Antwerp or Bristol?

Neither is a swimming destination, and both put real beaches a long way off. Antwerp has a strip of sand at Sint-Annastrand facing a river nobody swims in, and the North Sea coast is a long train ride away.

Bristol's estuary is muddy and brown, but Weston-super-Mare is closer than the Belgian coast, and the Victorian marine lake at Clevedon gives cold-water swimmers somewhere to go. In Antwerp, summer dips mean outdoor pools and lakes on the edge of the city.

The two eat about as well as each other, but in different ways. Antwerp has a cuisine of its own, with beer-braised stoofvlees, mussels and frites, and its brown cafés pour Trappist ales and the local bolleke. There is serious modern cooking in Het Zuid and Het Eilandje too.

Bristol has no signature dish and is a place for grazing: stalls at St Nicholas Market, container kitchens on the harbour and small bakeries along Gloucester Road. Its drink is West Country cider and craft beer from warehouse taprooms, where in Antwerp it is Belgian abbey ale.

Antwerp has the far richer sights. Its sixteenth-century wealth left Rubens altarpieces in the cathedral, his house and studio, the intact Renaissance printing house of Plantin-Moretus and a fine arts museum running from the Flemish primitives to Ensor. Central Station and the Art Nouveau streets of Zurenborg add later layers.

Bristol's heritage is about engineering and trade. Brunel's SS Great Britain and the Clifton Suspension Bridge are its highlights, along with Georgian Clifton and St Mary Redcliffe, and Banksy's early street art gives it a draw Antwerp lacks. Both fill two or three days, but Antwerp's days hold more art of the first rank.

Bristol has more to its nights. It is the city of trip hop, drum and bass and dubstep, with clubs in the railway arches by Temple Meads and on a moored boat in the harbour. A large student population keeps it busy all year, and the pubs of Stokes Croft add a scruffy, creative side.

Antwerp's best card is that Belgian bars have no fixed closing time, so brown cafés can run well past midnight. It also has a house and techno tradition and one of the Low Countries' best-known gay scenes. Midweek, though, it goes quieter than Bristol.

Bristol is far better for getting outside. The limestone cliffs of the Avon Gorge, open grassland on the Downs and mountain-bike trails at Ashton Court are all in the city, and Cheddar Gorge, the Wye Valley and the Brecon Beacons are within reach for proper walking.

Antwerp's country is flat and built up, with the port along much of the river. Its outdoors means city parks, cycling on polder dykes and the heath and dunes of the Kalmthoutse Heide, which are pleasant but give nobody a reason to choose it.

Both are good bases, but Antwerp has the edge. Frequent trains reach a run of great historic towns, from Mechelen, Brussels and Leuven to Ghent and Bruges, then Rotterdam and Delft across the Dutch border, all without a car.

Bristol's best trip is hard to beat for speed, with Bath a quarter of an hour away by train, and Cardiff is under an hour across the Severn. Beyond those, the trips lean towards countryside and prehistory and are mostly reached by road. Wells and Glastonbury are about an hour south, and the Cotswold villages, Stonehenge and Avebury make full days out.

These two are about equal for children, and the difference is in the terrain. Antwerp's zoo is right beside Central Station, the flat centre suits pushchairs, and trams and the foot tunnel under the Scheldt are free entertainment.

Bristol gives more to do on a wet day, with the science centre, planetarium and aquarium side by side on the harbour, and a wildlife park on the northern edge. Its hills are hard work with a buggy, though, and neither city has a theme park close by.

Antwerp is much easier to get around. Most sights are within a half-hour walk on level ground, trams and the premetro reach Het Eilandje and Zurenborg, and cycle lanes and shared bikes make cycling natural. Central Station puts the whole country and the Netherlands within easy reach.

Bristol's flat harbour core walks well, and its yellow ferries are a pleasant way across the water. Clifton means a steep climb, and with no tram or metro, anywhere further out depends on buses that crawl through traffic.

Antwerp is a real shopping destination, and Bristol is not. The fashion academy's avant-garde legacy fills the boutiques of the Nationalestraat and Kammenstraat with conceptual Belgian labels. Beyond fashion there are the diamond quarter, antiques on the Kloosterstraat and the Vrijdagmarkt auctions.

Bristol's high street is the Cabot Circus and Broadmead complex. Its character comes from the record shops, delis and vintage clothes on Gloucester Road and the galleries of Clifton Village, which make a good afternoon but not the reason for a trip.

Both are mid-range cities where a tight budget feels the strain. Antwerp's rooms undercut the nearby capitals, but sit-down dinners and museum tickets follow Belgian price levels. Frites, a café beer and set lunches are the savings.

Bristol saves money in other places. Most of its main museums and churches are free, and market stalls feed people cheaply, but hotel rooms climb at weekends. In both, a compact centre keeps transport costs low.

On stage the two are well matched, but they suit different audiences. Antwerp is the place for classical music and dance, with a resident opera and ballet company, its own symphony orchestra, cutting-edge contemporary dance at deSingel and early music at AMUZ. Its theatre is mostly in Dutch, though.

Bristol is better for plays in English and for gigs. The Georgian Old Vic, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory and small venues with bands, jazz and electronic acts most nights make up for having no opera company of its own.

Bristol is the better place for a restful day, mostly thanks to its neighbour. Bath's rooftop thermal pool, fed by Britain's only natural hot springs, is a short train ride away, and the heated Victorian lido in Clifton makes a calm half day.

Antwerp has no bathing tradition. Flemish sauna complexes with pools and gardens are good, but most need a car to reach, so unwinding in the city usually means a park or a quiet brown café.