Saint-Tropez or Zurich?

This is Saint-Tropez's strongest point, and one Zurich can't match. Pampelonne gives about 5km of pale sand and clear sea, with public stretches between the beach clubs, and wilder coves at Escalet and Cap Taillat for quieter days.

Zurich's swimming is good of its kind: clean lake water at the Utoquai and Mythenquai bathing houses, and drifting down the Limmat at Letten. But you lie on grass or decking, not sand, and it is a pleasant extra on a city break rather than a reason to come.

The two are broadly level, but they feed you very differently. Saint-Tropez is about Provençal cooking eaten outdoors: grilled fish, aïoli and rosé on the sand, the Place des Lices market and the tarte tropézienne. In winter, though, much of the town shuts and simple eating is hard to find.

Zurich is richer and more indoor: veal in cream with rösti, fondue in guild houses, excellent chocolate and the Paradeplatz tea rooms. Its casual and international places in Kreis 4 and 5 give more range all year, though it has little street food or market life.

Zurich has clearly more to see. The Kunsthaus, the Swiss National Museum and the Rietberg could fill two or three days on their own, and the Altstadt adds the Grossmünster, where the Swiss Reformation began, and Chagall's windows in the Fraumünster.

Saint-Tropez's heritage is small but charming. The Annonciade's pointillist and Fauvist paintings recall Signac's years on the harbour, and the citadel and the lanes of La Ponche round out a single pleasant day.

Both cities go out hard, in opposite styles. Saint-Tropez is all moneyed glamour: afternoon parties at the Pampelonne beach clubs, champagne on the harbour and a few famous clubs with table service and a dress code. Almost all of it happens in July and August.

Zurich runs on electronic music, in the clubs of Kreis 4, 5 and Zurich West and at the August Street Parade, with rough-edged Langstrasse at its heart. It keeps going all year, though weeknights are calm.

Zurich has the broader outdoors, since it has the Alps as well as its lake, but Saint-Tropez offers something Zurich cannot: a Mediterranean shore to walk, sail and swim along. The coast path circles the peninsula from the harbour out to the capes, with the wooded Maures hills behind. The sea is half the attraction too, with snorkelling off the rocky points and the protected islands of Port-Cros and Porquerolles a boat ride away. Summer heat brings a fire risk that closes some trails, so the walking is best outside high season.

Zurich's outdoors runs from gentle to high. The lake promenades and the forest trails of the Uetliberg are close to the centre, and within about an hour Rigi and Pilatus give proper mountain hiking in summer, while Flumserberg makes a day on skis possible in winter. Saint-Tropez has no mountains and nothing to match that in the colder months.

Zurich is the far better base. Lucerne is under an hour by train, and Bern, Basel and St Gallen's abbey library are about an hour each. The Rhine Falls, Stein am Rhein and Einsiedeln are easy too, all without a car.

From Saint-Tropez the outings are shorter and gentler: hilltop Ramatuelle and Gassin, Grimaud's castle, the boat across to Port Grimaud and wine tastings. Porquerolles or Roman Fréjus make a longer day. Everything depends on roads that jam in high summer.

Zurich is much easier with children. The zoo has a Madagascar rainforest hall and an elephant park, the lidos have shallow areas and lawns, and the lake boats suit all ages. Technorama and Lucerne's Swiss Museum of Transport are short train rides away.

Saint-Tropez's gently shelving sand at Pampelonne and Gigaro is lovely for small children. Little else is aimed at them, though, and many families stay across the gulf in Sainte-Maxime and come over by boat.

The gap here is very wide. Zurich's trams, S-Bahn, funiculars and even its lake boats share one ticket, and the airport and the rest of Switzerland are a train ride from the main station, so a car is a nuisance there.

Saint-Tropez is tiny on foot, but it has no railway, slow buses and beaches several kilometres out. In July and August its single road along the gulf can hold you for hours. The passenger boats from Sainte-Maxime and Port Grimaud are the best way to avoid it.

Both are luxury shopping towns, though they sell different things. In Saint-Tropez it is summer resort fashion: the big houses' seasonal shops behind the port, swimwear, and hand-stitched Tropézienne sandals. The Place des Lices market adds linen, baskets and pottery, but many shops close in winter.

Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse is a year-round street of watchmakers, jewellers and department stores. Design shops under the Zurich West viaduct arches and antiques in the Niederdorf give it a little more variety.

Neither is a place to save money, and the difference between them is slight. Saint-Tropez is cheapest out of season or as a day visit from inland, with a market picnic on a public beach, but in summer you pay yacht-crowd prices plus taxis or parking.

Zurich is expensive in every month and on every item, from rooms to a casual lunch. Its transport pass and visitor card soften the cost a little, and the free lidos, drinking fountains and supermarket picnics by the lake help.

Zurich is a serious stage city. The Opernhaus offers a full season of opera and ballet, the Tonhalle Orchestra plays in its restored hall, and the Schauspielhaus is a leading German-language theatre. The Rote Fabrik and Kreis 4 venues cover jazz, indie and touring bands.

Saint-Tropez has only summer concerts in gardens and at the citadel, plus the Bravade procession each May. For opera you would drive to Toulon or Nice.

Saint-Tropez has no bathing tradition, only the polished spas of its luxury hotels, and in high summer the town is crowded and the evenings are loud. In May, June and September it becomes genuinely calm, with long lunches and pétanque under the plane trees.

Zurich has real places to bathe. There are thermal pools and a rooftop pool in the stone vaults of the old Hürlimann brewery, and in the colder months the wooden lake and river baths turn into saunas, with cold dips between sessions. Baden's hot springs, used since Roman times, are twenty minutes away by train.