Quebec City or Stowe?

Neither is a swimming destination, and both have only a short summer season of fresh water at around 20°C to 22°C. The difference is in kind. Quebec City has a supervised river beach at the Baie de Beauport for sun and volleyball, but for proper swimming you drive to Lac Saint-Joseph or Lac-Beauport. In Stowe a swim usually fits into a hiking day, either at a rocky swimming hole in a mountain stream or at the small, unguarded sandy shores of Lake Elmore and Waterbury Reservoir.

Quebec City eats better and more widely. Its French-Canadian cooking runs from tourtière and pea soup to maple taffy on snow. The bistros of Saint-Roch and Saint-Jean-Baptiste cook with cheese, duck and game from Charlevoix and the Île d'Orléans, and the Marché du Vieux-Port and spring sugar-shack meals add to the choice.

Stowe's strength is narrower: some of the most sought-after hazy IPAs in the country, plus farm cheddar and cider doughnuts. Its farm-to-table rooms and après-ski taverns along Mountain Road are good, but there are fewer of them in the quiet weeks.

This is the widest gap between the two. Old Québec is a walled colonial city with UNESCO-listed upper and lower towns. It has the Château Frontenac above the Dufferin Terrace, a working star-shaped Citadelle, the 1759 battlefield on the Plains of Abraham and the Musée de la civilisation. That is several days of real history.

Stowe offers a pretty white steeple, covered bridges, a ski and snowboard museum and the von Trapp estate as a curiosity. It is pleasant scenery rather than a reason to visit.

Quebec City gives you a real choice of evening. You can join the party terraces of the Grande Allée, drink in student pubs and taprooms on Rue Saint-Jean, or go to the cocktail and wine bars of Saint-Roch where locals drink. Clubs are few, but bars stay open late.

Stowe's evenings are après-ski in base-lodge bars and taprooms, sometimes with a band on winter weekends, and the valley is asleep by midnight. A proper night out means driving to Burlington.

The two are closely matched, but they offer different things. Stowe is built around one mountain. Mount Mansfield, at 1,339m, rises above the valley with its ski area, Long Trail ridge walks, the boulder pass of Smugglers' Notch and mountain-bike trails, so everything starts close by. Its October foliage is its strongest season.

Quebec City is a city base with wilderness within an hour. Montmorency Falls is fifteen minutes away. Further out are the glacial valley of Jacques-Cartier for canoeing and moose, three separate ski hills, ice canoeing on the St Lawrence and the cycle loop round the Île d'Orléans.

Quebec City has more within easy reach. The farm parishes and cideries of the Île d'Orléans are twenty minutes away across the bridge, and the Huron-Wendat community of Wendake is on the city's edge. Further out along the north shore is the pilgrimage basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, and the gallery village of Baie-Saint-Paul in Charlevoix makes a longer day out.

Stowe's outings are pleasant drives to small towns: Burlington on the lake, the gold-domed statehouse in Montpelier and the cider mills of Waterbury. The best of them is the Shelburne Museum, with its historic buildings and lake steamboat. You need a car for every trip from Stowe, and for most of them from Quebec City.

Quebec City has a slight edge because it adds attractions laid on for children. These include the toboggan slide on the Dufferin Terrace, the winter carnival, the aquarium with polar bears and walruses, and the cable car and zip lines at Montmorency Falls. Its stairways and steep streets are hard work with a pushchair.

Stowe suits families who want to be active outdoors. It has a large ski school and beginner slopes, a resort over Smugglers' Notch built for children, and a flat riverside path for bikes and pushchairs. It has no aquarium or children's museum, though.

In Quebec City you can mostly leave the car. The old town, the Plains, Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Saint-Roch are all walkable, though the cliff means steep stairways, or the funicular down to Petit-Champlain. Buses and the Lévis ferry cover the rest of the centre.

Stowe stretches 11km along one valley road. Only the village is walkable, plus the riverside path in summer and a free shuttle in ski season. You need a car to reach trailheads, nearby towns and even the airport in Burlington.

Neither is a fashion destination, but Quebec City has more streets worth browsing. It has craft workshops and milliners in Petit-Champlain, antiques on Rue Saint-Paul and independent design shops on Rue Saint-Joseph, and its galleries sell Inuit and First Nations art. Stowe's village and Mountain Road have ski and outdoor gear, pottery, woodwork and wool. In both places, the best things to take home are maple products and cheese.

Quebec City is the easier place to visit on a budget. Its best sights cost nothing, including the walls, the Dufferin Terrace and the Plains of Abraham. Rooms in Saint-Roch or Sainte-Foy are cheaper than inside the walls, and the buses spare you car hire.

Stowe is priced as a major ski resort. Lift tickets, rental and resort dining add up fast, and peaks at Christmas, in the school vacations and in foliage season push rooms higher still. Valley motels, brewery meals and the free trails help in summer and the quiet months.

Quebec City has a real arts season. The Grand Théâtre is home to Canada's oldest symphony orchestra and an opera company, Robert Lepage's Le Diamant stages experimental work, and in July the Festival d'été fills the Plains of Abraham with international bands. Most theatre there is in French.

Stowe has a small arts calendar for a resort. It has touring acts at the arts centre at Spruce Peak, a summer community theatre and concerts on the hillside lawns that recall the von Trapp family.

Both are good for slowing down, though in different ways. Quebec City has the Nordic spa tradition, with outdoor circuits of hot pools, saunas and cold plunges in the forest around Lac-Beauport and one in the old port, followed by an unhurried café afternoon in Saint-Jean-Baptiste. In Stowe, wellness means the spa at your resort, with heated outdoor pools under the falling snow, then a country inn with a wood fire and a valley that goes completely still at night.