Almaty or Ulaanbaatar?

Neither city is a place for a beach trip, but Almaty at least has somewhere to swim outdoors. The Kapchagay reservoir, about an hour and a half north across the steppe, has sandy shores and warm summer water that locals crowd at weekends. In Ulaanbaatar the most you will see is families paddling in the cold, shallow Tuul River, so a swim there means a hotel pool.

Almaty eats far better, because its table draws on all of Central Asia. Uyghur lagman and manty are the highlights, with Uzbek plov, shashlik from the coals and Korean salads alongside. A morning tasting your way round the Green Bazaar's dried fruit, honey and horse meat is a meal in itself.

Ulaanbaatar's cooking is herders' food: buuz, khuushuur and salty milk tea, filling but plain and hard for vegetarians. Its Korean barbecue places and steak houses give you variety, and in summer both cities serve fermented mare's milk.

Ulaanbaatar gives you a little more to see, and almost all of it comes from its Buddhist past. There is the chanting at Gandan, the temple halls of the Choijin Lama and the Bogd Khan's Winter Palace, and the gilded bronzes in the Zanabazar museum.

Almaty's appeal is newer and quieter. It has the painted wooden Zenkov Cathedral, Scythian gold in the Central State Museum and a cityscape of Soviet modernist mosaics. Each city takes about two or three days.

Going out is much the same size in both cities: busy at weekends, quiet on weeknights, and not a reason to travel on its own. Almaty's evenings are smarter, with cocktail bars, craft beer and lounges under the trees around Panfilov Park. Ulaanbaatar is rowdier, with vodka, Korean-style karaoke rooms, hip-hop clubs and pub crawls near Seoul Street, and it is at its liveliest on summer nights.

Almaty has the greater landscape right on its doorstep. Snow peaks of 4,000m stand at the end of its streets, and within half an hour a gondola lifts you from Medeu to Shymbulak for skiing in winter or high hiking in summer. Big Almaty Lake and the glacier trails are a short drive away.

Ulaanbaatar's wild country is open steppe rather than alpine. You can hike Bogd Khan Uul in a day, ride horses past Terelj's granite outcrops or look for takhi and marmots at Hustai. The season is short, though, and the city's traffic slows every departure.

Neither city is a good base for visiting other towns, but Ulaanbaatar has slightly more to fill a day. The giant steel Chinggis Khaan statue goes well with an afternoon at Terelj, the ruins of Manzushir make a quiet half day, and you can visit herding families in their gers.

From Almaty you can see the Golden Man burial mounds at Esik, and the Tamgaly petroglyphs take a long half day. The best excursions from both cities, Charyn Canyon and Kharkhorin, need an overnight stay.

Almaty is clearly easier with children. You can take the cable car up Kok-Tobe to its rides and petting zoo, row a boat in Central Park beside the zoo, skate outdoors at Medeu in winter and ski on gentle slopes at Shymbulak.

In Ulaanbaatar the dinosaur museum with its Gobi fossils is a real treat. Otherwise children will mostly enjoy the countryside, with ger nights and gentle horses, because the city's traffic, uneven pavements and smoky winter air wear families down.

Almaty is simpler to get around. Its centre is a shady grid that is pleasant on foot, and the mountains always show you which way is south. Ride-hailing is quick, and you can reach Shymbulak by bus and gondola without a car.

Ulaanbaatar's centre is compact enough to walk between the square, the museums and the Choijin Lama Temple. Beyond that there is no metro, the buses are crowded and labelled in Cyrillic, and almost any trip into the countryside means booking a driver.

Neither city is worth the trip for shopping, and what you bring home differs. Almaty's best buys are edible: dried fruit, nuts, honey and spices from the Green Bazaar, plus malls with international brands. Ulaanbaatar has the one purchase worth planning for, which is good cashmere from factory shops and the long-established State Department Store, along with felt and horse-head fiddles. Each has a sprawling edge-of-town market, Barakholka and Narantuul, that is more for the experience than the bargains.

Both cities are cheap day to day, with low-cost dumplings, noodles, taxis and museum tickets. They differ in where the big expense falls. In Almaty it is a good central hotel, while the mountains are reachable by bus and gondola. In Ulaanbaatar it is the countryside, because hiring a driver, guide and vehicle can cost more than the rest of the trip.

Both cities have a lot of live performance, but of different kinds. Almaty is the place for formal evenings: classic ballet and opera in the Russian tradition at the Abai State Opera and Ballet Theatre, and dombra music at the Philharmonic.

Ulaanbaatar has its own opera house on Sukhbaatar Square, but the show not to miss there is the summer folk performance of throat singing, the horse-head fiddle, tsam dance and contortionists. In July the Naadam festival adds its ceremonies.

Almaty is far better for unwinding. The Arasan baths beside Panfilov Park combine Russian banya, Finnish sauna and Turkish hammam in one local institution, and the Alma-Arasan gorge has hot springs.

Ulaanbaatar is a tiring city, with traffic and smoky winter air, and for treatments there are only hotel spas and Korean-style saunas. The calm there comes from a night or two in a ger at Terelj, under wide skies with a wood stove going.