Brussels or Cambridge?

Neither city is anywhere near a beach vacation, but Brussels makes a seaside day out easier. Trains reach the long sandy beaches and promenades of Ostend, De Haan or Knokke in a little over an hour.

From Cambridge the Suffolk shingle and Norfolk sands are about an hour and a half by car. Its swimming is fresh water instead: Jesus Green Lido and river dips at Grantchester Meadows on hot days, where Brussels offers indoor Art Deco pools and summer open-air basins.

Brussels is the far stronger city to eat in. It has a real cuisine of its own, from friterie frites to waterzooi and shrimp croquettes, and a beer culture with lambics and gueuzes brewed nowhere else. Praline makers around the Sablon and the Congolese, Moroccan and Turkish kitchens of Matonge, Saint-Josse and Schaerbeek add range.

In Cambridge the best of it is the old pub with ale and a Sunday roast, the daily stalls on Market Hill and scones in a riverside tea room. Mill Road adds some Asian and Mediterranean cooking, but there is no local cooking to seek out.

Both are excellent for sightseeing, but in different ways. Brussels has the grand set pieces: the Grand-Place, Bruegel and Rubens at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, a Magritte museum and Horta's Art Nouveau houses in Saint-Gilles and Ixelles. These are scattered through a patchy city where office blocks break up the old fabric.

Cambridge is the reverse: a small, intact core of college courts, King's College Chapel and the Wren Library, with the Fitzwilliam and the university museums close by. It feels more complete, while Brussels offers more variety and takes longer to see.

Brussels gives much better evenings out. The terraces around Saint-Géry and the Bourse, local crowds at Flagey and Châtelain, century-old taverns, a techno club in the Marolles with a European name and a queer scene on Rue du Marché au Charbon all make for late nights.

Cambridge nights are mostly pub nights: historic inns, riverside gardens and a few livelier bars on Regent Street and Mill Road. Its small clubs follow the student terms and go quiet in the summer break, and serious nightlife means a train to London.

Brussels has more to offer outdoors, mainly thanks to the Sonian Forest, a tall beech forest on the city's edge with good trails. Within two hours are the valleys of the Meuse and the Ardennes around Dinant and Namur, with hills and kayaking.

Cambridge has gentler pleasures: punting through the Backs, the towpath to Grantchester, open commons and the birds and wild ponies of Wicken Fen. Its fen landscape is flat and wide-skied, with no hills within reach.

Both are good bases, but Brussels is one of the best in Europe. Ghent is about half an hour away, Antwerp forty minutes and Bruges an hour, with Leuven and Mechelen even closer. Paris is about an hour and a half by high-speed train.

Cambridge has its own strong list: Ely Cathedral a short hop by train, Audley End, the wool towns of Lavenham and Long Melford, and Norwich. Many of these work best by car, though, and London under an hour away is the standout. Brussels simply has more first-rank cities at the end of a frequent train.

Brussels has more big days out for children. The Atomium and Mini-Europe stand side by side at Heysel, the Natural Sciences museum has its herd of Iguanodons, comic murals cover walls across the centre, and Walibi and Pairi Daiza are both within an hour. The downsides are heavy traffic, cobbles, and rain that often pushes plans indoors.

Cambridge gives up size for ease. It is small, flat, safe and green, with punting, the whale skeleton at the free Museum of Zoology and the historic aircraft at Duxford just south of the city. There is no theme park, and the colleges are too hushed for young children, so it fills fewer days.

Brussels runs on a network of metro, trams and buses, and you can pay by tapping a bank card. Trams are the pleasant way out to Ixelles and Saint-Gilles, and the three main stations have direct trains to the airport. The central sights are close together, but the climb to the upper town is steep and the cobbles are hard going with a pushchair.

Cambridge barely needs transport at all. Its centre is flat and largely pedestrian, and a hired bike takes care of the outlying colleges and Grantchester. Its weak points are the station, about twenty-five minutes' walk from the centre, and the country estates, which are easier to reach by car.

Brussels gives a shopper much more to work with. Chocolatiers line the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and the Sablon, and there are antiques on the Sablon and a daily flea market on Place du Jeu de Balle. Belgian designers cluster on Rue Antoine Dansaert and the luxury brands on Avenue Louise.

Cambridge is pleasant but small: the Market Hill stalls, high-street names in the Grand Arcade and independent shops on Green Street and Trinity Street. Its one real speciality is books, from academic booksellers to second-hand dealers.

Neither is cheap, but Brussels is easier on a budget. Its business hotels empty at weekends, and frites, immigrant neighbourhood cooking and fairly priced beer and transport keep daily costs reasonable.

Cambridge has few central hotel rooms and steady demand, so stays are expensive, especially in summer, and eating out is priced like the rest of south-east England. Free museums, free evensong and a walkable centre soften this, and a college room out of term can be the best value.

Brussels has more depth on stage. La Monnaie stages adventurous opera, Bozar hosts the national orchestra, and Flagey is known for its acoustics. There is also contemporary dance and theatre in French and Dutch, and the big touring bands stop here.

Cambridge has fewer big stages but one thing Brussels cannot match: the choirs of King's, St John's and Trinity singing evensong in their chapels. Add the Arts Theatre, Footlights comedy and the summer folk festival, but there is no opera house.

Neither is a place for spas. Both have hotel and day spas, and neither has a bathing tradition. Brussels adds North African hammams and Art Deco pools, but its rest comes against a busy capital's traffic: a long lunch, an Ixelles terrace, a walk in the Sonian Forest.

Cambridge offers a quieter calm: a punt on the river, the Botanic Garden, a college garden bench or the meadow walk to Grantchester. Its crowded summer streets around King's Parade are the exception.