Bath or Cambridge?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, and the swimming in both is freshwater. Bath's locals use the Avon at a weir east of the city, and the nearest sea is the brown, tidal Bristol Channel at Weston-super-Mare, about an hour away.

Cambridge has a proper outdoor pool in Jesus Green Lido as well as river swimming at Grantchester Meadows, but its coast in Suffolk and Norfolk is further off. For clear water, Bath is better placed for a long day out to Dorset or Devon.

The two eat about as well as each other, but in different ways. Bath has a stronger local identity: West Country cheese, Somerset cider, its own Bath bun, Bath Oliver and Sally Lunn bun, and a farmers' market in the old Green Park station.

Cambridge has more range instead. The daily market on Market Hill has street-food stalls, and Mill Road brings Asian and Mediterranean cooking that Bath largely lacks. In both, the old pub and the afternoon tea room do much of the work.

Both are among England's finest historic cities, and two or three days covers either. Bath's appeal is a whole townscape: the Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge in honey-coloured stone, with the Roman Baths and the Abbey at its heart and smaller museums such as the Holburne filling out a stay.

Cambridge is built around its colleges, from King's College Chapel to Trinity's Great Court and the Wren Library, and its university museums are stronger, led by the grand Fitzwilliam. Choose Bath for Roman and Georgian history, Cambridge for medieval chapels and serious collections.

Evenings in both revolve around the pub, and neither has a big club scene. Bath's coaching inns and real-ale houses on Walcot Street quieten early, especially midweek, with Bristol fifteen minutes away for a bigger night.

Cambridge has a little more going on, with livelier bars around Regent Street and Mill Road and riverside pub gardens that fill on summer evenings, though its student clubs go quiet outside term.

Bath has much more to offer outdoors. It sits in a bowl of steep green hills, so the Skyline loop, the Kennet and Avon towpath and the Two Tunnels Greenway start from town, with the Cotswolds to the north and the Mendips and Cheddar Gorge within an hour.

Cambridge's landscape is flat fen edge with wide skies. Punting through the Backs, the meadow walk to Grantchester and the birdlife and wild ponies at Wicken Fen are pleasant, but there are no hills and nothing dramatic within reach.

Both make excellent bases, with quite different country around them. From Bath you reach prehistoric England at Stonehenge and Avebury, the cathedral city of Wells, Glastonbury, Lacock and the southern Cotswold villages, with Bristol fifteen minutes away by train.

Cambridge's big advantage is London, under an hour by train, and Ely's cathedral is only fifteen minutes away. Beyond that come the Suffolk wool towns of Lavenham and Long Melford, Norwich and Newmarket. Many of Bath's villages need a car or a tour.

Cambridge is the slightly easier city with children. It is flat and green, its zoology and Sedgwick museums are free and full of skeletons and dinosaurs, and Duxford's airfield of historic aircraft is the best family day out in either place.

Bath's Roman Baths, with rising steam and costumed characters, are a real hit, and Royal Victoria Park has a good playground. But the steep streets are hard with a pushchair, and for more, families tend to head to Bristol or Longleat.

Both centres are compact, largely pedestrian and best on foot, and in both a car is more trouble than it is worth. Bath's station is right at the bottom of town, but its streets climb steeply, so buses help with the outer viewpoints.

Cambridge is flat, and the bicycle is the natural way to reach Grantchester or the further colleges, though its station is a longer walk from the centre.

Bath is the better shopping city, and many visitors give it a full day. Milsom Street has fashion and British brands in Georgian buildings, the lanes around the Abbey hold independent jewellers and homeware shops, and Walcot Street and Bartlett Street add makers, salvage and antiques, with little shops on Pulteney Bridge too.

Cambridge is smaller in scale. Its strength is books, from academic booksellers to second-hand dealers, plus vintage on Mill Road, and shopping there fits around sightseeing.

Both are expensive, with dear central hotels in steady demand, and neither has a clear edge. Bath's costs go up with the Roman Baths and the spa, and sleeping in Bristol and taking the train over saves the most.

Cambridge has more that costs nothing: the Fitzwilliam and most university museums are free, as is evensong in the college chapels, though the famous colleges charge for entry.

Cambridge has the more distinctive live programme, chiefly through its choirs. Hearing King's, St John's or Trinity sing evensong in a candlelit chapel is a reason to visit on its own, and the Footlights tradition, the ADC's student theatre and the summer Folk Festival add more.

Bath's stage life centres on the gilded Georgian Theatre Royal, with touring plays, opera and dance, plus festivals of literature and Mozart. On an ordinary night, though, there is less live music to choose from.

This is where the two cities differ most. Bath was built on its hot springs, and you can still bathe in natural thermal water at Thermae Bath Spa's rooftop pool above the Abbey or in the small Cross Bath, then take tea in the Pump Room.

Cambridge has no bathing culture of its own, just hotel spas and the lido. Its rest is quieter and more outdoorsy, a punt on the river or tea in the orchard at Grantchester, and the centre gets crowded in summer.