Adelaide or Sydney?

Sydney is one of the world's great beach cities, and Adelaide cannot match it. Sydney has ocean surf at Bondi, Bronte and Manly, sheltered harbour coves such as Balmoral and Camp Cove, and a warmer sea that stays swimmable well into autumn. The surf beaches have real waves and rips, so swim between the flags.

Adelaide's beaches face the calm water of Gulf St Vincent, where there is little surf. That makes Glenelg, Henley and Semaphore gentle places for a swim and a jetty walk at sunset, with the old tram running out to Glenelg. The swimming season is shorter, and for more striking sand you need to drive down to the Fleurieu Peninsula.

Both cities eat very well, but in different ways. Adelaide's food is about produce and place. You start at the Central Market and go on to King George whiting, Spencer Gulf prawns and Hills cheese, with wine from vineyards an hour away on every list. Kitchens close early, though.

Sydney's food comes from its immigrant suburbs, from Vietnamese food in Cabramatta to Lebanese in Lakemba, along with the fish market at Pyrmont, a serious fine-dining tier and a weekend brunch habit. It has more range and more polish, and it costs a good deal more.

Sydney has the landmarks Adelaide lacks. The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are sights in their own right, The Rocks keeps the colony's oldest streets, and Hyde Park Barracks is on the World Heritage list. Several good museums fill out a few days.

Adelaide puts its culture along North Terrace, where the Art Gallery and the South Australian Museum are both strong on Aboriginal work. Its orderly colonial grid of sandstone and bluestone is pleasant, but it takes a day or two at most.

Sydney gives you more choice of where to go out and keeps going later. You can start in the cocktail bars in CBD basements, carry on in Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, find the LGBTQ scene on Oxford Street, and stay out late in Newtown and Enmore. Even so, it is a city of bars more than clubs.

Adelaide's evenings run on laneway wine bars around Peel and Leigh Streets and on suburban corner pubs, with Hindley Street left to the younger club crowd. Midweek is quiet. The exception is festival season, when pop-up bars in the parklands change the city for a few weeks.

Sydney's landscape is wilder and closer to hand. Clifftop walks run between its own beaches, and the Royal National Park and Ku-ring-gai Chase sit at either edge of the city. Humpbacks pass the heads in winter and spring, and the Blue Mountains are within a day.

Adelaide's outdoors is gentler: eucalypt walks up Mount Lofty, the Morialta gorge, koalas in the Hills and dolphins seen by kayak on the Port River. It is lovely and easy to reach, but quieter in scale, and its hot summers push walking into spring and autumn.

Adelaide has the better day trips, mainly because so much wine country lies close to the city. The Barossa's German-settler villages and Lutheran spires, the McLaren Vale vineyards that run down towards the sea and the Prussian cottages of Hahndorf are each an easy drive. The Clare Valley's stone towns are a longer outing, and Victor Harbor has a horse-drawn tram across the causeway to Granite Island. Once you have done the tastings, long lunches and village browsing, though, there is little else, and no other city or famous historic site is within reach.\n\nSydney's outings take longer and are more about scenery.

The Hunter Valley's cellar doors are a long morning's drive north, the Blue Mountains add the old guesthouse towns of Katoomba and Leura to their cliff-edge views, and Bowral and Berrima give the Southern Highlands their gardens and colonial streets. Parramatta's early colonial buildings and the train rides to Newcastle or Wollongong are the easier options closer in. Most of what lies within reach is landscape with the odd town along the way, and a car makes the trips much easier.

Both are easy with children, but in different ways. Sydney's outings revolve around the water. Ferries run to Taronga Zoo, Darling Harbour has the aquarium and ships to climb aboard, and Luna Park's old rides sit under the bridge.

Adelaide is smaller and calmer, with a flat, compact centre, Cleland's kangaroos in the Hills, Monarto's open-range animals and gentle gulf beaches for small swimmers. It suits families who want ease over spectacle, though summer heatwaves can wear children out.

Sydney's transport covers much more of the city. Trains, the metro, light rail, buses and the harbour ferries all take one card, and the ferries double as sightseeing. The catch is the city's size: the eastern beaches need a bus, and the suburbs spread well beyond the useful network.

Adelaide's flat grid is easy on foot or by bike, and the free loop bus and the tram to Glenelg cover the essentials. Beyond that the network is thin, and the wine regions that bring people here really need a hire car. Fortunately driving is easy.

Sydney is the better place to shop by a wide margin. International flagships cluster around Pitt Street Mall, Australian designers fill the Victorian galleries of the Queen Victoria Building and the Strand Arcade, and Paddington adds local fashion and weekend markets. Swimwear and resort clothing are a particular strength.

Adelaide has Rundle Mall, its arcades and a few boutiques on King William Road. What visitors actually take home tends to be wine from the cellar door, opal, local chocolate and Aboriginal art.

Adelaide is clearly the cheaper of the two, though in Australian terms that still means a fairly expensive trip. Its central hotels are easier on the pocket and the city loop costs nothing, but touring the wine regions adds car hire or tour fees.

Sydney's harbour and beach hotels and its restaurant bills push costs well up. Many of its best days out are free, though, from the coastal walks and beaches to the main galleries.

Sydney has the deeper calendar all year. The Opera House stages opera and symphony nearly every night, and Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Bangarra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra add theatre, dance and chamber music. Newtown and Enmore keep the live music going.

Adelaide is a different story depending on when you visit. In late summer the Fringe, the Adelaide Festival and WOMADelaide make it Australia's festival city, but for the rest of the year it offers a steadier, smaller programme at the Festival Centre.

Neither city has hot springs, but Sydney has a bathing ritual of its own in its sea-fed ocean pools cut into the rock at Bondi, Bronte and Coogee. Old baths such as Wylie's and McIver's Ladies Baths keep an unhurried feel, and a few Korean-style bathhouses add steam.

In Adelaide, relaxing mostly means its slow pace, with long lunches, walks in the parklands and day spas. Retreats in the Hills and wine regions pair treatments with vineyard stays.