Bristol or Manchester?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Bristol at least has outdoor water you would want to get into. The Severn estuary itself is brown and muddy, yet the Victorian marine lake at Clevedon gives cold-water swimmers a proper dip, and the sands of Weston-super-Mare are under an hour away if you time the tide.

Manchester is inland, and Formby or Blackpool on the Irish Sea are more than an hour off and better for a bracing walk and fish and chips than a swim. For real beach days, people from both cities drive a long way, to Devon, Cornwall, Gower or beyond.

Bristol is the more rewarding place to graze. The covered stalls of St Nicholas Market, the container kitchens on the harbourside and the bakeries and coffee roasters of Gloucester Road and North Street make an easy, independent day of eating. Farmhouse cider and old cider houses give the drinking a West Country flavour that Manchester has no real match for.

Manchester's strength is range at a low price rather than character. Chinatown, the curry houses along Wilmslow Road in Rusholme and the food halls in the old Ancoats mills feed you well and cheaply, with pies and hotpot as the local staples. In both cities, craft beer counts for more than fine dining.

Bristol's sights belong to a seafaring port and to Brunel. The SS Great Britain in the dry dock where it was built, the Suspension Bridge high over the Avon Gorge and the crescents of Georgian Clifton give it the more memorable set pieces. St Mary Redcliffe's Gothic nave, M Shed's frank account of the slave trade and Banksy's early walls in Stokes Croft and Bedminster complete the picture.

Manchester's story is cotton and the first industrial city, told through the neo-Gothic Town Hall, the John Rylands Library and the Science and Industry Museum on its early railway site. Its free galleries go deeper, from the Pre-Raphaelites at the Manchester Art Gallery to the Whitworth, so art lovers may lean north, while Bristol has the handsomer streets to wander.

Both cities take going out seriously, but Manchester's scene is larger and wider. The Northern Quarter's warehouses are packed with cocktail bars, dive bars and DJ rooms, Canal Street is one of Europe's oldest gay villages, and Deansgate and Spinningfields cater for dressed-up weekend crowds. Big warehouse raves in autumn and winter bring in famous DJs.

Bristol's nights are smaller and scruffier, built on the sound-system culture behind trip hop and drum and bass, with clubs in the railway arches by Temple Meads and on a boat in the harbour. It is a good alternative if you prefer something more underground than glossy, and its students keep it busy all year round, while Manchester goes quiet in summer.

The outdoors is a draw in both cities, but the settings differ. Bristol keeps its green space close: the Downs and the climbing cliffs of the Avon Gorge, Leigh Woods, the deer park at Ashton Court and the railway path to Bath, with the softer Mendips and Cheddar Gorge under an hour away.

Manchester's centre is flat and built up, but wilder country starts close by. Trains along the Hope Valley line reach Edale in under an hour for the gritstone moors of Kinder Scout and Mam Tor, and the Lake District is within a long day's reach. Choose Bristol for greenery on your doorstep and Manchester for open moorland hiking, with waterproofs.

Both are excellent bases for day trips, and the difference is which part of England you want to see. From Bristol you get Bath a quarter of an hour away by train, then Wells, Glastonbury, Cardiff, Stonehenge and the stone villages of the southern Cotswolds, though some of these are easier by car.

Manchester sits at the hub of the northern rail network, so Liverpool, Chester and York are easy without a car. Add Chatsworth and Buxton in the Peak District, Haworth and Saltaire in Yorkshire, and Windermere in the Lakes, and you have northern cities and moorland where Bristol has southern cathedrals and ancient stones.

Bristol keeps most of its children's sights along one stretch of harbourside. The SS Great Britain, the We The Curious science centre with its planetarium and the aquarium sit close together, and the little ferries between them are a treat in themselves. The Downs and Leigh Woods give children room to run, though the steep hills are hard work with a pushchair.

Manchester leans on free indoor museums spread around the city, which helps on wet days: working engines at the Science and Industry Museum, dinosaurs at the Manchester Museum, and an aquarium, Lego attraction and indoor snow slope at the Trafford Centre. Chester Zoo and Alton Towers make bigger days out than Bristol can offer nearby, but the centre gets rowdy on weekend evenings.

Manchester is the easier city to get around. Its centre is flat and compact, and the Metrolink trams run out to Salford Quays, Old Trafford, the airport and the suburbs, with a dense bus network covering the rest.

Bristol's old city and harbourside are walkable, and the yellow harbour ferries make a pleasant way to get around. But the climb to Clifton is steep, there is no tram or metro, and buses get stuck in traffic. Both have good mainline stations for day trips by train.

Manchester is the stronger shopping city, the main one for the whole north of England. Big names and two upmarket department stores sit around Exchange Square, designer labels line King Street and Spinningfields, and the Northern Quarter has record shops, vintage clothes and the stalls of Afflecks. The huge Trafford Centre adds more on the edge of the city.

Bristol has the same chain stores at Cabot Circus and Broadmead, but its appeal lies in independent shops along Gloucester Road and the galleries in Clifton Village's Georgian arcades. It makes a pleasant afternoon of browsing rather than a reason to visit.

Costs are much the same in both: neither is cheap, and both are clearly cheaper than London. Free entry to most major museums helps in both cities, and in each the hotel bill depends on your dates. In Bristol prices rise at weekends, in Manchester when a home football match or a big arena show is on.

The difference is where you find a cheap meal. In Bristol it is market stalls and street food. In Manchester, the curry houses of Rusholme, Chinatown and the food halls make eating cheaply a little easier.

Manchester has much the stronger stage. Two major orchestras, the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic, play at the Bridgewater Hall. The Royal Exchange stages theatre in the round inside the old cotton trading hall, and the gig circuit runs from tiny Northern Quarter rooms up to one of Europe's largest indoor arenas.

Bristol has real charm on a smaller scale. The Georgian Bristol Old Vic is the oldest continuously working theatre in the English-speaking world, the Tobacco Factory puts on fringe theatre and Shakespeare, and small venues in Stokes Croft and Old Market host bands most nights. Neither city has a resident opera company.

Bristol is far better for slowing down. The heated Victorian lido in Clifton, with its spa, makes a restful half day, cold-water swimmers use the tidal pools on the Severn coast, and Bath's rooftop thermal pools above Britain's only natural hot springs are a quarter of an hour away by train.

Manchester offers hotel spas and little else. Victoria Baths can be visited as a heritage building but not swum in, and the city's loud weekend pace works against rest. The nearest real escape is the old spa town of Buxton or the Peak District, about an hour away.