Paris or Saint-Malo?

Saint-Malo has real beaches and Paris does not. The long Sillon sands start at the ramparts, coves sit below the walls, and the Bon-Secours sea pool lets you swim even at low tide. The Channel water is cool, so you will spend more time on the sand than in the sea.

Paris has only summer sand laid out on the riverbanks, swimming spots on the Bassin de la Villette and the Seine, and some fine Art Deco pools. They are fine for cooling off, but you need to leave the city to see the sea.

In Paris, good food is part of daily life in every neighbourhood. There are morning markets such as Aligre and the Enfants Rouges, zinc-counter bistros, the haute cuisine tradition, natural-wine bars and small neo-bistros across the eastern arrondissements. Couscous in Belleville, pho in the 13th and West African cooking in the north give it a range of international food that a seaside town cannot offer.

Saint-Malo does a few things very well: buckwheat galettes with dry cider, kouign-amann, and Cancale oysters eaten at stalls by the harbour wall. Beyond seafood and Breton cooking the choice is narrow, and the crêperies inside the walls are uneven, so the better meals are in Saint-Servan or along the coast towards Cancale.

Paris has some of the world's best collections, from the Louvre and Orsay to the Orangerie and Cluny, along with Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle and whole districts of Haussmann stone. You could visit for weeks without running out of sights.

Saint-Malo's appeal is the town as a whole: the rebuilt granite town inside its walls, the walk out to Chateaubriand's grave on the Grand Bé, and the shipowners' malouinières. It makes a satisfying day or two of sightseeing, but it has few museums.

Paris has a proper night out. It starts in the bars of Oberkampf, Belleville and the Canal Saint-Martin, moves on to cocktails in South Pigalle or the gay bars of the Marais, and ends in house and techno clubs that run until dawn.

In Saint-Malo, a night out means a drink after dinner in the pubs and wine bars inside the walls. The streets only stay busy in summer, and for clubs you would go to Rennes.

Saint-Malo is the better place for outdoor days. The GR34 coastal path runs to Pointe du Grouin and the cliffs of Cap Fréhel, the Rance is good for kayaking, and the bay is good for sailing and kitesurfing. The tides, among the largest in Europe, change the coast twice a day, and seals live off the islands.

Outdoors in Paris means its parks and woods: Buttes-Chaumont, the Bois de Vincennes, the canal towpaths and the boulders of Fontainebleau. These are good for a gentle walk or bike ride, but there is no wild landscape.

Paris has the longer list, and fast trains make it easy without a car. Versailles, Chartres, Giverny and Fontainebleau are close, and Reims, Rouen and the Loire châteaux are also within a day.

Saint-Malo has one great day trip, to Mont-Saint-Michel. Medieval Dinan, the boat to Dinard, Cancale's oysters and Rennes add more. Beyond Rennes, though, most of these trips work best by car.

Paris has more to fill days with children: Disneyland and Parc Astérix, the hands-on Cité des Sciences, the galleries at the Jardin des Plantes, and carousels and toy sailboats in the Luxembourg. The downsides are metro stairs with a pushchair, small hotel rooms and long museum queues.

Saint-Malo is a simpler, outdoor kind of family trip: sandcastles, pirate stories on the ramparts, jumps into the sea pool and the Grand Aquarium for a wet day. Watch the fast incoming tide on the causeways, and remember that there are no theme parks nearby.

Both centres are easy to walk, but Paris also has a dense metro and the RER, which reach the airports, Versailles and Disneyland without a car. The weak points are stairs, rush-hour crowds and pickpockets.

Saint-Malo's walled town, promenade and Saint-Servan are easy on foot or by local bus, and a boat crosses to Dinard. Buses beyond the town are thin, so for Mont-Saint-Michel or the coastal villages most people drive or join a tour.

Shopping in Paris runs from couture flagships on Avenue Montaigne to the antiques dealers of the Saint-Ouen flea market. In between come the department stores Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché, independent designers and vintage shops in the Marais, and the old covered passages with their stamp and toy dealers.

Saint-Malo's shops inside the walls sell mostly Breton things: striped sailor tops and oilskins, Quimper-style faience, marine prints and tins of biscuits, with a few galleries among them. They are good for gifts to take home, but for fashion or a department store you would go to Rennes.

Neither is cheap, but Saint-Malo is easier on the wallet. Its rooms are dear in July and August, but prices drop in spring and autumn, and a galette with cider or a set lunch costs little.

In Paris, small, costly hotel rooms and terrace drinks are the main expense all year. You can cut costs with free city museums, bakery lunches, river picnics and a bed in the outer arrondissements.

Paris has a full programme every night of the year. There is ballet at the Palais Garnier, opera at the Bastille, orchestras at the Philharmonie and the Maison de la Radio, Molière at the Comédie-Française, jazz cellars on the rue des Lombards and cabaret in Pigalle.

Saint-Malo's cultural year is built around a few festivals: La Route du Rock, the Étonnants Voyageurs book festival and Quai des Bulles for comics. Outside those dates there are only occasional concerts in the cathedral or the town theatre.

Saint-Malo is a classic French thalassotherapy town. On the Sillon seafront you can spend whole afternoons in heated seawater pools and hydrotherapy, and the town is calm outside summer.

Paris has no bathing tradition of its own, but the tiled hammam at the Grande Mosquée, with mint tea afterwards, is something Saint-Malo cannot match. Otherwise rest there means hotel spas and an hour in the Luxembourg gardens.