Alexandria or Tel Aviv?

Alexandria's sea is warm in summer, but the public beaches along the Corniche are narrow, packed with Egyptian families and not always clean, and the nicer sand at Montaza and Mamoura is behind the gates of paid clubs. Swimming is conservative, so it works for a dip between sights rather than days by the water.

Tel Aviv is a genuine beach city. Pale sand runs almost unbroken from the old port to Jaffa, guarded and often calmed by breakwaters, with stretches for every crowd from Hilton's gay-friendly section to Nordau's separate bathing days. Locals swim and play there before and after work, and you walk there from your hotel.

Alexandria does one thing very well: fish chosen from the ice in Anfushi and the Eastern Harbour, weighed and grilled or baked in clay, plus liver sandwiches, fiteer and old Greek-era patisseries. Beyond that the choice is narrow and a drink is hard to find.

Tel Aviv eats far more widely. Hummus counters and sabich stands sit alongside Yemenite, Iraqi and Bukharan cooking and a confident chef-led scene, Carmel Market is made for grazing, and Galilee wine and craft beer are easy to order.

Alexandria has the deeper past, even if much of it lies underground or underwater. The Kom el Shoqafa catacombs, the Roman theatre at Kom el-Dikka, Pompey's Pillar, the Qaitbay Citadel and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina reward a visitor who enjoys piecing a lost city together.

Tel Aviv's interest is twentieth century and architectural: the Bauhaus streets of the White City, the stone lanes of Jaffa and Neve Tzedek, plus ANU and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Its list is shorter, and the country's great ancient sites lie outside the city.

After dark, Alexandria moves to the seafront rather than the bar. Summer evenings on the Corniche run past midnight over tea, fresh juice and shisha, but drinking is limited to a few old Greek-era bars downtown and the hotel lounges, and there are no clubs.

In Tel Aviv a night out is the main event. Cocktail and wine bars around Rothschild, Lilienblum and Allenby spill onto the pavement past midnight, Thursday is the big night, house and techno clubs in the south of the city run until dawn, and the gay scene is among the most open in the region.

Alexandria offers little beyond the sea: the long Corniche walk, sunsets over the Eastern Harbour and, for divers, the sunken remains of the Pharos. Inland it is flat farmland, the reed beds of Lake Mariout and desert.

Tel Aviv is flat too, but uses its coast actively, with a cycle path from the port to Jaffa, surfing and kitesurfing off the beaches and the lawns of Yarkon Park. Real hiking is within driving range, on the pine-clad Carmel ridge an hour north or the canyons of Ein Gedi above the Dead Sea.

From Alexandria the outings are rewarding but specialist: the Ottoman houses of Rosetta, where the famous stone was found, the war cemeteries of El Alamein and the ancient monasteries of Wadi Natrun. Cairo and the pyramids can be done in a long day, but with well over two hours on the train in each direction they are better given a stay of their own.

Tel Aviv puts far more within easy reach. Jerusalem is about half an hour by fast train, and Caesarea, Haifa's Baha'i Gardens, Crusader Acre and Masada with a float in the Dead Sea all make full days. Saturday outings need a car or a tour.

Children are welcome in both, but Alexandria offers them little beyond seafront ice cream, horse carriages and the gardens at Montaza, and the crowded beaches and Corniche traffic make it hard going with small ones. It suits older children drawn to catacombs and forts.

Tel Aviv is far easier with young families: calm guarded beaches, Yarkon Park with boating and Luna Park, the Ramat Gan Safari, a children's museum in Holon and a flat, pushchair-friendly centre. Its main drawback is the humid midsummer heat.

Alexandria strings its sights along some 20km of coast, from Qaitbay to Montaza, so taxis and ride-hailing do most of the work, often slowly in traffic. The old tram is charming but slow, pavements are broken and crossing the Corniche takes care.

Tel Aviv's compact, flat centre is walkable from the port to Jaffa, with bike-share, a seafront path, light rail and fast trains beyond. The catch is Shabbat, when most public transport stops from Friday afternoon to Saturday night.

Alexandria's shopping serves locals rather than visitors, though the dusty antique dealers of the Attarin quarter are fun for anyone hunting relics of the cosmopolitan era. The souks sell fabric, spice and household goods.

Tel Aviv gives a shopper more to look for: Israeli designers on Dizengoff and Sheinkin, boutiques in Neve Tzedek, the Nahalat Binyamin crafts fair and Jaffa's flea market and studios. Prices are high, and Dead Sea cosmetics, spices and Judaica make good things to take home.

Alexandria is very cheap. Taxis, street food and comfortable seafront hotels cost little, and foreigners' entry fees to sites and museums are the main expense, still modest.

Tel Aviv is among the costliest cities on the Mediterranean, with expensive hotels, restaurants and drinks at every level. Falafel, hummus and market bakeries keep meals affordable, and the beach and the White City are free, but a budget traveller will need to plan carefully.

Alexandria's stage life centres on the Sayed Darwish Theatre, its early twentieth-century opera house, and the arts centre of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The programme is irregular and mostly in Arabic, so treat a show as a lucky find.

Tel Aviv has a programme you can plan a trip around: the Israel Philharmonic, the Israeli Opera, Habima and, above all, contemporary dance from Batsheva and the Suzanne Dellal Centre. Rock, jazz and Mizrahi pop fill its clubs, and summer brings outdoor stages in Yarkon Park.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and in both a spa means a big seafront hotel. Alexandria's calm comes from old cafés and harbour walks outside the summer crowds, with little else on offer.

Tel Aviv has a little more: day spas, yoga classes, the quiet of Shabbat and slow mornings on the promenade. Its trump card is the Dead Sea, about one and a half hours away, where mineral pools and mud spas give genuinely restorative bathing.