Nice or Portofino?

Nice has the beach as its front garden, a pebble shore running about 7km below the Promenade des Anglais, with public and private stretches side by side. When the stones get tiresome, sand is close by at Villefranche, Beaulieu and Juan-les-Pins.

Portofino has no beach of its own. You swim off rock platforms and ladders into very clear, deep water, or go to the small, mostly paid sandy bay at Paraggi. It is beautiful swimming, but the spots are small and fill quickly, so Nice gives far more room and choice.

Nice has a full local cuisine to explore: socca hot from wood ovens, pissaladière, stuffed vegetables, the Cours Saleya market and Bellet wine from the hills. Family places in Vieux Nice and around the port keep it honest, as long as you avoid the promenade terraces.

Portofino's Ligurian cooking, with trofie with pesto and Recco focaccia, is good in itself, but here it mostly arrives at harbourside terraces where you pay for the yachts. There is no market or street food, and people who care about eating go to Camogli or the hill trattorie.

This is the difference between a city of museums and a village that is itself the sight. Nice combines an Italianate old town below Castle Hill, Belle Époque villas along the promenade and in Cimiez, and serious art in the Matisse and Chagall museums and MAMAC. That is enough for two or three full days.

In Portofino the main attraction is the horseshoe of painted houses around the harbour. Add San Giorgio, Castello Brown, the lighthouse and the abbey at San Fruttuoso, and you have seen it all in about a day, with no museum of any size.

Neither place is a clubbing destination, but Nice at least has a night out. Vieux Nice's lanes fill with pubs, wine bars and a mixed student and local crowd, and in summer the beach clubs keep going late.

Portofino's evening is a dressed-up aperitivo and dinner facing the yachts, and then the village is done. If you want more, you go to Santa Margherita, Rapallo or Genoa.

Both sit where mountains drop into the sea, and both are very good for the outdoors. They differ in scale. From Nice you can reach the Mercantour's high lakes and ibex, the ski slopes at Isola 2000, the red rocks of the Esterel and the cycling routes on the corniches.

Portofino packs its outdoors into one protected headland. Steep trails, some with chains, run over Monte di Portofino to San Fruttuoso, and the marine reserve offshore is known for diving among red coral walls and around the Christ of the Abyss.

Both make good bases for a coastline, but the list is longer from Nice and works all year. Monaco, Menton, Èze, Antibes, Cannes, Grasse, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and even Sanremo across the border are mostly under an hour away by train or bus, with no car needed.

Portofino's outings are fewer but good: Camogli and Santa Margherita by boat, Genoa's medieval centre within an hour, and summer ferries to the Cinque Terre and Portovenere. Outside the ferry season, getting about takes more planning.

Nice works much better with children. It has the flat promenade for pushchairs and bikes, playgrounds and water jets on the Promenade du Paillon, and Parc Phoenix. The pebbles and the old town's steps are the main snags.

Portofino is safe and children like the boats, but it has no playgrounds, little free sand and steep steps everywhere. Families usually base themselves in Rapallo or Santa Margherita and visit Genoa's aquarium.

Nice is flat and walkable at its core, with a tram from the airport to the port and regional trains along the coast, so you need a car only for the mountains.

In Portofino the village itself takes minutes to cross, but getting there and away is the problem. A single narrow road runs to Santa Margherita, and parking is scarce. You rely on the bus, or on ferries from spring to autumn.

For a proper browse, Nice is clearly the better of the two. Avenue Jean Médecin is the high street, the fashion houses are around rue Paradis, Vieux Nice sells Provençal goods, and the Cours Saleya turns into an antiques market on Mondays.

Portofino is a few lanes of big-name boutiques and resort wear for people coming off the yachts, plus some lace and jars of pesto. You can see it all in under an hour.

Neither is cheap, but Nice is far easier on the wallet. Trams, coastal trains, low museum entry fees and socca all help, and spring and late autumn bring hotel costs down.

Portofino is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Its few hotels are mostly luxury, and the piazzetta, Paraggi loungers and parking all cost heavily. The usual way round it is to sleep in Camogli or Rapallo and come for the day.

Only one of these two has a stage worth planning an evening around. In Nice that means the red-and-gold Opéra de Nice, the Théâtre National, the long-running Nice Jazz Festival in July and the February Carnival. It is a regional calendar, but a real one.

Portofino has no theatre or regular venue, only the odd summer concert in the piazzetta or at the castle. For opera you go to the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and in both places spa time means the big hotels. Nice adds thalassotherapy centres along the coast. The restful thing in Nice is the Riviera routine of an early swim and an evening walk on the promenade.

Portofino's calm is quieter and more secluded: shaded headland paths and empty harbour mornings. Both get noisy in high summer, when the tour boats arrive in Portofino and the crowds fill Nice.