Nice or Strasbourg?

This is the widest gap between the two cities. Nice has about 7km of pebble shore right in town and clear water warm enough to swim from June into October. Sandier, calmer water is close by at Villefranche, Beaulieu and Juan-les-Pins.

Strasbourg has no sea within reach. In summer people swim in old gravel pits such as the Baggersee, which you can reach by tram and which has grassy banks and fresh water. It is pleasant on a hot afternoon, but it is not a reason to choose the city.

Both cities eat well, in opposite styles. Nice's cooking is light and close to Liguria's: socca from wood ovens, pissaladière and stuffed vegetables, the Cours Saleya market, and Bellet wines from the hills that are rarely seen anywhere else.

Strasbourg's food is rich and German-leaning: choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée in wood-panelled winstubs with Riesling by the pichet, along with foie gras and a stronger fine-dining tier. In both cities the tourist menus sit on the famous spots, the promenade terraces in Nice and the lanes around the cathedral in Strasbourg.

Strasbourg has the more complete historic centre. The pink sandstone cathedral with its astronomical clock, the timber-framed Grande Ile, Petite France and the German-built Neustadt together form a UNESCO-listed whole. The three museums in the Palais Rohan and the European institutions add depth.

Nice's strength is narrower but distinctive. Its draw is twentieth-century art, with the Matisse and Chagall museums in Cimiez and MAMAC, set against the Italianate lanes of Vieux Nice and the villas of the old winter resort. Either city fills two or three days, but in Strasbourg the old town itself is the main sight.

Neither is a clubbing city, and in both a night out mostly means bars. Nice has a little more going on: the lanes of Vieux Nice fill with wine and cocktail bars, summer keeps the beach clubs and promenade busy late, and Monaco and Cannes are nearby for glossier nights. Strasbourg's evenings are student bars and beer cellars in Krutenau and on the riverside terraces, and much of the city is quiet by midnight on weeknights.

Nice has the wider outdoor range, because this is where the Alps come down to the sea. There are coastal paths around Cap Ferrat, corniche roads for cyclists and the red rocks of the Esterel. The Mercantour lies inland, winter skiing at Isola 2000 is within reach, and sailing and diving are easy to arrange.

Strasbourg's outdoors is gentler and flat around the city. It has storks and beavers in the Rhine forests and some of the best cycling in France. The Vosges and the Black Forest offer real hiking within an hour, but they are much easier with a car.

Both make excellent bases, and Nice wins on ease. Monaco, Èze, Menton, Antibes, Cannes, Grasse and Saint-Paul-de-Vence are mostly under an hour away by coastal train or bus, Sanremo is just over the Italian border, and none of them needs a car.

Strasbourg's choice is just as varied: Colmar and the Isenheim Altarpiece, the wine villages such as Riquewihr and Eguisheim, and Baden-Baden, Freiburg and Heidelberg across the Rhine. The cities are easy by train, but the vineyards are much easier with a car or a bike.

Strasbourg is the easier place with children. The flat, largely car-free centre, boat trips around Petite France, the storks and rowing boats of the Orangerie and the hands-on Le Vaisseau science centre fill days in town. Europa-Park, one of Europe's biggest theme parks, is about an hour away.

Nice gives children the sea, the splash jets on the Promenade du Paillon and Parc Phoenix, and Monaco's Oceanographic Museum is close by. Against that, the pebbles are hard on small feet, there is no large theme park, and midsummer brings strong heat.

Nice stretches along its bay, while Strasbourg's centre sits on a small island in the Ill, and that shapes how you move. In Nice the old town, Place Massena and the port are within a flat half-hour walk of each other. The tram runs straight from the airport to the centre and the port, and buses climb to the museums in Cimiez. Regional trains cover the coast, though they get packed in summer.

Strasbourg's island centre takes about twenty minutes to cross on foot, and much of it is pedestrianised. Trams run outwards from it, with one line crossing the Rhine to Kehl, and the separated cycle lanes often make a bike the quickest way around. In either city a car only earns its keep beyond the edge of town, in the mountains behind Nice or among the Alsace wine villages.

Neither is a shopping destination, but you bring home different things. Nice has a small luxury quarter around rue Paradis, Provençal soaps, olive oil and fabrics in the old town, and a Monday antiques market on the Cours Saleya. Strasbourg has little fashion but strong regional crafts, such as Soufflenheim pottery, printed linens and kougelhopf moulds, and in December its long-established Christmas market.

Nice is the dearer of the two, and summer makes it more so. Hotel rooms near the sea climb steeply from June to September, and private beach loungers and promenade terraces add up quickly. Cheap trams and coastal trains, socca and market picnics help, and spring or late autumn eases the bill.

Strasbourg is easier on the budget, though it is no bargain. Winstub meals, tarte flambée and wine by the pichet are fair value, and the cathedral and the old town streets cost nothing. Hotels are the main expense, and they get much dearer during the Christmas market and the weeks when the European Parliament sits, so it pays to avoid those dates.

Strasbourg has the fuller stage life. The Opéra national du Rhin and the Philharmonic play full seasons, the Théâtre National de Strasbourg is among France's leading stages, and the Musica festival each autumn makes the city a centre for contemporary music.

Nice has its red-and-gold opera house, a long-established jazz festival in July and the February Carnival. Outside those, live music is mostly small bars in the old town and outdoor concerts in summer.

Strasbourg has a real bathing culture close at hand. In town there are the tiled pools, hammam and saunas of the early twentieth-century Bains municipaux, and Baden-Baden's Friedrichsbad and Caracalla baths are under an hour away.

Nice has no baths of its own, only hotel spas and thalassotherapy centres along the coast. It relaxes you in a different way: an early swim, a long lunch and an evening walk on the promenade. That works best outside high summer.