Beirut or Eilat?

Beirut's shore is mostly rock and concrete platforms, and the water quality at Ramlet al-Baida, its one long sand beach, is unreliable. Swimming therefore means paying for a beach club or driving to Byblos, Batroun or the Jiyeh coast. It is a summer pleasure that takes some organising.

Eilat is built around the sea. North Beach is a few minutes' walk from the hotels, and at Coral Beach you step off a jetty onto the reef, in water that stays clear and swimmable even in midwinter. The sand is coarse and the strip is short and crowded at weekends, but for simply getting into good water, Eilat wins easily.

Food is one of the widest gaps between the two. Beirut has a whole cuisine to explore, from za'atar manakish at breakfast and Armenian sausages in Bourj Hammoud to long mezze meals with arak or Bekaa wine and modern Lebanese cooking in Achrafieh.

Eilat eats like a resort, with hotel buffets and fish, steak and pizza on the promenade, all aimed at visitors. Its best meals are at the plain hummus counters and falafel stands away from the hotels. They are good, but a food lover runs out of new places within a few days.

War has broken up much of Beirut's old city, but there is still a good deal to see. The National Museum has Phoenician sarcophagi, the Sursock villa shows contemporary art, and downtown has the Roman baths and the Mohammad al-Amin Mosque, with the old stairways of Gemmayzeh close by.

Eilat has almost nothing of this kind. It is a young town of hotel towers and malls, and anyone after history has to go out into the desert to Timna or cross the border.

Going out is taken seriously in Beirut. Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh are packed with small cocktail and wine bars, Hamra is cheaper and full of students, and the clubs by the port and on summer rooftops run until dawn. People dress up for the evening.

Eilat's nights depend on who is in town. On summer weekends and during school breaks, young Israelis fill the lagoon and promenade for beach parties and pop and dance clubs. Midweek in the quieter months it can feel thin, and there is no bar culture of the kind Beirut has.

Both are good for the outdoors, in very different ways. Beirut has little green in town apart from Horsh Beirut and the Corniche, but the Jeita Grotto's caverns are half an hour north and pine-covered mountains above 1,000m are an hour away. About two hours out lie the Qadisha Valley's cliffs and the cedar forests, and in winter there is skiing at Faraya and Mzaar. That range through the year gives Beirut a slight edge.

Eilat's outdoors are desert and reef. The coral starts at the edge of town and dive centres line the coast road. Inland, the Red Canyon and Timna's sandstone formations offer walks among red rock, with views over four countries from the ridges, and spring and autumn bring the bird migration. In summer the heat limits hiking to dawn.

Beirut has an exceptional list of outings within about two hours. There are the Crusader castle and ruins of Byblos, the Roman temples of Baalbek, Anjar and the Bekaa wineries, Sidon's sea castle, Tyre's ruins, and Beiteddine paired with Deir el-Qamar. Traffic and local conditions need planning, but the choice is wide.

Eilat has really one great trip: Petra, across the Jordanian border, which makes a long but unforgettable day. Aqaba and Timna are shorter outings. Beyond those, the empty Negev keeps the rest of Israel out of easy reach.

Children are made a real fuss of in Beirut and restaurants welcome them, but little in the city is built for families. Narrow, broken pavements and heavy traffic make pushchairs hard work. The Corniche, beach club pools, the Jeita Grotto and the Harissa cable car are the main treats.

Eilat is where Israeli families go on vacation, and it shows. There are a calm sea, hotel pools and kids' clubs, the underwater observatory at Coral World, glass-bottom boats and the Dolphin Reef. Its limit is the summer heat, so late autumn to spring is the time to bring small children.

In Beirut, Hamra, Downtown, Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael are each easy on foot. Moving between them means steep streets, few crossings and heavy traffic, though, so ride-hailing and shared service taxis do most of the work.

Eilat is much simpler. The hotels, North Beach, the promenade and the malls are all a short walk apart, and a taxi covers the few kilometres south to the reef beaches, although walking at midday in summer is punishing. In both places, leaving town means a car, a driver or a tour.

Beirut has the more interesting shopping. Lebanese designers sell from boutiques in Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhael and Saifi Village, the city is home to well-known couture and bridal houses, and the jewellers, leather workers and spice sellers of Bourj Hammoud give it a local side. What it lacks is an old covered bazaar in the city itself.

Eilat's draw is tax-free shopping in its malls. Most of it is chain fashion, electronics and cosmetics that a visitor from abroad could buy at home, and the one local find is jewellery set with blue-green Eilat stone.

Beirut is the cheaper of the two, though it is not a budget city. Its smart restaurants, clubs and beach clubs cost about what they would in Southern Europe, but manakish, falafel, neighbourhood mezze and short taxi rides are cheap.

Eilat is expensive across the board, with hotels, eating out, drinks and diving all costing more than at typical European resorts. Staying midweek or in the quieter months, renting a self-catering apartment and eating at hummus counters all bring the cost down, and the VAT exemption helps a little.

Beirut has a modest but real scene. The Lebanese Philharmonic plays in churches and university halls, Hamra has Arabic-language theatre and cabaret, and jazz and electronic acts play small venues. The high point is summer, when Baalbek, Beiteddine and Byblos hold concerts among ruins and in palace courtyards.

Eilat has its long-running jazz festival by the Red Sea and occasional big concerts during the Jewish holy days. The rest of the year there is little beyond hotel shows and musicians in the bars, and no theatre or classical season.

Neither is a spa destination, but Eilat is the easier place to switch off. Its resorts have pools, quiet gardens and spas offering Dead Sea mineral treatments, and a midweek winter stay in warm sun is genuinely restful, though festival weeks bring crowds and noise.

Beirut is loud, with traffic, generators and late nights, and its hammams have mostly gone. Rest there means a hotel spa, a sunset walk on the Corniche or a night or two in a guesthouse in a Shouf village.