Saint-Tropez or Turin?

This is the clearest gap between the two. Saint-Tropez has the long stretch of fine sand at Pampelonne, plus quieter coves such as Escalet and Gigaro further south. The water is clear and warm enough to swim in from June to September.

Turin sits inland on the Po plain, so a sea swim means a long day's round trip to the Ligurian Riviera. In summer, people who stay in the city swim in small lakes such as Avigliana. If the beach matters to you, don't base yourself here.

Turin is much the better place to eat. Its Piedmontese cooking, from agnolotti del plin to bagna cauda and white truffles in autumn, comes with Barolo and Barbaresco. The city also has its own food traditions: vermouth, the aperitivo, gianduiotti and bicerin in the arcaded cafés. Porta Palazzo market adds cheap, good food.

Saint-Tropez offers grilled fish, aïoli, rosé on the sand and the tarte tropézienne, and its best restaurants are polished. Simple, good-value meals are hard to find, though, and much of the town closes in winter.

Turin is the place for sightseeing. The Museo Egizio alone is worth the journey. Around it are the Royal Palace, Palazzo Madama, the cathedral that holds the Shroud, the UNESCO-listed Savoy residences and the Mole with its cinema museum, enough for several full days.

Saint-Tropez has one real gem, the Musée de l'Annonciade, whose paintings date from the years when Signac and his circle painted the port. Add the citadel and the lanes of La Ponche and you have a pleasant day of looking, no more.

Saint-Tropez has the more famous night out, but only in summer. Afternoon parties at the Pampelonne beach clubs lead to champagne on the harbour terraces and then a few clubs that stay open until dawn, with dress codes and table service. Out of season it almost stops.

Turin's evenings are quieter but last all year. The aperitivo leads on to wine bars in the Quadrilatero Romano, crowds on the pavements in San Salvario and, in summer, the riverside Murazzi. It is sociable rather than showy.

Turin has more to offer outdoors because the Alps are only about an hour away. There is skiing around Sestriere, ibex and high trails in the Gran Paradiso, and hut-to-hut hiking in summer. Closer to town, the hills up to Superga and the Mandria park are good for easy walks, but anything wilder needs a car or a train.

Saint-Tropez's nature is coastal. The Sentier du Littoral runs past coves to the capes of Camarat and Taillat, the gulf is good for sailing and the rocky points are good for snorkelling. The national park islands of Port-Cros and Porquerolles are within reach, and spring and autumn are the best times to go, before or after the summer heat and fire risk.

Turin offers far more. The Langhe wine villages, Alba and Bra are about an hour south, and Milan is an hour away by fast train. Genoa, Aosta and the Sacra di San Michele all make realistic days out.

From Saint-Tropez the outings are short and charming rather than important: the hilltop villages of Ramatuelle and Gassin, the canals of Port Grimaud by boat, the wine estates and Porquerolles. Summer traffic on the gulf road can make any of them slow.

With small children, Saint-Tropez comes down to its sand. Pampelonne and Gigaro shelve gently, and the old town is small enough to wander safely. Beyond the beach, the harbour and the beach clubs are aimed at adults, and hot afternoons stuck in summer traffic wear families down. Many families stay across the gulf in Sainte-Maxime and come over by boat.

Turin's flat grid and long arcades keep a pushchair out of both rain and sun, and there is much more to fill the days. Children can ride the glass lift up through the Mole, see the car museum and the Egyptian mummies, and take the rack railway to Superga. Zoom Torino, about 45 minutes away by car, is the big day out, though the city itself has no zoo or theme park.

Turin is far easier to get around, because Saint-Tropez is a small town at the end of a peninsula rather than a place built for moving through. On foot it is no trouble at all, since the port, La Ponche and the citadel are minutes apart. The difficulty starts once you want to leave it. There is no railway into town and the buses are slow, so Pampelonne, the southern coves and the gulf villages all mean a car, a scooter or a taxi, and in high summer much of the day can go on the one coastal road. Crossing the bay by boat is the pleasant way round it.

In Turin the sights you came for sit on a flat, arcaded grid that you can walk from Porta Nuova to the Po, and the metro, trams and buses cover the outer districts. Its bigger advantage for a trip is the railway, which reaches Milan and the rest of Italy without a car. You only need to drive for the Langhe and the Alps. In Saint-Tropez you plan every outing around the traffic, while in Turin you can leave the car at home.

The two are fairly close, with Saint-Tropez slightly ahead, but the shopping is different in kind. Saint-Tropez has an unusual number of fashion houses and resort labels in the lanes behind the port, as well as hand-made Tropézienne sandals and the Place des Lices market. Much of it closes for winter.

Turin has luxury labels under the arcades of Via Roma and mainstream shops on Via Garibaldi. Its real strengths are food and antiques: chocolate, truffles and wine to take home, the antique dealers on Via Maria Vittoria and the Balon flea market.

Here the gap is huge. Saint-Tropez is priced for the yachting crowd, from rooms and beach loungers to a coffee on the port, and taxis or parking add to the bill. Budget visitors usually stay across the gulf and picnic from the market.

Turin is comfortable rather than cheap. Still, an aperitivo can replace dinner, the local trattorie and Porta Palazzo market are good value, and public transport is inexpensive in a centre you mostly walk anyway.

Turin has a real season. The Teatro Regio stages opera and ballet, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra has its own auditorium, there are concerts at the Lingotto, and there are festivals of classical, jazz and electronic music. The theatre is almost all in Italian.

Saint-Tropez has summer concerts in gardens and on the citadel, and the costumed Bravade procession in May. Otherwise there is very little to see.

Neither has a bathing culture of its own, and both rely mostly on hotel spas, so the difference is in the kind of calm. Saint-Tropez slows down in May, June and September, with long lunches, pétanque under the plane trees and morning walks to the citadel, but high summer is loud and crowded.

Turin is restful all year in the way a city can be: long coffees in historic cafés, evening walks under the arcades and along the Po. For thermal baths you have to go to Acqui Terme or the Aosta valley, each nearly two hours away.