Paris or Utrecht?

Neither is a beach destination, and both make do with summer swims. Utrecht has slightly better options, with recreation lakes such as the Maarsseveense Plassen on the edge of the city, the Loosdrecht lakes nearby, and the North Sea at Zandvoort about an hour away by train. Paris has its dressed-up riverbanks, swimming in the Bassin de la Villette and handsome Art Deco pools, but its nearest coast, in Normandy, is about two hours away.

Food is one of the main reasons to go to Paris, and Utrecht cannot match it. Paris has neighbourhood markets such as Aligre, serious pastry, zinc-counter bistros, inventive neo-bistros in the eastern arrondissements and a haute cuisine tradition. Couscous in Belleville and pho in the 13th add to all that.

Utrecht eats well enough, but casually. The setting is the draw: a table on the Oudegracht wharves at water level. It also has Indonesian and Surinamese kitchens, and Dutch and Belgian beers in the brown cafés. Few visitors plan their meals around it.

You could fill a vacation in Paris with museums alone, from the Louvre and the Orsay to the Orangerie and the Cluny. The city around them, from Haussmann's boulevards to the townhouses of the Marais, is a sight in itself. The cost is queues and the need to book ahead.

Utrecht is a smaller pleasure, but a satisfying one: the Dom Tower standing apart from its cathedral, the two-level Oudegracht, De Stijl at the Centraal Museum and the Rietveld Schröder House. Two or three days cover it well, while in Paris that time barely scratches the surface.

Paris has the bigger and later night out. It starts on terraces and in wine bars, moves through Oberkampf, Belleville and the Canal Saint-Martin, and ends in house and techno clubs or on summer barges at dawn. Doors can be selective and drinks are dear.

Utrecht's evenings belong to students, in brown cafés and on canal-side terraces around the Neude and the Janskerkhof. These are busy even on weeknights, but there are few clubs, and locals who want a big night take the train to Amsterdam.

Neither city offers big landscapes, so the difference is in how you get out into the green. Paris has formal gardens, the cliffs and lake of the Buttes-Chaumont and the woods of Boulogne and Vincennes inside the city, with Fontainebleau's forest and climbing boulders about forty minutes away by train. Utrecht is about cycling into open country, along the Vecht past estates and windmills, through the polders, or onto the heath and wooded ridges of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug.

Both are excellent bases. Paris has the edge in the richness of what surrounds it: Versailles, Chartres and Giverny, plus fast trains to the Champagne houses of Reims, to Rouen and to the Loire châteaux.

Utrecht's strength is convenience rather than grandeur. As the hub of the Dutch railways, it puts Amsterdam under half an hour away, with Rotterdam, The Hague, Delft and Gouda close behind, so you can see much of a small country without changing hotels.

Paris has more to do with children. Disneyland and Parc Astérix are within easy reach, and in the city there are the Cité des Sciences, the Jardin d'Acclimatation and the carousels and toy boats of the Luxembourg. Day to day it is harder work, with metro stairs, small hotel rooms and long queues.

Utrecht has fewer big outings but an easier rhythm. There is the Railway Museum and the Miffy museum, and the centre is calm and compact, in a country where children are taken everywhere. The steady stream of bikes is the one thing to watch.

Paris moves by metro, Utrecht by bicycle. In Paris the centre is a long, rewarding walk along the Seine, from the Marais to Saint-Germain. A dense metro and the RER handle longer hops out to the airports and Versailles, but they come with stairs, rush-hour crowds and pickpockets.

Utrecht is smaller and flat. The old town starts at the edge of Utrecht Centraal, the buses and trams use the same tap-in card as the trains, and a rental bike covers the outer districts. In neither city is a car worth having.

Paris is one of the world's great shopping cities. It has the fashion houses on Avenue Montaigne, Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché, the covered passages and the Saint-Ouen flea market, plus chocolate and cheese worth carrying home.

Utrecht is a pleasant place to browse rather than a reason to go. It has independent fashion, design and book shops on the wharves and in lanes such as the Twijnstraat, a flower market on the Janskerkhof and the chains in Hoog Catharijne. Luxury buyers go to Amsterdam.

Neither is cheap, but Utrecht is the gentler of the two. Beds there are pricey because the old centre has few hotels, yet museum entry is modest, local transport costs almost nothing and student cafés keep meals cheap.

Paris costs more at every step, from small, dear hotel rooms to drinks on a terrace and full-price monuments. Picnics, bakeries, the free city collections and hotels in the outer arrondissements help, but only so far.

Paris has two opera houses with the Paris Opera Ballet at the Palais Garnier, the Philharmonie, church concerts in the Sainte-Chapelle, jazz cellars and cabaret in Pigalle. That is enough for a different evening every night of a stay.

Utrecht does well for its size around TivoliVredenburg, where classical, pop and jazz share one building, and its Festival Oude Muziek is one of Europe's leading early-music festivals. It has no opera house, and theatre in both cities is mostly in the local language.

In Paris you can sit in the tiled steam rooms of the Grande Mosquée hammam in the Latin Quarter and then drink mint tea, right in the middle of town. Utrecht's equivalent is the large Dutch sauna complex, which is out in the green belt, a short drive or bus ride away.

Paris adds polished hotel spas, but the streets around them are fast and loud. Utrecht has few spas in the centre, yet it grows quiet once the day-trippers leave, and you can spend the evening on the canal wharves or in the Pandhof cloister garden beside the Dom.