Boston or Washington DC?

Boston is the only one of the two where a swim fits into an ordinary sightseeing day. The ocean reaches right into the city, so the long sand at Revere is a subway ride from downtown, and a train up the North Shore brings you to the dunes at Crane Beach or the small cove at Manchester-by-the-Sea. The drawback is the North Atlantic itself, which stays bracing even at the height of summer.

Washington's rivers are for paddling, not bathing, so any beach means leaving town altogether. The Chesapeake near Annapolis is far warmer than Boston's sea, but its beaches are small and brackish, and the open-ocean coast of Delaware and Maryland is too far for a day out. For a DC visitor, sand is a separate excursion rather than an afternoon's break.

The two eat about equally well, in different ways. Boston's strength is the sea: oysters, fried clams, chowder and lobster rolls. It also has the cannoli and red-sauce dining rooms of the North End and chef-led cooking in Cambridge and the South End.

Washington has little to call its own beyond the half-smoke, but it offers a wider spread of cuisines, with Ethiopian cooking around Shaw and U Street and pupusas in Columbia Heights. Eastern Market and Union Market are the places to graze, where Boston's equivalent pleasure is a raw bar by the harbour.

Washington has more to see, mainly because of the size of its museums. The Smithsonian collections, from Air and Space to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, line the Mall beside the National Gallery, and almost all are free. The Capitol, the White House and the Lincoln Memorial are all in view. Georgetown's Federal brick and the rowhouses of Capitol Hill are handsome but play a supporting part.

Boston's past goes back further and covers more of the city. The Freedom Trail links colonial meeting houses, churches and burying grounds, and Beacon Hill and Back Bay are whole neighbourhoods of nineteenth-century brick and brownstone, close enough together to walk in an afternoon. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Gardner are superb, but Boston's list of major sights runs out sooner than Washington's.

Washington makes for the better night out. The U Street corridor has cocktail bars, rooftops and late dance spots, and Adams Morgan is rowdier and keeps going longer. At weekends the bars stay open well into the small hours, and a few large clubs bring in touring DJs.

Boston's evenings revolve around the pub: Irish bars near Faneuil Hall, sports bars by Fenway and student haunts in Allston and Cambridge. The clubs are modest, the bars shut earlier and the subway stops soon after midnight, so the night finishes sooner than in DC.

Both cities have more green space than their reputations suggest, and the difference is coast against hills. Boston's outdoors means Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, sailing on the Charles, ferries to the Harbor Islands and whale-watching out on Stellwagen Bank.

Washington looks inland, to the wooded valley of Rock Creek Park, the long C&O Canal towpath, the rocky gorge at Great Falls and, further out, ridge hikes in Shenandoah. Walkers get proper hills within reach of DC, while from Boston real mountains mean a longer trip north to New Hampshire.

Boston's day trips lead into colonial and seafaring New England, Washington's into the age of the first presidents and the Civil War. From Boston that means Salem by train, Lexington and Concord, Plymouth, the fishing towns of Cape Ann and the Gilded Age mansions of Newport.

Around Washington, Mount Vernon and Old Town Alexandria are close by, Gettysburg, Antietam and Harpers Ferry lie further out, and Baltimore and Philadelphia are reachable by train. From either city, a car opens up most of the list.

Children are well looked after in both, so the choice comes down to style. Boston has the New England Aquarium, the Museum of Science and the Children's Museum, plus the swan boats and a compact, flat centre that is easy on small legs.

What draws families to Washington is that the dinosaurs, the rockets and the National Zoo all cost nothing, so it is easy to leave when children lose interest. The catch there is the long, exposed walks along the Mall in the summer heat, while Boston's difficult season is its snowy winter.

You can manage easily without a car in either city, but you get around them in different ways. Boston is a walking city, with its old neighbourhoods packed tightly together. The T, the country's oldest subway, fills the gaps, though it is slow in places and stops around midnight.

Washington is flat and laid out on a grid, but the sights are far apart, so the clean, step-free Metro and the bike-share docks do more of the work. Its main gap is that Georgetown has no station, just as the slow Green Line trams are Boston's weak spot.

In both cities shopping is a sideline built around one historic street. Boston's Newbury Street runs through the brownstones of Back Bay with fashion flagships and galleries, and Charles Street on Beacon Hill adds antiques. Clothing is largely exempt from sales tax, which is a small bonus.

Washington's equivalent is M Street and Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, with luxury labels at CityCenterDC and makers' stalls at Eastern Market. What it adds is the museum shops of the Smithsonian and the National Gallery, which are good for books and prints.

Both are expensive, but Washington is easier on the wallet, mainly because its biggest sights are free. A day on the Mall, at the zoo or on a Capitol tour costs next to nothing, and Arlington has cheaper rooms a Metro ride away.

Boston offers fewer ways to save. Its hotels are among the dearest in the country and meals and drinks cost a lot. The Freedom Trail and the parks are free, but Boston has nothing to match the free Smithsonian museums.

Each city has a full season of its own, led by a different art. Boston is the classical city, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, famed for its acoustics, along with the Pops, the early-music Handel and Haydn Society, and young jazz players from Berklee in small rooms.

Washington's strength is theatre: Arena Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Folger's playhouse and Ford's Theatre. It also has a more substantial opera company, plus go-go and touring bands around U Street. Its summer lawn concerts at Wolf Trap are the counterpart to the Pops on the Esplanade.

Neither city has a spa or bathing culture, so in both, rest comes down to a hotel spa and some green space. What differs is where you find the calm. Boston's advantage is its coast. An inn on Cape Ann or Cape Cod makes for a restful night or two away, and in town the Public Garden, the riverside Esplanade and the Arnold Arboretum are quiet places to sit.

Washington has no seaside retreat close at hand, so its quiet is found in gardens and by the water: the Tidal Basin at first light, the terraced grounds of Dumbarton Oaks and the wide lawns of the National Arboretum. A restful DC trip is one you put together yourself, a slow morning here and an unhurried afternoon there.