Brighton or Cardiff?

Brighton's beach is the town's front garden. It runs the whole seafront from the Marina to Hove, with lifeguards on the central stretches in summer. It is steep shingle and the water is cold, but you can walk straight onto it and swim when the sea is calm.

Cardiff has no beach in the city at all, and the brown tidal water at the Bay is for looking at, not swimming in. Oddly, its nearest beach is sandier than Brighton's: Barry Island is half an hour away by train, and the Gower's wide sands are a longer drive. In Cardiff the beach is an outing you plan, whereas in Brighton it is part of every day.

Brighton eats better day to day, because so many independent places are packed into the North Laine, the Lanes and Kemptown. It is known for vegetarian and vegan cooking, the coffee is taken seriously, and the stalls under the seafront arches sell oysters and whelks. Sussex sparkling wine from the Downs turns up on most wine lists.

Cardiff has fewer standout places, but it has more regional food of its own. In the Victorian market you can try Welsh cakes from the griddle, cawl and laverbread with cockles. The better bistros are out in Pontcanna and Canton, and City Road has a long run of Middle Eastern and South Asian cooking. Skip the waterfront, which is mostly chains.

Cardiff has more to fill a sightseeing itinerary. The castle's Roman and Norman walls enclose lavish Victorian Gothic rooms, and the National Museum in the white stone civic centre holds a strong collection of French Impressionists. St Fagans can take most of a day, and Llandaff Cathedral and the Senedd add more.

Brighton has one sight of real fame, the Royal Pavilion, with its Indian domes and chinoiserie rooms. Beyond that its appeal is in the streets: Regency crescents in Kemptown and Hove, the alleys of the Lanes, and the skeleton of the West Pier. It is a place for strolling rather than for a list of sights.

Brighton has the deeper and more varied night out, and it keeps going through the week. Kemptown's long-established LGBTQ+ scene, the clubs in the seafront arches and the craft-beer rooms of the North Laine all appeal to different crowds. Hove and the Level offer quieter bars if West Street's stag parties are too much.

Cardiff's night out centres on weekends: big groups on St Mary Street, and a sea of red on rugby international days. Womanby Street, opposite the castle, is where the smaller alternative bars are. Midweek is quiet, and you can get the measure of the scene in a couple of nights.

Both cities sit right beside fine countryside, but the scenery is different. From Brighton you can take a short bus ride onto the chalk grassland of the South Downs at Devil's Dyke. The Seven Sisters cliffs are about forty minutes east, and you can windsurf, kitesurf or sail off the seafront. The scenery is gentle, the sea is close by, and most of it is reachable without a car.

Cardiff's countryside is more mountain than coast. Bute Park leads onto the Taff Trail up the valley, and about an hour's drive away Pen y Fan, the highest peak in southern Britain, makes a proper moorland half-day hike. Choose it if you want hills, and pack for rain either way.

Brighton makes the stronger base, mainly because London is about an hour away by fast train. Around that, Sussex adds Lewes, Arundel's castle, Chichester and Fishbourne's Roman palace, medieval Rye and the battlefield at Battle. There are vineyard tastings on the Downs as well.

Cardiff's day trips are mostly about castles: Caerphilly and Castell Coch are close, and Chepstow and Tintern Abbey pair well together. Bath and Bristol are about an hour across the Severn, and Blaenavon and the Big Pit show the mining past. There is plenty to do, just less variety than from Brighton.

Both work well with children, but in different ways. Brighton is the old-fashioned seaside: rides and arcades on the Palace Pier, the Victorian aquarium, Volk's Electric Railway and paddling at Hove Lagoon. The downsides are the cold shingle, the steep climb to the station and a centre that gets rowdy late on weekend nights.

Cardiff is better for museums than amusements. Techniquest's hands-on science, the farm animals at St Fagans and rowing boats on Roath Park lake are all easy outings, and the flat centre is easy going with a pushchair. There is no aquarium or zoo, and the sand at Barry Island is a train ride away.

Brighton is the easier city to get around on foot and by bus. The station, the North Laine, the Lanes, the Pavilion and the sea are all within walking distance, though the climb back up from the seafront is steep, and frequent buses reach Hove and the edge of the Downs. In town a car is more trouble than help, and you only need one for the outlying villages and country houses.

Cardiff's centre is flat and mostly pedestrianised, but the Bay is half an hour away on foot, or a short ride by shuttle train or water taxi along the Taff. There is no metro or tram, so the suburbs and St Fagans depend on buses. Local trains cover Caerphilly and Barry Island, but you will need a car for the Brecon Beacons and the more remote castles.

Both are better for independents than for luxury, but the setting differs. Brighton's North Laine is a grid of narrow streets full of vintage clothes, records, retro furniture and comics, and the Lanes add jewellers and antique dealers. It rewards a slow browse.

Cardiff puts its independents under the glass roofs of Victorian and Edwardian arcades, right next to the chains on Queen Street. Lovespoons, Welsh blankets and slate make souvenirs you won't find in Brighton, though most people get round it all in an afternoon.

Cardiff is the easier city on your wallet, mostly because of the rooms. Hotels are moderate on ordinary weekdays, though rugby internationals and stadium concerts push prices sharply up. The free national museums and short, cheap train trips keep the rest of the costs down.

Brighton's hotels are expensive, especially on summer weekends when Londoners and party groups fill the seafront. Going midweek or in winter helps a lot. Once you have a room, the beach, the piers and the Downs cost nothing, but a run of rail day trips adds up.

Both cities have a lot on stage for their size, but the style differs. Brighton's big moment is each May, when the Brighton Festival and England's largest fringe take over theatres, churches and pubs. The rest of the year it relies on the Dome, the Theatre Royal, a strong comedy scene and music in rooms above pubs, and Glyndebourne's opera is twenty minutes away in summer.

Cardiff's strength is its national institutions. Welsh National Opera is based at the Wales Millennium Centre, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is in the city, and the music and drama college puts on frequent performances. Add the small band venues on Womanby Street and a strong tradition of choral singing.

Neither city is a place to come for spas, and neither has a bathing tradition. In both, relaxing means a hotel or day spa. Brighton does have a ritual of its own: the year-round dawn sea swimmers and the seafront saunas where they warm up, plus quiet out-of-season walks past the beach huts on Hove's lawns.

Cardiff's calm is in its slow pace: an unhurried morning in a Pontcanna café or a stroll along the Taff through Bute Park, which suits a gentle few days better than a real rest.