Antalya or Varna?

Antalya has more variety and better water. Konyaaltı is coarse pebble, with clear sea that gets deep quickly under the mountains. Lara has the sand, and within an hour you reach the pine-backed bays around Kemer and Phaselis and the long resort shores of Belek. The water stays warm enough to swim for most of the year outside winter.

Varna's beach is a long strip of sand right below the Sea Garden, so you walk down to it from the centre. It slopes gently and the waves are usually small, which is pleasant for paddling. The Black Sea is greener and cooler, though, and comfortable swimming lasts only from late June to mid September.

Antalya gives you more to look for. Try piyaz with tahini dressing next to grilled şiş köfte, slow-cooked tandır lamb, and fish from the Gulf. The weekly markets are piled with citrus and pomegranates from the plain around the city. The best meals are in the plain köfte houses of the modern city, not in Kaleiçi.

Varna's cooking is simpler Bulgarian tavern food: shopska salad, grilled meats, handfuls of fried sprats and mussels from the farms offshore. Its strong point is the reliable white wine of the Black Sea region. The range is narrower, and many seafront kitchens close once summer ends.

Walled Kaleiçi gives Antalya the richer old town. You enter through the triple arches of Hadrian's Gate and wander lanes of restored Ottoman houses with wooden bay windows, with the fluted Yivli Minare rising above them. The Antalya Museum, with its marble statues from Perge and its sarcophagi, is one of the country's better archaeological collections.

Varna has fewer sights but one remarkable object: the gold from the Varna Necropolis, about six thousand years old and among the oldest worked gold ever found. Add the Roman Thermae and the gilded cathedral, and you have seen the essentials in a day or two.

Varna has the better summer nights. A row of beach clubs below the Sea Garden runs DJ sets on big terraces until dawn, and the young crowd moves between them along the promenade. Golden Sands is a short taxi ride away if you want something louder.

Antalya's evenings are more about courtyard bars in Kaleiçi and terraces by the old harbour. There are beach clubs at Konyaaltı and Lara, but the venues are spread out and you need taxis between them. Outside the summer months both scenes shrink to a few bars in the centre, kept going mostly by locals and students.

This is where the two cities differ most. Antalya sits where the Taurus mountains meet the sea. You can take the cable car up Tahtalı Dağı to about 2,365m, walk stretches of the Lycian Way past Olympos, raft in Köprülü Canyon, dive along the coast, and even ski at Saklıkent in winter. The Düden falls drop off a cliff straight into the sea inside the city.

Varna's outdoors is gentler. There are shaded paths in the Sea Garden, the odd stone columns of Pobiti Kamani and bird-rich riverside forest along the Kamchia. The red cliffs of Cape Kaliakra, where dolphins are often seen, are the best scenery. These are good easy days out, but there is no serious hiking.

Antalya is surrounded by ancient cities. These include the colonnaded street at Perge, the very well-preserved theatre at Aspendos, Termessos high on its mountain, and Side's temple by the sea. A longer day reaches Myra and the sunken city at Kekova.

Varna's outings are fewer but varied. You can visit the medieval churches of Nessebar, the queen's palace and gardens at Balchik, and the early Bulgarian sites inland at Madara, Pliska and Preslav. From either city, a car or a tour makes these trips much easier.

Antalya is built for family vacations. The resorts at Lara, Belek and Kemer have pools, water slides and kids' clubs, Belek has a large theme park, and Lara's shallow sandy water suits toddlers. The catch is the July and August heat, and Kaleiçi's steep lanes are hard work with a pushchair.

Varna puts everything within a short walk in the Sea Garden: a small zoo, the old aquarium, a planetarium and playgrounds, with steps down to the lifeguarded beach. The flat promenade is easy with a pushchair. It is all small in scale, though, and fills only a couple of days.

Both cities are manageable, but in different ways. Antalya's tram lines between them link the airport, the bus station, the old town and the Konyaaltı side, and city buses fill the gaps on the same card. Beyond that, though, the resort coast stretches for tens of kilometres, and most guests travel by hotel transfer.

Varna is the easier city to walk: in about a quarter of an hour on flat streets you get from the cathedral to the beach. Its buses are harder for newcomers because of the Cyrillic signs, but taxis are cheap. Both cities need a car or a tour for the countryside.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Antalya has more of interest. Kaleiçi's lanes sell carpets, ceramics, spices and leather if you are ready to haggle, and the weekly neighbourhood markets are good for dried fruit and spices to take home. Varna offers a standard high street along Knyaz Boris I and a few local items, mainly rose oil cosmetics, embroidered linen and Bulgarian wine.

Varna is the cheaper of the two. Tavern meals, local wine and beer, taxis and museum tickets all cost little, and city hotels are reasonably priced for most of the year. The exception is July and August, when room rates rise sharply.

In Antalya, costs depend much more on where you spend your time. Köfte houses, markets and the tram are cheap, and all-inclusive packages can suit families. Kaleiçi's restaurants, beach clubs and boat trips are priced for foreigners, though. In both cities the shoulder months bring lower prices.

The two are much alike here, but the experience differs. Antalya's highlight is a single setting: the summer opera and ballet festival on the Roman stage at Aspendos, with performances under the stars. Its state opera and ballet perform in the city through the winter.

Varna's summer programme is broader and takes place in town. The Varna Summer festival brings classical concerts, theatre and jazz, there are open-air shows at the Summer Theatre in the Sea Garden, and in some years the city hosts the International Ballet Competition. Its opera house on the main square stages opera, ballet and operetta.

Antalya has the stronger bathing tradition. Kaleiçi has several old hammams with the full scrub and foam massage on warm marble, and the big resorts add their own hammams, saunas and spas. Long breakfasts and evenings by the sea set an unhurried pace.

Varna's appeal lies in its warm mineral springs. Mud treatments and mineral pools are offered at the spa hotels of wooded St Konstantin and Elena, just north of the city. There is little public bathhouse culture, though, so most of this happens inside hotels.