Nice or Zermatt?

Nice has about 7km of pebble shore right below the promenade, with clear water warm enough to swim from June into October. For sand there are the bays at Villefranche and Beaulieu or the beaches of Juan-les-Pins, all a short ride away. On the city beaches, water shoes or a lounger from a beach club make the stones easier.

Zermatt has no sea and no bathing lake. Its mountain tarns are for photographing the Matterhorn's reflection, and their meltwater stays far too cold even in August, so swimming here means a hotel pool.

Nice has a regional cuisine of its own with Ligurian roots: socca from wood ovens, pissaladière and stuffed vegetables. There is also the Cours Saleya market and rare Bellet wine from the hills above the city. The weak spots are the set-menu terraces on the promenade, so eat in Vieux Nice and around the port.

In Zermatt the best eating is up the mountain rather than in the village. Long lunches at chalets in Findeln and Furi bring raclette, fondue and air-dried beef with Valais wines such as Petite Arvine. The range is narrower, cheap meals are rare, and many places close between seasons.

Nice will hold a culture-minded visitor for two or three full days. There are the baroque chapels of Vieux Nice, the Belle Époque villas of Cimiez and the onion domes of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Above all there is the art: the Matisse and Chagall museums and MAMAC.

Zermatt's heritage fits into a morning. The Matterhorn Museum tells the story of the 1865 first ascent and the disaster on the way down. The mountaineers' cemetery and the larch-wood granaries of the Hinterdorf add some depth, and the Gornergrat railway is a piece of history you can ride. People come for the peaks, not the sights.

Neither town is a big night out, but Nice has more range. The lanes of Vieux Nice fill with wine and cocktail bars all year, the port has calmer bars, and in summer the promenade stays busy late.

Zermatt's nights belong to winter. Loud après-ski in the bars on the slopes leads on to a few bars and small clubs on the main street. Summer evenings end after dinner, and between seasons the village is shut.

For a beach city, Nice has an unusually wide outdoor range. There are coastal paths on Cap Ferrat, road cycling on the corniches, the red rocks of the Esterel, and sailing and diving offshore. The Mercantour and its ski resorts are within two hours.

Zermatt still wins clearly, because the high Alps start at the door. Lifts climb above 3,800m to glacier skiing that links into Italy and keeps some pistes open in summer. In the warmer months, the Five Lakes walk, the suspension bridge on the Europaweg and guided four-thousand-metre ascents are all within reach without a drive.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. From Nice, the coastal train and buses reach Monaco, Menton, Èze, Antibes, Cannes, Grasse, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and even Sanremo across the border. Most take under an hour and none needs a car.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion's two castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace are worth a day, and Saas-Fee is a bus ride away. Even so, most visitors spend their spare days back up the mountain.

Nice has more to fill a family's days. The Promenade du Paillon has water jets and big playgrounds, Parc Phoenix has gardens and small animals, the flat promenade suits pushchairs, and Monaco's Oceanographic Museum is an easy outing. The pebbles and the summer heat take some managing.

Zermatt's strength is safety and simplicity: car-free streets, ski schools and nursery slopes at Sunnegga, and marmots to spot on summer walks. It suits families who ski or hike together. Rainy days are hard to fill, though, and the highest viewpoints can be too cold and thin-aired for small children.

Both are easy without a car, in different ways. Nice has a flat, walkable centre, trams that link the airport, the centre and the port, buses up to Cimiez, and regional trains along the coast, though these get packed in summer.

Zermatt is car-free by design. You arrive by train via Täsch, walk the compact village and take the cog railway, the funicular and the gondolas straight up into the mountains. The trade-off is that leaving the valley takes over an hour.

Nice offers real browsing. Avenue Jean Médecin has the chains, the streets around rue Paradis have the luxury labels, Vieux Nice sells olive oil and Provençal fabrics, and the Cours Saleya holds an antiques market on Mondays. Zermatt has one main street of watch boutiques, souvenir shops and excellent ski and mountaineering outfitters, which is useful if you need gear and offers little more.

Neither is cheap, but Nice is much easier on the wallet. Hotels by the sea and beach loungers cost a lot in summer. Trams, coastal trains, socca and market picnics keep daily spending in check, though, and spring and late autumn bring prices down.

Zermatt is among the most expensive places in the Alps. Rooms are steep, the lifts and cog railways are costly, and a meal on a mountain terrace costs well above European norms. Self-catering and sleeping down the valley in Täsch help, but there is no budget version of a stay here.

Nice has a proper season. The Opéra de Nice stages opera, ballet and concerts by the Nice Philharmonic, the Théâtre National puts on drama in French, and the calendar also has the long-running Nice Jazz Festival in July and the Carnival in February.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Live culture there depends on timing your visit for Zermatt Unplugged in spring or the late-summer chamber music festival in the village church.

Zermatt is the better place to unwind in comfort. Many of its hotels have excellent spas with pools, saunas and mountain views, some open to day visitors, and the car-free streets keep the village quiet in the evenings.

Nice has no bathing tradition, so spa time means a treatment room in a seafront hotel or a thalassotherapy centre along the coast. Its restful side is the early swim and the evening walk on the promenade, and that works best out of season.