Beirut or Tel Aviv?

Beirut's own shore is mostly rock. Along the Corniche, locals swim off concrete platforms, and the one long sandy beach, Ramlet al-Baida, has unreliable water. A proper beach day usually means paying to enter a private club with pools, or driving up to Byblos and Batroun or south to Jiyeh.

Tel Aviv's whole western edge is fine pale sand, running from the old port down to Jaffa, and you can walk to it from almost any central hotel. Breakwaters calm the water and lifeguards cover the main stretches. The sea is equally warm off both cities in late summer. The difference is that Tel Aviv lets you swim before breakfast or at sunset without planning anything.

Both are excellent places to eat, and the difference is in style. Beirut's strength is the classic Lebanese table: long meals of mezze with arak or Bekaa wine, Armenian grills in Bourj Hammoud, and weekend lunches on mountain terraces.

Tel Aviv cooks from many immigrant traditions, including Yemenite soups, Bukharan pastries and Iraqi kubbeh. It also has a loud, chef-led restaurant scene built on very good produce. You eat there by grazing through Carmel Market or over a long café breakfast. Many places close for Shabbat.

Neither city has a long list of sights, and two or three days cover the essentials in either. What you go to see differs. Beirut's interest is ancient history: the National Museum's Phoenician sarcophagi and Roman mosaics, plus the Roman baths beside the restored Downtown streets. The war-marked buildings of Gemmayzeh tell a more recent story.

In Tel Aviv the main sight is the city itself. The UNESCO-listed Bauhaus buildings of the White City are best seen on a walk along Rothschild Boulevard. Add Jaffa's old stone quarter, the modern collection at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and ANU's story of the Jewish diaspora.

Both cities stay out until dawn, but the mood is quite different. In Beirut people dress up for the night. You move between wine and cocktail bars in Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh, and the bigger clubs and rooftops are about tables and bottle service. Underground electronic venues by the port and day parties at the beach clubs complete the scene, and summer weekends are the high point.

Tel Aviv is casual, with hardly any dress codes. Thursday is the big night, the clubs are mostly house and techno in basements and warehouses, and the gay scene is among the most open in the region.

Beirut has the stronger landscape around it, though very little green inside the city. Within an hour you can be in pine forests and stone villages above 1,000m, or skiing at Mzaar in winter. The Jeita Grotto, paragliding above Jounieh Bay and the cliffs of the Qadisha Valley are all close enough for a day.

Tel Aviv is flat, and its outdoor life is on the water: surfing, paddleboarding and kitesurfing off the beaches, plus cycling and rowing in Yarkon Park. For hills or desert you drive about an hour to the Carmel ridge, or further to Ein Gedi.

From Beirut almost every outing is a drive, while from Tel Aviv the best ones start at a railway station. Beirut packs a lot into a small country. Across the mountains are the Roman temples of Baalbek and the Umayyad ruins of Anjar. Along the coast are the Crusader castle at Byblos, Sidon's sea castle and Tyre's ruins by the water, and in the Shouf hills is the Beiteddine palace. To reach them you need a driver or a tour and an early start to beat the traffic. Check local conditions before heading south or into the Bekaa.

Tel Aviv's big outing is Jerusalem, about half an hour away by fast train, and many visitors give it several separate days. Haifa and the Baha'i Gardens are about an hour up the line. Caesarea, Acre, and Masada with a float in the Dead Sea are also within reach. The catch is Shabbat: trains and buses stop, so Saturday trips need a car or a tour.

Tel Aviv is far easier with children. The calm, lifeguarded beaches, Yarkon Park with Luna Park, the Ramat Gan Safari and the children's museum in Holon fill the days, and the flat promenade is good with a pushchair.

Beirut welcomes children just as warmly, but very little there is designed for them. Narrow, blocked pavements and few safe crossings mean taxis for most journeys. The best outings are the Corniche, the beach-club pools, the Jeita Grotto and the Harissa cable car, and the city works better with older children.

Beirut has no metro or tram, and its buses are hard for a visitor to work out, so ride-hailing apps and shared 'service' taxis do the work. Hamra or Mar Mikhael are pleasant to walk within, but getting from one district to another means steep streets and heavy traffic.

Tel Aviv's centre is flat and compact. You can walk from the port to Jaffa, and bike-share, a light-rail line and trains to Jerusalem and Haifa cover the rest. The one gap is Shabbat, when most public transport stops.

The two are evenly matched, and both are better for local design than for big brands. Beirut has the more glamorous side: internationally known couture and bridal houses, plus the craftsmen of Bourj Hammoud with their jewellery, leather and spices. What it lacks is an old covered bazaar.

Tel Aviv is more casual. Look for designer boutiques on Sheinkin and in Neve Tzedek, the Nahalat Binyamin crafts market, and the antiques and junk of Jaffa's flea market. Good things to take home are Dead Sea cosmetics and tahini.

Beirut is clearly the cheaper of the two. Its smarter restaurants and hotels cost about what they would in Southern Europe, but neighbourhood mezze and short taxi rides stay cheap. Beach-club entrance fees are the main cost that adds up.

Tel Aviv is among the most expensive cities on the Mediterranean, with hotels and cocktails priced like Western Europe's dearest capitals. Its savings come from street food like sabich and falafel and from a beach that costs nothing.

Tel Aviv is clearly the place for an evening performance. The Israel Philharmonic, the Israeli Opera and Habima, the national theatre, all perform year round. Batsheva, the internationally known dance company, makes contemporary dance the highlight, and some theatre productions have English surtitles.

In Beirut the scene is smaller: Lebanese Philharmonic concerts in churches, Arabic theatre and cabaret in Hamra, and jazz and fusion in small venues. Its biggest musical moments happen outside the city, at the summer festivals in Baalbek, Beiteddine and Byblos.

Neither city is a place to rest, but Tel Aviv makes it a little easier. Shabbat empties the streets from Friday afternoon, the seafront promenade suits slow walks, yoga classes are common, and the Dead Sea mud spas are about one and a half hours away.

Beirut's traffic and generators rarely let up, and the old hammams have nearly all gone. Locals unwind with sunset walks on the Corniche or a night or two in a guesthouse in the cooler Shouf villages.