Addis Ababa or Nairobi?

Neither city has a beach, and in both swimming means a hotel pool. The difference is how far the nearest water is. From Addis Ababa, the crater lakes at Bishoftu are about an hour away for a lakeside resort weekend. From Nairobi, beach time means a flight or a long train ride to the Kenyan coast, so it has to be a separate leg of the trip.

Addis Ababa has the more distinctive food. Shared platters of injera with doro wat, tibs and kitfo, vegan dishes on fasting days, tej served in flasks and the coffee ceremony, in the country where coffee comes from, make eating a reason to come.

Nairobi's food is heartier and more social than special: nyama choma around the grill on long weekend afternoons, and chapati and pilau from roadside kiosks. Its advantage is range, with strong Indian cooking and a big café scene in Westlands and Karen. Addis rarely goes beyond Ethiopian and Italian cooking.

Both are young capitals with no old quarter, but Addis Ababa has more to fill the days. Lucy in the National Museum, the Ethnological Museum in Haile Selassie's former palace, the emperor's tomb at Holy Trinity, Menelik's palace compound and the Entoto churches together tell the story of an empire.

Nairobi, which began as a railway depot in 1899, has its own fossil galleries in the National Museum and the Karen Blixen farmhouse. After that come a few colonial buildings and the view from the convention centre roof, and most visitors are soon off to see the animals.

Nairobi has the bigger night out. From Thursday on, the rooftop bars and clubs of Westlands play amapiano and gengetone until dawn, and Kilimani adds quieter cocktail bars. Plan on ride-hailing door to door, as walking between areas after dark is not safe.

In Addis Ababa, the lounges of Bole and the rougher local bars of Kazanchis and Piazza fill up mainly on Friday and Saturday, and weeknights are quiet.

Nairobi wins this clearly. Lions, rhinos and giraffes graze in Nairobi National Park at the city's southern edge, with Karura Forest and the Ngong Hills close by. Within two hours you can cycle through Hell's Gate, take a boat among the hippos on Lake Naivasha or hike the rim of Mount Longonot.

The outdoors around Addis Ababa is gentler: eucalyptus trails on Entoto, colobus monkeys in the Menagesha Suba forest, birdwatching at Bishoftu and geladas along the Blue Nile gorge near Debre Libanos. Its truly wild places, the Simien and Bale mountains, are far beyond a day out.

Addis Ababa has the better spread of outings, most of them historic. To the north are the monastery of Debre Libanos and the Portuguese Bridge. To the south are the Tiya stelae, the rock-hewn church of Adadi Mariam and Melka Kunture. All are reached on slow roads, usually with a hired driver.

Outside the national parks, Nairobi has fewer places to visit: the Limuru tea estates for a half-day and the stone hand axes at Olorgesailie. Kenya's heritage towns, Mombasa and Lamu, are on the coast and too far for a day trip.

Nairobi is much the stronger choice for children. Feeding giraffes at the Giraffe Centre, watching baby elephants being bottle-fed at the Sheldrick orphanage and a morning game drive make for days Addis Ababa can't match, especially if you stay in Karen or Langata.

Addis Ababa welcomes children warmly but has little for them beyond the palace park with its lions, the Entoto hills and hotel pools, and the altitude tires small children for the first few days. It suits a stopover with older children better than a whole family vacation.

Neither city is easy, and in both visitors mostly use ride-hailing or a hired driver, but Addis Ababa is a little less tiring. Its light rail at least crosses the city, even though it misses most sights, and the traffic is slow mainly at rush hour.

Nairobi's congestion is among the worst in Africa. With the giraffes and orphanage in Karen and Langata and the nightlife in Westlands, a short trip can take an hour. The matatus are fun to look at but hard to use, and few areas have pavements.

Both are craft and market cities with no luxury streets, but shopping feels different in each. In Addis Ababa it means Merkato, a vast, disorienting open-air market best explored with someone who knows it, plus handwoven cotton shawls from Shiro Meda and Orthodox crosses around Piazza.

Nairobi is easier going. The Maasai Market, which moves around the city, sells beadwork and soapstone, workshops in Karen let you watch glass and ceramics being made, and Westlands and Gigiri have secure malls. In either city, coffee is the natural gift to bring home.

Addis Ababa is the cheaper of the two. Injera, macchiatos, minibus rides and museum entries cost little, and only international-standard hotels and the restaurants of Bole push the bill up.

Nairobi has the same gap between cheap local life and expensive secure hotels. It also adds higher park fees for foreigners and the cost of a vehicle for game drives, so a stay built around wildlife costs noticeably more.

Addis Ababa's music is the bigger draw. Azmari singers in Kazanchis and Piazza improvise verses about their audience, Ethio-jazz, born here in the 1960s and 70s, is played live in a handful of clubs, and cultural restaurants put on eskista dancing over dinner.

Nairobi has good bands playing benga, rumba and jazz on weekend evenings and traditional dance shows at Bomas of Kenya. Its plays in English and Swahili are easier for a visitor to follow than the mostly Amharic programme at Hager Fikir. Neither city has opera.

Addis Ababa comes out slightly ahead, because it has a bathing habit of its own. The city was founded beside the Filwoha hot springs, and their mineral water still feeds plain private bath cubicles near the centre, where residents go for their health. It is a simple soak rather than a pampering spa day, but Nairobi has nothing like it. Beyond that, winding down in Addis means a hotel spa, an unhurried coffee ceremony or a walk up into Entoto, away from the noise.

Nairobi has no springs, so its wellness is limited to hotel spas and a few day spas, and its centre is just as noisy and jammed. Where it makes up ground is in the leafy suburbs of Karen and Langata. A garden hotel or an old cottage there, with cool, fresh mornings at this altitude, keeps the city at a distance. Many people treat Nairobi as a staging post and leave the real rest for later, out in the bush or on the coast.