Adelaide or Melbourne?

Adelaide has the clear advantage for swimming. A long, continuous strip of sand faces west onto calm Gulf St Vincent, with Glenelg, Henley, Brighton and Semaphore each centred on a jetty and sunsets over the water. The summers that warm it are drier and more settled, and the Fleurieu reefs and coves add clearer water within an hour.

Melbourne's St Kilda, Elwood and the bathing boxes at Brighton are pleasant on a hot afternoon. The bay is a little cooler, though, and the weather can turn within hours. The better sand is on the Mornington Peninsula, a drive away.

Both cities are first-rate places to eat, and they do it differently. Adelaide's cooking is about its own region: King George whiting, Spencer Gulf seafood and Barossa smallgoods at the Central Market, with wine from vineyards an hour away. Melbourne's strength is breadth and coffee, with Greek Lonsdale Street, Italian Lygon Street, Vietnamese Footscray and brunch cafés across Fitzroy. Melbourne also keeps its kitchens going later, which matters if you dine late.

Melbourne has more to see. The National Gallery of Victoria is a bigger draw than anything on Adelaide's North Terrace, and the gold rush left grand Victorian buildings such as the Royal Exhibition Building, the domed State Library reading room and the bluestone lanes with their street art.

Adelaide's sights sit neatly along one boulevard. The Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australian Museum are especially strong on Aboriginal art and culture, and the 1830s grid and its parklands can be covered in a day or two. Neither city has a landmark people travel across the world to see.

Melbourne is far ahead after dark. Its bars are hidden up stairwells and on rooftops all over the CBD, Fitzroy and Collingwood have late pubs with a creative crowd, and Chapel Street and St Kilda add clubs and a rougher beachside night. Much of it runs on weeknights as well as weekends.

Adelaide's laneway bars around Peel and Leigh streets are charming and full of local wine, but evenings end early and midweek is quiet. Hindley Street is its only real late strip. The city only matches Melbourne's energy during the late-summer festival weeks.

The two are close here, but the landscapes differ. Adelaide puts its bush right on the doorstep: Mount Lofty and Morialta's gorge are within half an hour, there are dolphins in the Port River, and the cliffs of the Fleurieu are nearby. The country is gentle and becomes hot and dry in summer.

Melbourne's nature is further out but more varied. It has tall mountain ash and tree ferns in the Dandenongs, little penguins and fur seals on Phillip Island, and the surf coast at Torquay. Adelaide's big wildlife trip, Kangaroo Island, needs more than a day.

Both cities have wine country about an hour away, but beyond the vineyards the choices differ. Adelaide is the place for wine itself, with the Barossa, McLaren Vale, the Hills and Clare all close, plus Prussian-settler Hahndorf. Melbourne mixes the Yarra Valley and the Mornington Peninsula with gold rush heritage in Ballarat and Bendigo, both reachable by regional train without a car.

Both are safe, flat and easy with children. Adelaide offers calm, shallow beaches, Cleland's kangaroos and adventure playgrounds in the parklands, and its small scale keeps days unhurried. Melbourne has more for rainy days, including Scienceworks and Sea Life. It also has outings Adelaide cannot match, such as the Puffing Billy steam train, Luna Park in St Kilda and platypus at Healesville.

Melbourne is much easier without a car. Its tram network is one of the world's largest and reaches St Kilda, Fitzroy, Carlton and South Yarra on one card, and regional trains run to Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.

Adelaide's flat grid is easy to walk, and the tram to Glenelg is handy. Past that, buses and a few train lines leave gaps, and the Hills, the Barossa and the Fleurieu all need a hire car. The roads are light enough that driving is simple.

Melbourne is the stronger place to shop. It has the Victorian arcades off Collins Street, luxury labels at its upper end, department stores in Bourke Street Mall, and local designers, record shops and vintage stores in the laneways and along Gertrude and Smith streets.

Adelaide's Rundle Mall and King William Road are pleasant for an afternoon, but the range is narrow. Its best purchases are regional, such as cellar-door wine, opal and Aboriginal art from desert communities.

Neither is cheap, but Adelaide goes easier on the budget. Central hotels cost less, and the Central Market and Chinatown make everyday meals reasonable, although touring the wine regions adds the cost of a car or tour. Melbourne charges more for rooms, drinks and coffee. Its free inner tram zone, free major galleries and good cheap eats in Footscray and Richmond help to make up some of the difference.

Melbourne has the fuller calendar through the year. The Arts Centre is home to the Australian Ballet and the symphony orchestra, musicals play in the old theatres east of the CBD, and band rooms in Fitzroy and St Kilda put on gigs most nights. The autumn comedy festival adds weeks of shows.

Adelaide comes close only in late summer, when the Fringe, the Adelaide Festival and WOMADelaide fill the parklands. Outside those weeks, the Festival Centre's programme is sound but smaller.

Melbourne gives you more ways to unwind properly. It has sea baths with saunas at St Kilda and Brighton, the historic mineral springs of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs, and geothermal hot pools on the Mornington Peninsula.

Adelaide has no bathing culture. Its version of rest is a day spa or a vineyard retreat in the Hills, together with the quiet pace of a small city where little traffic and wide parklands make slowing down easy.