if you plan beach days. In Toulouse it is the big trade fairs and aerospace events, while the student quarters and free museum days help keep a stay cheaper.

Both have more on stage than most regional cities. Nantes is best known for La Folle Journée, a winter festival of short classical concerts. It also has the Lieu Unique's contemporary programme in the old biscuit factory and a tradition of giant street-theatre puppets.

Toulouse leans to the grand, traditional repertoire. The Capitole has its own opera and ballet company, and a well-regarded orchestra plays in the round Halle aux Grains. In early summer the Rio Loco world-music festival takes over the riverbank.

Neither city has a bathing culture of its own, but Nantes is better placed for a restful break. Long-established thalassotherapy centres at La Baule and Pornic are about an hour away, so a day of seawater treatments is easy. In town, the banks of the Erdre are calm.

Toulouse's real thermal springs are in the Pyrenees, at Luchon and Ax-les-Thermes. They are up to two hours away and work better with an overnight stay. In the city itself, rest means hotel spas, open-air pools in summer and long lunches in shady squares.