Portofino or Saint-Tropez?

This is where Saint-Tropez pulls ahead. Pampelonne is a long sweep of pale sand on the Ramatuelle side, with free public stretches between the clubs and quieter coves such as Escalet and Gigaro further along the coast path.

Portofino has no beach to match. Swimming means ladders off the rocks towards the lighthouse, where the water is deep and very clear, or tiny Paraggi, which is mostly given over to paid clubs. Its pebble coves, such as San Fruttuoso, are charming but small and crowded.

Saint-Tropez gives a food lover more to do. The Place des Lices market, rosé from the surrounding vineyards, bouillabaisse, long lunches on the sand and serious hotel dining rooms add up to a real food scene, even if cheap, simple meals are scarce.

Portofino's Ligurian cooking, with trofie with pesto and cheese focaccia from Recco, is appealing, but the choice is a few harbour terraces where you pay for the yachts. There is no market, and the better local eating is in Camogli, Santa Margherita or the hill trattorie.

Neither is a place for sightseeing, but Saint-Tropez has more to see. The Musée de l'Annonciade holds a fine collection of pointillist and Fauvist painting from the years when Signac worked here, and the citadel adds a maritime museum. Portofino's interest is its setting: the painted horseshoe of houses, San Giorgio, Castello Brown and the abbey of San Fruttuoso in its roadless cove, all seen in a day without a museum of any size.

The two are far apart here. In July and August, Saint-Tropez runs from beach-club afternoons at Pampelonne to the yachts and harbour terraces and then to clubs that close at dawn. It is dressy and moneyed rather than a scene for wandering between bars, and it shuts down by October.

Portofino's evening is a long aperitivo and dinner facing the boats, with a few elegant bars and no clubs at all. For anything later, people head to Santa Margherita, Rapallo or Genoa.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, in different ways. Portofino packs a protected headland and marine reserve into a small area. Steep trails climb to Monte di Portofino and drop to San Fruttuoso, some of them exposed and fitted with chains, and the diving offers red coral and the sunken Christ of the Abyss.

Saint-Tropez spreads out more gently. The Sentier du Littoral runs around the whole peninsula to Cap Camarat and Cap Taillat, the Massif des Maures inland suits mountain biking, and the national park islands of Port-Cros and Porquerolles are within reach. In summer, heat and fire risk close some of its trails.

Portofino is the better base for getting out. Camogli and Santa Margherita are a short bus or boat ride away, and Genoa's medieval centre and Strade Nuove palaces are less than an hour off. Summer ferries run to the Cinque Terre and Portovenere, and trains cover the same route the rest of the year.

From Saint-Tropez, the outings are pleasant but smaller: the hill villages of Ramatuelle and Gassin, the canals of Port Grimaud, wine estates and Porquerolles. Most depend on roads that jam badly in high summer.

Saint-Tropez works a little better with children, mainly because the sand at Pampelonne and Gigaro shelves gently and suits small swimmers. Otherwise both towns are aimed at adults.

Portofino is harder going. The only sand is mostly in paid clubs, many paths are steps that a pushchair cannot manage, and the best family outing is the aquarium in Genoa. Families in either place often stay somewhere nearby, in Rapallo in one case and Sainte-Maxime in the other.

Both centres are tiny and walkable, though Portofino's paths up to the castle and lighthouse are steep. The difference is in getting out. Portofino's bus meets trains at Santa Margherita station, and from spring to autumn ferries link the harbour with the whole coast, so you do not need a car.

Saint-Tropez has no railway, slow regional buses, and beaches several kilometres away, so most visitors rely on a car, scooter or taxi. The boats across the gulf from Sainte-Maxime and Port Grimaud are the way to avoid the summer traffic jams.

Saint-Tropez is a real place to shop. The big fashion houses fill the lanes behind the port, Tropézienne leather sandals are still made by hand in old-town workshops, and the Place des Lices market sells linen, baskets, pottery and vintage finds alongside its produce.

Portofino has a few designer boutiques and some lace, ceramics and pesto, but you can see it all in under an hour. For any real browsing, people go to Chiavari's arcades or to Genoa.

Both are among the most expensive places on the Mediterranean, so neither is the cheaper choice. The difference is in how you save. In Portofino, walking and the local buses cost little, and staying in Santa Margherita, Rapallo or Camogli makes a stay much cheaper. In Saint-Tropez the lack of public transport adds taxis or parking, so the savings come from sleeping inland or across the gulf, picnicking from the market and using the public stretches of Pampelonne.

There is little to see on stage in either town, but Saint-Tropez has a little more. It has summer classical and jazz concerts on the citadel and in gardens, and every May the Bravade parades costumed townspeople with muskets through the streets. Portofino offers only the odd summer concert in the piazzetta or at the castle, so a real evening of opera or theatre means going to Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice.

Spa treatments in both towns come from the luxury hotels: pools and massage rooms on Portofino's hillside, and polished spas in Saint-Tropez's hotels and villas that are mostly kept for their own guests. Portofino is a touch more restful overall, because the village itself does the calming, with long lunches looking over the water and quiet months either side of summer. Its weak spot is the middle of a summer day, when the tour boats fill the harbour.

In Saint-Tropez the crowds last longer, through the whole summer day and on into the night. Its gentler side is a small-town routine of a morning walk up to the citadel, a long lunch and a game of pétanque under the plane trees, and that only takes hold outside the peak of summer.