Bratislava or Sarajevo?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Bratislava at least has somewhere to cool off in summer. Zlate piesky has a sandy lake shore you can reach by tram, and the larger Senec lakes are half an hour away. Both are warm enough in July and August.

Sarajevo offers less. The swimming spots are cold mountain rivers, the Jablanica lake on the road south, and pools. The Adriatic is three hours away, so it's better as an add-on stay on the coast than as a day out.

Sarajevo is the place to eat well. Its Ottoman-Balkan cooking has a clear identity: ćevapi in somun bread from the Baščaršija grills, pita bakeries selling burek by weight, lamb cooked under a metal lid, and the slow ritual of Bosnian coffee with rahat lokum. It's narrow, but it's done with care.

Bratislava's hearty dumplings, roast duck and poppy-seed rolls are satisfying rather than memorable, and the central squares lean towards tourist menus. Its real advantage is in the glass: Small Carpathian Veltliner, Riesling and Frankovka from vineyards at the city's edge, plus microbreweries. If wine matters more to you than food, Bratislava wins that part.

Sarajevo has the richer and more moving set of sights. In a few hundred metres you pass from the bazaar, the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque and its madrasa to Austro-Hungarian avenues with Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals and the Old Synagogue. The Latin Bridge, the Tunnel of Hope and the War Childhood Museum tell the city's twentieth century in a way few places can match.

Bratislava's Old Town is pretty and well kept: baroque palaces, St Martin's Cathedral with its coronation crowns set in the pavement, and the castle on its hill. But it comes across as charming rather than profound, and most visitors finish it in a day or two.

The two are broadly level, and neither is a club city. Bratislava's nights are a pub and wine-bar crawl through a few Old Town streets. They get loud and full on Fridays and Saturdays, with weekend groups and stag parties from abroad, and go quiet during the week.

Sarajevo's evenings grow out of café-bars that fill from the afternoon, then move on to cellar bars and small clubs kept going by students. The mood is more sociable than rowdy, and nights often end over rakija.

Sarajevo has much the stronger outdoors. Real mountains rise on every side: the cable car to Trebević and its overgrown Olympic bobsleigh track, ski runs and grassy hiking ridges on Jahorina and Bjelašnica, and the shepherds' village of Lukomir above the Rakitnica canyon. Trails are lightly marked, so it suits confident walkers.

Bratislava's countryside is gentler and easier. Beech-wood paths climb from Koliba to the Kamzik tower, Devinska Kobyla has steppe meadows above the meeting of two rivers, and the flat Danube cycle route runs along the dykes into Austria. For mountains, you'd have to travel a full day to the Tatras.

Bratislava is the better base for day trips, mainly because of geography. Vienna is about an hour away by train or a scenic boat trip up the Danube. Austria, Hungary and Czechia are all close, so Carnuntum, Lake Neusiedl, Lednice-Valtice and Pannonhalma are easy outings, along with the wine villages of Modra and Pezinok.

Sarajevo's best day out is Mostar, on a beautiful train ride down the Neretva gorge, with Konjic, Blagaj and Počitelj along the same route. Travnik and the bridge at Višegrad are rewarding too, but the roads are slow and winding, and most trips need a car or a tour.

Both are manageable with children for a few days, and neither is really built for them. Bratislava is calm and largely pedestrian, with bronze statues to spot, the Kamzik forest park with its chairlift, a hillside zoo and the thermal water park at Senec.

Sarajevo welcomes children warmly and has the Trebević cable car, carriage rides to the streams of Vrelo Bosne and gentle winter skiing. However, its main sights are about war and its hillside streets are steep. Grill smoke and winter smog also make it harder going with small children.

Bratislava is the easier of the two. Most of what you'll want, including the castle, riverfront and theatre squares, is within a twenty-minute walk. A single ticket covers trams, trolleybuses and buses out to Kamzik, the zoo and Devin. There is no metro, so trips across the river take a little longer.

Sarajevo is easy to understand because it follows a narrow valley, and its centre is flat. Away from the single tram line from Baščaršija to Ilidža, though, the routes are harder for a visitor to follow and the slopes are steep. Taxis are cheap and plentiful, and you'll need them for the airport, the Tunnel of Hope and the mountains.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Sarajevo's bazaar gives it more character. On Kazandžiluk you can still hear coppersmiths hammering coffee sets. The Bezistan and the lanes around it sell kilims, slippers and filigree, though much of it is souvenir stock.

Bratislava's best finds are Modra majolica and blue-print cloth at the state folk-craft centre, and a few bottles of Small Carpathian wine. For serious fashion, take the train to Vienna.

Sarajevo is the cheaper city, and noticeably so. Street food, sit-down meals with drinks, taxis, museums and central guesthouses all cost well below Western levels. Prices rise only a little in the Old Town.

Bratislava is good value too. Beer, wine, transport and weekday pub lunches are cheap. But restaurants on the main squares and in the riverside complexes charge closer to Western prices, and rooms cost more on busy summer weekends. A modest budget goes a long way there, just less far than in Sarajevo.

Bratislava gives you the better evenings out. The Slovak National Theatre stages opera and ballet in its ornate building on Hviezdoslav Square, and the Philharmonic plays in the Reduta across the square. Tickets are easy to get, and the autumn music festival adds highlights. For anything bigger, Vienna is an hour away.

Sarajevo's National Theatre and Philharmonic offer a smaller regular programme. Its festivals carry more weight: MESS for international theatre in autumn and the jazz festival in November. Its most distinctive sound is sevdah, the melancholy love songs you may hear in traditional restaurants.

Sarajevo has the slight edge because its thermal water is within the city. A tram ride takes you to the sulphur springs and spa pools of Ilidža, which have been used since Roman times, with a calm walk to Vrelo Bosne nearby. Winter smog takes away some of the calm.

Bratislava has no baths of its own, only hotel spas and quiet afternoons by the Danube. Proper bathing means a day out to the water park at Senec, or about an hour by train to the historic mud and sulphur cures of Piestany.