Boston or Williamsburg, Virginia?

Neither city is a beach destination, but the beach trip works differently in each. From Boston you can ride the Blue Line to Revere Beach or take the train to the North Shore dunes at Crane Beach and Singing Beach. The trouble is the Atlantic, which stays cold even in August.

Williamsburg sits inland between two rivers, so any beach means a drive: the small Yorktown strip, Buckroe on the bay, or Virginia Beach about an hour away. The reward is warm summer water, though sea nettles can spoil the bay in high summer.

Boston eats far better. Oysters, steamed clams, lobster rolls and chowder are served from harbourside shacks to Seaport raw bars, and the North End's cannoli and red-sauce rooms, Chinatown's late dim sum and the chef-led kitchens of Cambridge and the South End give real range.

Williamsburg's best meals are the simple Virginia ones: a ham biscuit, peanut soup, a soft-shell crab in season. Candlelit tavern dinners are about the setting, and Richmond Road is mostly pancake houses and chains. Both towns serve good oysters, but only Boston can carry a food-led trip.

Both are among the best places in America to meet the colonial past, but in different ways. In Boston the Revolution is woven through a living city: the Old State House, Paul Revere's House and the Old North Church line the Freedom Trail, and Beacon Hill and Back Bay add whole nineteenth-century neighbourhoods. The Museum of Fine Arts, the Gardner and Harvard give it the deeper reserve.

Williamsburg is more immersive and narrower. Its restored capital, with costumed tradespeople, the Governor's Palace and the Wren Building, puts you inside the eighteenth century, but it is a careful re-creation that two or three days will cover.

Boston has an evening scene, even if it closes early: Irish pubs near Faneuil Hall, game nights around Fenway, cocktail lounges in the South End and student bars in Allston and Cambridge. Williamsburg barely has one. Beyond a few college pubs and edge-of-town taprooms, the night usually ends with a tavern supper or a ghost walk.

Boston offers more to do outdoors. You can sail or kayak on the Charles, walk Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, take a ferry to the Harbor Islands, and above all go whale-watching for humpbacks on Stellwagen Bank. Cape Ann's rocky shore and Walden Pond are within an hour, and the autumn colour is superb.

Williamsburg's flat Tidewater is gentler: cycling the Colonial Parkway or the Capital Trail, and paddling tidal creeks where ospreys and bald eagles fish. Summer heat and mosquitoes push the best outings into spring and autumn.

Boston has the longer and more varied list. Salem and Concord are easy by commuter rail, and Plymouth, the North Shore fishing towns and the Newport mansions make fuller days out by car.

Williamsburg's strength is how close its partners are. Jamestown and Yorktown are each less than half an hour away, so the whole story from first settlement to the war's end fits into a few relaxed days. Beyond them, the James River plantations and Richmond are good outings, though all of them need a car.

Williamsburg is the more complete family trip. Busch Gardens and Water Country USA supply the thrills, and the Historic Area, Jamestown and Yorktown let children handle history, from replica ships to musket drills. Motels with pools and child-friendly restaurants make the logistics easy.

Boston is a fine city for children too, with its aquarium, Museum of Science, Children's Museum and the swan boats in the Public Garden, and it needs no car. What it lacks is a big theme park, and its winter is cold.

In Boston a car is a burden. Downtown, the North End, Beacon Hill and Back Bay are best walked, and the T and harbour ferries cover Cambridge, Charlestown and the airport, although the network is old and stops around midnight.

Williamsburg reverses this. Its historic core is walkable in about 20 minutes, but the theme parks, outlets, most hotels, Jamestown and Yorktown are spread along highways, so nearly everyone drives.

Boston has more range: the boutiques and flagships in the brownstones of Newbury Street, the department stores at Copley Place and the Prudential Center, antiques on Charles Street and bookshops in Harvard Square. Williamsburg's shopping is narrower but more particular. Pewter, silver and reproduction furniture made in eighteenth-century styles in the Historic Area make memorable souvenirs, and the big outlet centre on Richmond Road covers the basics.

Williamsburg is noticeably kinder to the wallet, mainly because rooms are plentiful and reasonably priced outside peak weeks. Admission fees and a hire car take back some of the saving.

Boston is expensive in almost every way, with costly hotels, meals and drinks. The free Freedom Trail and parks, a fairly priced subway and a centre you can walk soften the bill, but they do not change it much.

The two are far apart. Boston has the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the acoustically celebrated Symphony Hall, the Pops on the Esplanade, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Ballet, drama at the Huntington and the A.R.T., and jazz from Berklee and Conservatory students.

Williamsburg's stage is the colonial one: candlelit recitals, period plays and fife-and-drum corps, plus student productions at William & Mary. For a professional orchestra or theatre company, you would have to drive to Norfolk or Richmond.

Neither is a spa destination, so the difference lies in the kind of calm. In Boston rest is an urban pause, with a Back Bay day spa or an afternoon on the Esplanade or in the Arnold Arboretum, set inside a brisk, working city. Williamsburg is slower by nature: resort spas along the James River, empty colonial greens early in the morning and unhurried drives down the wooded Colonial Parkway.