Beirut or Cairo?

Beirut is the only one of the two where the sea is part of the stay. In summer the water is warm, locals swim off the rocks along the Corniche, and the private beach clubs north and south of the city make a whole day of it. The cleaner shores near Byblos and Batroun are under an hour away.

Cairo has nothing comparable. The Nile is not for swimming, the Red Sea at Ain Sokhna is a resort-lined weekend trip about 130km away, and in the city a swim means a hotel pool.

Beirut eats better. Its strength is the long Lebanese meal of mezze, grilled meats and arak or Bekaa wine, and it runs from Hamra bakeries and Bourj Hammoud's Armenian grills to polished dining rooms in Achrafieh, with mountain-terrace lunches at weekends.

Cairo's food is cheaper and simpler, and mostly eaten on the street: ful and taameya for breakfast, koshari at lunch, feteer and stuffed pigeon. The traditional ahwa is a pleasure in its own right, but fine dining is thin and wine and beer are not part of everyday meals the way they are in Beirut.

Here Cairo is in another league. The pyramids and Sphinx at Giza, Tutankhamun's treasures and the royal mummies, the medieval mosques and madrasas along Al-Muizz Street and the Citadel above them, and the churches of Coptic Cairo need many days.

Beirut's long history has survived in fragments. The National Museum's Phoenician sarcophagi and the Sursock Museum's modern art are worth seeing, and Downtown's restored streets and Roman baths make a good walk, but two or three days cover the main sights.

Beirut is one of the great going-out cities of the region, and Cairo is not. Beirut's cocktail and wine bars spill onto the pavements of Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh, the clubs by the port and on summer rooftops run until dawn, and people dress up for it.

Cairo stays up just as late, but the night belongs to tea, shisha and backgammon in the ahwas and to families strolling the Nile corniche. Its drinking scene is limited to Zamalek, the big hotels and a few river boats, and it is pricey for the city.

Beirut has the landscape Cairo lacks. Within an hour of the coast you are in pine forests and mountain villages above 1,000m, with the Jeita Grotto, paragliding over Jounieh Bay and stretches of the Lebanon Mountain Trail nearby, and skiing at Faraya in winter. The Qadisha Valley and the cedars are further out.

Cairo's outdoors is desert. Al-Azhar Park and a felucca at sunset are the city's breathing space, Wadi Degla offers dry canyons, and the Fayoum's lakes and dunes are two hours away. Summer heat rules out most of it.

Both cities have great excursions, but Beirut's are more varied. In a small country you can reach Phoenician and Crusader Byblos, the Roman temples of Baalbek, Sidon's sea castle, Tyre's seaside ruins and the Beiteddine palace, often combined with wineries or mountain villages.

From Cairo the outings are mostly pharaonic: the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the quiet pyramids of Dahshur and the ruins of Memphis. Wadi Natrun's monasteries and a long day in Alexandria broaden things. From either city, plan on a driver or a tour.

Neither city is easy with children, and they are hard in similar ways: broken pavements, aggressive traffic and few places built for kids, though people in both are warm towards families. What differs is the payoff.

In Beirut it is the gentle stuff: scooters on the Corniche, beach-club pools in summer, the Jeita Grotto and the cable car to Harissa. Cairo offers the pyramids, a camel ride and the mummies, which children remember for years, but it comes with touts and heat, so go between November and March.

Cairo is slightly easier, mainly because it has a metro. It links Tahrir Square with Coptic Cairo and Heliopolis while the traffic sits still above it, and river taxis cross the Nile. Beirut has no metro or tram and buses visitors can't follow, so you depend on ride-hailing, taxis and shared service taxis.

In both cities the traffic is heavy, crossings are scarce and walking works only within a district. Beirut's Hamra, Gemmayzeh and the Corniche are pleasant on foot, as are Cairo's Zamalek and Al-Muizz Street.

Both offer similarly good shopping, but in different styles. Beirut is about design and fashion: couture and bridal houses, small designer boutiques in Gemmayzeh and Saifi Village, and the jewellers and leather workers of Bourj Hammoud. It has no historic bazaar of its own.

Cairo has the bazaar Beirut lacks. Khan el-Khalili has been trading for centuries, and around it are the hand-stitched appliqué of the Street of the Tentmakers and the coppersmiths' alley. Expect to haggle and to need patience.

Cairo is far cheaper. Meals, the metro, ride-hailing and comfortable hotels in Zamalek or downtown cost little. The main extras are the higher entry fees foreigners pay at the big sites, plus tips and guides.

Beirut is mid-priced. Its restaurants, bars and good hotels cost roughly what they would in Southern Europe, and beach-club fees add up. You can still save by eating manakish and neighbourhood mezze in Hamra, but the city's best-known pleasures are the expensive ones.

The two are on a similar level, with different strengths. Cairo has a formal stage at the Opera House on Gezira Island, with a symphony orchestra and ballet, and the whirling tanoura in the medieval Wikala of al-Ghouri is a striking evening.

Beirut's scene is smaller but looser: jazz, Arabic fusion and electronic acts in Hamra and Mar Mikhael, cabaret reviving the old music-hall songs, and in summer, concerts among the temples of Baalbek and in the courtyards of Beiteddine.

Neither city is restful, but Beirut gives you more ways to slow down. Its stone villages in the Shouf and the cool, pine-covered mountain slopes are close enough for a quiet night or two, and a sunset walk on the Corniche is a daily ritual.

Cairo's noise and dust hardly ease. Calm comes from a Nile-side hotel spa, a felucca or a historic courtyard garden, and real rest usually means leaving for the Red Sea or an oasis.