Bristol or York?

Neither city works for a beach vacation, but the shores are quite different. Bristol looks onto the silty Severn estuary, where low tide leaves mud. The best swimming is cold-water dips in tidal pools such as Clevedon's marine lake. Weston-super-Mare's sand is close, but the sea is often far out.

York has no water to swim in at all, but the train reaches Scarborough's two sandy bays in about an hour, with Filey and Whitby beyond. That makes York the base for a classic seaside day out on the North Sea, while Bristol is the one for a bracing swim in a sea pool.

Bristol is the stronger city to eat in, mostly because of its range. St Nicholas Market's stalls run from pies to Caribbean and Middle Eastern cooking, and container kitchens line the harbour. Gloucester Road, Stokes Croft and Bedminster add bakeries, coffee roasters and neighbourhood restaurants, with West Country cider and a large craft brewing scene for drinks.

York is more traditional and narrower: afternoon tea and fat rascals in historic tearooms, Sunday roasts, real ale in old pubs and pies at the Shambles Market. International cooking is thin, and the streets around the Minster lean towards tourist fare.

York has the deeper heritage. The Minster is one of the great Gothic cathedrals of northern Europe, and two thousand years of Roman, Viking and medieval history sit inside walls you can walk on. The sights run from Jorvik's excavated Viking street to the Yorkshire Museum among abbey ruins and the vast National Railway Museum.

Bristol's story is narrower and more recent, built on its port and on Victorian engineering. Brunel's SS Great Britain and the Clifton Suspension Bridge are superb, and Georgian Clifton and St Mary Redcliffe are handsome. The street art in Stokes Croft adds a modern layer that York lacks, but overall there is less to see.

This is where the two cities differ most. Bristol's nights grow out of the sound-system culture behind trip hop, drum and bass and dubstep. There are clubs in warehouses and railway arches near Temple Meads, a club on a boat in the harbour, and scruffy late bars in Stokes Croft, with weekends running late all year.

A night out in York means the pub, and a crawl through the centuries-old inns of Stonegate and Micklegate is a pleasure in itself. Beyond that there are a few cocktail bars and small clubs, stag and hen parties at weekends and quiet weeknights. Anyone after serious clubbing takes the train to Leeds.

Both offer good walking country, but in different places. Bristol's green space starts inside the city: the Downs above the limestone cliffs of the Avon Gorge, which draw climbers, the woods at Leigh Woods, the deer park at Ashton Court and the railway path to Bath for cyclists. The Mendips and Cheddar Gorge are not much further.

York itself is flat, with riverside paths and the open grassland of the Strays, but the country around it is wilder. There is the heather of the North York Moors, the sea cliffs at Robin Hood's Bay and the limestone scars of the Dales, though these need a car far more than Bristol's green spaces do.

Both make excellent bases, so the choice comes down to which region appeals. From Bristol, Bath is a quarter of an hour by train and Cardiff under an hour. Wells, Glastonbury, the southern Cotswolds, Stonehenge and Avebury fill further days.

York looks north instead. Harrogate and Leeds are half an hour by train and Durham's cathedral and castle under an hour, while Castle Howard, Fountains Abbey, Rievaulx and the steam railway from Pickering are best reached by car or coach tour. Bristol's two best trips are the easier ones to make without a car.

Families do equally well in both, but for different things. Bristol's harbourside groups together the SS Great Britain, the We The Curious science centre and the aquarium, linked by little ferries. The Downs and the deer at Ashton Court give children room to run, though the hills are hard work with a pushchair.

York's appeal is history children can touch: walking among real locomotives at the National Railway Museum, the Viking street at Jorvik, the Victorian street in the Castle Museum and the walls themselves. Its flat centre, largely closed to traffic, is easier with small children, but the theme park, zoo and seaside are an hour away.

York is the easier city to get around. Nearly every sight lies inside or just outside the walls, the centre is flat and largely free of cars, and cycling is simple. The station is a major hub for day trips by rail.

Bristol's core around the old city, Queen Square and the harbour can be walked too, and yellow ferries cross the Floating Harbour. But reaching Clifton means a steep climb, there is no metro or tram, and beyond the centre you depend on buses that get stuck in traffic.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and both owe their charm to independent shops. Bristol has the bigger mainstream centre at Cabot Circus and Broadmead. Its character lies in the long run of record shops, delis and vintage clothes on Gloucester Road and the boutiques of Park Street and Clifton Village.

In York the appeal is the setting: bookshops, jewellers and antiques dealers in the medieval lanes of Stonegate and Petergate, though the Shambles leans towards souvenirs. The Christmas markets of late autumn and December are a seasonal draw of their own.

The two cost about the same. Both are expensive by British standards outside London, and in both, hotel rates climb sharply at weekends. The difference lies in what is free: most of Bristol's main museums and churches cost nothing, so a day of sightseeing on a budget is easy.

In York the Minster, Jorvik and the castle museums charge admission, but the National Railway Museum, the walls and the Museum Gardens are free. Staying midweek or outside the walls saves a good deal. Market stalls in Bristol and pub meals in York are the cheapest ways to eat.

Bristol has the livelier stage and music scene. The Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continuously working theatre in the English-speaking world, produces its own work in a Georgian auditorium, and the Tobacco Factory stages fringe theatre and Shakespeare. Small venues in Stokes Croft and Old Market host bands, jazz and electronic acts most nights.

York's programme is steadier and smaller: drama and pantomime at the Theatre Royal, touring shows at the Grand Opera House, and the National Centre for Early Music in a medieval church. Its most distinctive offerings are free choral evensong at the Minster and the occasional Mystery Plays performed on wagons, but bigger tours go to Leeds.

Bristol is the better place to unwind, largely thanks to its neighbour. Bath's thermal spa, with a rooftop pool fed by Britain's only natural hot springs, is a quarter of an hour away by train. In the city itself, the heated Victorian lido behind Clifton's terraces makes for a quiet half day.

York has little beyond hotel spas and day spas, and its centre is packed on summer and December weekends. For proper bathing, go to Harrogate, half an hour away, where the Royal Baths keep a Victorian Turkish bath in Moorish style. In York itself, early walks on the walls and long afternoon teas set a gentler pace.