Bath or The Hague?

Bath has no coast at all. The nearest sea is the muddy, tidal Bristol Channel at Weston-super-Mare, an hour away, and in summer locals swim in the Avon instead. The Hague has Scheveningen's long sandy beach and pier a quarter of an hour away by tram, plus quieter Kijkduin backed by dunes.

Neither city offers a swimming vacation, because both seas stay chilly. Still, only The Hague lets you go from a museum to a deckchair on the sand in the same afternoon.

The two are about equal for food, but the cooking is quite different. Bath is about the West Country: cheese, cider and lamb in gastropubs, Sally Lunn and Bath buns, afternoon tea, and the farmers' market in Green Park station. There is little food from elsewhere.

The Hague's strength is Indonesian cooking, from a full rijsttafel to quick plates of rendang, and it is unusually good here. There is also a small Chinatown, fish stalls at Scheveningen harbour and raw herring from street carts. Neither city is a place for fine dining.

In Bath the buildings are the main sight, while in The Hague it is the paintings on the walls. Bath's whole Georgian townscape is the attraction: the Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge in honey-coloured stone, with the Roman Baths' temple precinct and the fan-vaulted Abbey beneath and beside them. Here you see Roman and eighteenth-century history on foot, out in the street.

The Hague is grand, but its best things are indoors. The Mauritshuis holds Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson beside the medieval Binnenhof. The Kunstmuseum has the world's largest Mondrian collection, and Escher, the Panorama Mesdag and the Peace Palace add a modern and international side that Bath doesn't have. Either city fills two or three days well.

Neither is a party city, but The Hague gives you a little more. The terraces on the Plein and the Grote Markt stay busy at weekends, and in summer the beach pavilions at Scheveningen turn sundowners into dancing.

Bath's evenings are mostly spent in pubs, from coaching inns to real-ale houses on Walcot Street, and weeknights end early. For a bigger night, Bath has Bristol fifteen minutes away, and The Hague has Rotterdam or Amsterdam.

Bath has a slight edge because it has hills. You can walk out of town onto the Skyline ridges or along the Kennet and Avon canal towpath, the Cotswolds begin just to the north, and Cheddar Gorge in the Mendips is within an hour.

The Hague is completely flat, but its outdoors is the coast. There are the dunes and ponds of Meijendel, the old Haagse Bos forest, a cycle path along the dunes, and kitesurfing when the wind is up. In short, Bath is better for walking and The Hague for cycling.

Both are excellent bases, and The Hague is slightly better because everything is so close by train. Delft and Leiden are about fifteen minutes away, Rotterdam less than half an hour, and Amsterdam, Utrecht and Kinderdijk's windmills under an hour, with no car needed.

Bath's day trips are just as good but harder to reach. Bristol and Cardiff are easy by train. Stonehenge, Avebury, Wells, Lacock and the Cotswold villages generally need a car or a tour.

The Hague is much easier with children. Madurodam's miniature Netherlands, the sea aquarium, Museon and the Duinrell water park are all close, and the trams take pushchairs without trouble.

Bath has the Roman Baths, which children enjoy, and the playground in Royal Victoria Park, but not much else. Its steep streets make pushchairs hard work, so families end up travelling to Bristol or Longleat for a full day out.

Both have compact centres you can walk, and in both a car is more trouble than it's worth. Bath's sights are all within a twenty-minute walk, but the streets climb, and the countryside around it is poorly served by public transport.

The Hague is flat and built for bicycles. Its trams run to the beach and the Peace Palace, and two main stations put the rest of the country close at hand, which makes it the easier city to get around without a car.

The two are evenly matched, and both lean towards small independent shops rather than luxury. In Bath you browse bookshops and jewellers in the lanes by the Abbey, antiques on Bartlett Street, the makers and salvage dealers of Walcot Street, and the shops built along Pulteney Bridge.

The Hague has antique dealers and galleries on the Denneweg and Noordeinde, the glass-roofed Passage arcade and a large department store. Its standout is the Haagse Markt, a huge open-air market for fabrics and spices, which is livelier than anything in Bath.

Both are expensive, but Bath is the harder on your budget. A small city with many visitors means dear rooms, especially on summer weekends, and the spa costs a good deal. Pub lunches help, and so does sleeping in Bristol.

The Hague is a little gentler. Central hotels empty out once the business travellers leave at the weekend, cheap Indonesian and Surinamese meals stretch the budget, and a bike or tram costs little.

The Hague has the richer stage life, thanks above all to Nederlands Dans Theater, one of the world's leading contemporary dance companies, along with a full symphony season from the Residentie Orkest. Its theatre is mostly in Dutch, though.

Bath's Theatre Royal, a gilded Georgian playhouse, stages English-language touring drama, opera and pantomime, and there are concerts in the Abbey. With no resident orchestra and long-running festivals rather than a busy nightly programme, Bath offers less choice on an ordinary evening.

Here Bath is far ahead. It is the one place in Britain where you can bathe in natural hot spring water, either in the rooftop pool facing the Abbey or in the small Cross Bath, and the slow Georgian pace suits a restful stay.

The Hague's Kurhaus recalls its days as a bathing resort, but none of the old baths are still in use. Wellness here means large Dutch sauna complexes, where nudity is usually expected. It's a good day out, but it's a different kind of experience.