Boston or Newport, Rhode Island?

Newport is better for swimming. Its beaches start at the foot of the Cliff Walk: Easton's faces the open Atlantic, Second and Third Beaches are out in Middletown, and Gooseberry is a protected cove that suits small children. The water there is also a little less bracing.

In Boston, the beach means a Blue Line ride to Revere Beach or the commuter rail to Crane and Singing Beaches on the North Shore. That is fine for a hot afternoon, but the beach is a separate outing rather than part of an ordinary day.

Both cities serve the same seafood: lobster rolls, fried clams, chowder and local oysters. Boston has far more besides, with cannoli and red-sauce dining rooms in the North End, dim sum in Chinatown and ambitious chef-led cooking in Cambridge and the South End.

In Newport, the pleasures are tables on the Thames Street wharves and Rhode Island specialities such as clear-broth chowder and clam cakes. After a few days the choice runs thin, and some kitchens cut back in winter.

Both are steeped in early American history, but Boston has more of it. The Freedom Trail, Beacon Hill and Back Bay cover the Revolution and the nineteenth century in full, and the Museum of Fine Arts, the Gardner and Harvard's collections add art that Newport cannot match.

Newport's appeal is narrower and very particular: the Vanderbilt-era mansions on Bellevue Avenue, seen from inside or from the Cliff Walk, and a colonial quarter on the Point that includes Touro Synagogue. Two or three days are enough to see it.

Neither city stays up late, and both are places for bars rather than clubs. Boston has more range, from Irish pubs near Faneuil Hall to cocktail lounges in the Seaport and student bars in Allston and Cambridge, and the universities keep weeknights busy.

In Newport, an evening out means the decks and pubs of Thames Street. They are lively on a summer weekend with sailing crowds and wedding parties, but quiet for much of the year.

The two are about even outdoors, but the settings are different. Boston's outdoors is parkland and river: Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, kayaks on the Charles, ferries to the Harbor Islands and whale-watching boats out to Stellwagen Bank.

Newport puts you right on the rocky open coast, with the Cliff Walk, the ledges at Brenton Point and birdwatching at Sachuest Point. On the water it is one of the great sailing towns of North America.

Boston has the longer and easier list. Salem and Concord are a short train ride away, and Lexington, Plymouth and the North Shore fishing towns are all close. Newport itself is one of Boston's classic outings.

Newport's own day trips are good, but nearly all of them mean driving: Providence, Bristol, Mystic, New Bedford's whaling museum, and in season the ferry to Block Island.

Boston is much the easier choice with children. The aquarium, the Museum of Science, the Children's Museum and the Franklin Park Zoo are serious attractions in their own right, and the swan boats, the bronze ducklings and the decks of the USS Constitution make the sightseeing fun.

Newport is safe and gentle, with calm water at Third and Gooseberry Beaches, the carousel, the ramparts of Fort Adams and Save The Bay's touch tanks. Even so, long mansion tours and summer traffic tire children out.

Both centres are best on foot. Boston also has the T, so Cambridge, Fenway, the airport and even a beach can be reached without a car, despite slow stretches and service ending around midnight.

Newport's harbour and colonial streets are easy to walk, and a bus or the summer trolley goes up to the mansions. Beaches outside town and most day trips, though, mean driving through heavy summer traffic.

Boston has a proper shopping street in Newbury Street, with department stores at Copley Place and the Prudential Center and antiques on Charles Street. Newport's wharves and Thames Street lean towards galleries, sailing clothes and gifts, with antiques on Spring and Franklin Streets. It is a pleasant place to browse, without the fashion range of Back Bay.

Neither is a cheap trip. Rooms, seafood dinners and drinks cost a lot in both, but the ways to save differ.

In Boston, the free Freedom Trail and parks help, and a room further out along a subway line costs less. In Newport, the answer is timing: come midweek, or in late autumn and winter when room rates fall sharply, or stay up the island in Middletown.

This is where the two cities differ most. Boston has a full, year-round programme: the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, the Pops, Boston Ballet, the Handel and Haydn Society, serious theatre at the Huntington and the A.R.T., and Berklee students playing in small jazz rooms.

Newport's fame rests on a few weeks of summer, when the Jazz and Folk Festivals play at Fort Adams and chamber music fills the mansion ballrooms. The rest of the year there are bar bands and community theatre.

Neither has a bathing tradition, but Newport is the easier place to unwind, as long as you avoid high summer. From May into June and in September and October the Cliff Walk is quiet and the harbour slows down, and the resort spas complete a seaside rest.

Boston is a busy working city of universities and hospitals. There, calm means a day spa in Back Bay or an afternoon in the Public Garden or the Arnold Arboretum.