Bristol or Brussels?

Neither city is a place to swim in the sea, and the shores within reach are different. Bristol looks onto the silty, brown Severn estuary, where low tide leaves mud and Weston's sands lie a long walk from the water. The Victorian marine lake at Clevedon is where cold-water swimmers actually get in.

Brussels is inland, but a train of a little over an hour reaches the wide, clean sands at Ostend or Knokke, which make a windy North Sea day out. Back in the city, swimming happens in its Art Deco indoor pools.

Brussels has a cuisine to travel for, and Bristol does not. Mussels, carbonnade stewed in beer, waterzooi, proper frites and the praline makers of the Sablon give eating there a clear identity. The sour lambics and gueuzes are brewed only in and around the city. The Congolese, Moroccan and Turkish kitchens of Matonge and Schaerbeek add range.

Bristol is a city for grazing: stalls at St Nicholas Market, container kitchens on the harbourside and bakeries along Gloucester Road. What it does best is drink, with West Country cider and warehouse taprooms.

Brussels offers more to see. The Grand-Place is one of Europe's great squares, the Royal Museums hold Bruegel, Rubens and a whole museum of Magritte, and Horta's houses in Saint-Gilles show where Art Nouveau began. It can fill several days, though office blocks break up its historic quarters.

Bristol's sights are narrower and more industrial: the SS Great Britain in its dry dock, the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the gorge, and St Mary Redcliffe. It also has Banksy's early street art, which makes it a good two or three days.

Both are good cities for a night out, but in different ways. Bristol's nights are built on clubs and sound systems, the culture that produced trip hop and drum and bass. It has warehouse and railway-arch venues near Temple Meads, a club on a boat in the harbour and scruffy late bars in Stokes Croft.

Brussels centres on the bar: crowds of drinkers around Saint-Géry, wood-panelled taverns pouring strong ales, and the local terraces of Flagey and Châtelain. Its club life is smaller and leans on one respected techno venue in the Marolles and the queer bars of Rue du Marché au Charbon.

Bristol has much better outdoors on its doorstep. Climbers use the cliffs of the Avon Gorge, Leigh Woods and Ashton Court are just across the river, and Cheddar Gorge and the Mendips are within an hour for walking and caving. Exmoor and the Brecon Beacons are close enough for proper hill days.

Brussels has one fine asset, the tall beech stands of the Sonian Forest. Beyond it the land is flat farmland, and hills or kayaking mean a trip of up to two hours to the Meuse valley around Dinant.

Both are good bases, but Brussels reaches more first-rank towns by train alone. From Temple Meads, Bath's Roman baths and crescents are a quarter of an hour away, Cardiff's castle is under an hour across the Severn, and direct trains also run to the cathedrals of Salisbury and Gloucester. The rural West Country days are a different matter. Wells and Glastonbury Tor, the stone villages of Lacock and Castle Combe, the circle at Avebury, Stonehenge and Tintern Abbey are all far easier with a hire car.

From Brussels, frequent trains reach the Van Eyck altarpiece in Ghent in about half an hour, Antwerp's Rubens house in forty minutes and medieval Bruges in about an hour, and Leuven and Mechelen are closer still. Paris is about an hour and a half away by high-speed train, so you can fill a week with day trips and never need a car.

Children are equally well served in both, in different ways. Bristol is about the harbour: ferries hop between the SS Great Britain, the hands-on science centre and the aquarium, and the Downs and the deer at Ashton Court give space to run about. The steep hills are hard work with a pushchair.

Brussels has the bigger set pieces. There are the Iguanodons in the dinosaur hall, the Atomium and Mini-Europe, and the Walibi amusement park half an hour out, which Bristol cannot match. Its cobbles and traffic are the trade-off.

Brussels is easier to get around. Its metro, trams and buses take a tapped bank card, trams run out to Ixelles and the Bois de la Cambre, and the stations connect directly to the airport.

Bristol has no metro or tram. Outside its walkable core, visitors rely on buses that get stuck in traffic, though the yellow harbour ferries are a pleasant way to get about on the water. Both cities have a stiff climb, up to Clifton in Bristol and up to the upper town in Brussels.

Brussels gives shoppers more to look for. Master chocolatiers line the Galeries Royales and the Sablon, antiques dealers fill the Sablon, and the Jeu de Balle flea market runs every day. Belgian designers cluster on Rue Antoine Dansaert, and Avenue Louise has the luxury labels.

Bristol's character is in its independents: record shops, delis and vintage clothes along Gloucester Road and boutiques up Park Street. Beyond that it has the chain stores of Cabot Circus and very little at the luxury end.

Both cost about the same, a little below the priciest cities without being cheap, but the timing works in opposite directions. Bristol's hotels fill up and get dearer at weekends. Brussels' business hotels empty on Friday, so weekends there are the better buy.

Day to day, Bristol saves money with its free museums and churches and its market stalls. In Brussels the savings are frites, sandwiches and the cooking in the immigrant neighbourhoods.

Brussels has the stronger formal stage. La Monnaie stages adventurous opera in the house where the 1830 revolution began, and Bozar is home to the national orchestra. On top of that it has a serious contemporary dance and theatre scene in two languages.

Bristol's pride is the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continuously working theatre in the English-speaking world, together with fringe Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory. Its real strength is the small venues in Stokes Croft and Old Market, where bands play most nights.

Bristol is the better choice for slowing down, mostly because of Bath. A quarter of an hour by train, you can bathe in Britain's only natural hot springs on a rooftop above the abbey. In Bristol itself, the heated Victorian lido behind Clifton's terraces makes a quiet half day.

Brussels has no bathing tradition and is a busy working capital. Its options are the North African hammams, its Art Deco pools and a long lunch on a terrace in Ixelles, while the town of Spa is a long way off.