Brighton or Bristol?

Neither city is a beach destination, but only Brighton has a beach in town at all. Steep shingle runs the whole seafront, lifeguards cover the central stretches in season, and the Channel is cool but swimmable on calm late-summer days.

Bristol sits on the silt-brown Severn estuary, where the huge tides mean that even a swim at Weston-super-Mare's sands has to be timed with care. The best water nearby is the old marine lake at Clevedon. For proper beaches you need a long drive to Devon, Cornwall or Gower.

The two eat about equally well, and both rely on small independent kitchens rather than a cuisine of their own. Brighton's strengths are its long reputation for vegetarian and vegan cooking, the cafés and roasteries of the North Laine, seafood stalls under the seafront arches and Sussex sparkling wine.

Bristol is more of a market and street-food city, built around the covered stalls of St Nicholas Market and the container kitchens on the harbourside. Its drinking is more local: West Country cider, from farmhouse scrumpy to old cider houses, and craft taprooms in former warehouses.

Each city fills two days rather than a week, but the sights are different in kind. Brighton has one great showpiece, the Royal Pavilion, George IV's palace with Indian domes. The rest of the pleasure is in Regency crescents, the two piers and wandering the Lanes.

Bristol's sights tell a weightier story of trade and engineering: the SS Great Britain in its dry dock, the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge, the Gothic church of St Mary Redcliffe and M Shed's account of the city's part in the slave trade. Banksy's early street art adds a modern layer.

Nights out are a main reason to visit either city, but the flavour differs. Brighton's centre of gravity is Kemptown, one of Britain's oldest and largest LGBTQ+ scenes, together with West Street and the clubs in the seafront arches. Stag and hen groups make weekends rowdy.

Bristol's nightlife is rooted in music: the sound-system culture behind trip hop, drum and bass and dubstep, played in warehouses and railway arches around Temple Meads and on a boat moored in the harbour. Stokes Croft gives the city a scruffier, more creative edge.

Both have gentle green country close by rather than wild scenery. Brighton backs straight onto the chalk grassland of the South Downs, the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head are the most dramatic coast in southern England, and the sea adds windsurfing and paddleboarding.

Bristol brings the outdoors into the city itself. Climbers use the Avon Gorge cliffs, Ashton Court has mountain-bike trails and the old railway path runs traffic-free to Bath. Further out, Cheddar Gorge offers caving, and Exmoor and the Brecon Beacons have upland walking within about two hours.

London, about an hour away by fast train, is the trump card of a Brighton stay. Lewes is only a quarter of an hour by train, and the rest of Sussex adds the castle and cathedral at Arundel, Chichester with the Roman palace at Fishbourne, and the medieval towns of Rye and Winchelsea further east.

Bristol is just as well placed. Bath is a quarter of an hour away by train and Cardiff is under an hour across the Severn. There is also a run of ancient and sacred places: Wells, Glastonbury, Stonehenge and Avebury. The Cotswold villages are about an hour's drive east.

Brighton is the place for a traditional seaside day with children: pier rides and arcades, the Victorian aquarium, Volk's Electric Railway along the beach and paddling at Hove Lagoon. The shingle, though, is no good for sandcastles.

Bristol is the stronger pick when it rains, with the hands-on science centre and planetarium on the harbourside, the SS Great Britain and the little ferries between them. A spacious wildlife park sits on the city's edge. Expect steep slopes with a pushchair in either city.

Brighton is the easier city to get around. The station, the North Laine, the Lanes, the Pavilion and the seafront are all a short walk apart, frequent buses reach Hove and the edge of the Downs, and the flat promenade is good for cycling. The main effort is the climb back up to the station.

Bristol's core is walkable too, and the harbour ferries are a pleasure. The climb to Clifton is punishing, though, and with no tram or metro, anything further out depends on buses that get stuck in traffic.

Neither city offers luxury shopping, and both are best for independent shops. Brighton makes the more concentrated browse, with the North Laine's tight grid of vintage, records, comics and alternative fashion and the jewellers and antique dealers of the Lanes.

Bristol has more mainstream shopping in Cabot Circus and Broadmead, including department stores that Brighton lacks. Its independents are spread out, along Gloucester Road and in Clifton's Georgian arcades.

Both are expensive by British standards and cost about the same. In Brighton, the room is the big expense, especially on summer weekends, while the beach, the piers and the Downs cost nothing.

Bristol's prices climb at weekends and during events in the same way, but most of its main museums and churches are free and market stalls give cheaper meals. In either city, staying midweek saves the most.

Brighton's year peaks in May, when the Brighton Festival and England's largest fringe take over its theatres, churches and pubs for weeks. In summer, Glyndebourne's country-house opera is about twenty minutes away.

Bristol spreads its programme more evenly through the year. The Georgian Bristol Old Vic is the oldest continuously working theatre in the English-speaking world, the Tobacco Factory stages Shakespeare, and small venues host bands, jazz and electronic acts most nights.

Bristol is the better choice for a restful stay, mostly because of Bath, a quarter of an hour away by train, where you can bathe in Britain's only natural hot springs on a rooftop. Closer at hand, the heated Victorian lido in Clifton fills a quiet half day.

Brighton has no bathing tradition beyond its dawn sea swimmers and seafront saunas, and its calm depends on the season. Think midweek walks past Hove's beach huts out of season, or a retreat to the villages of the Downs.