Brussels or Dijon?

Neither city is a place for a swimming vacation, but Brussels at least has the sea within reach. The Belgian coast at Ostend, De Haan and Knokke is a little over an hour by train, with wide sands and long promenades. The North Sea only warms to about 18°C, though, and the wind is often up, so it makes a day for walking by the water rather than bathing. In the city there are Art Deco indoor pools, and open-air basins in summer.

Dijon has no coast within several hours. Its stand-in is Lac Kir on the town's western edge, where local families swim and lie on the grass in hot weather. It is a much smaller outing than a day on the Belgian sands, but you can get there on local transport instead of taking the train.

Both reward eating well, but they eat very differently. Brussels is a beer city first: Trappist ales and the sour lambics brewed only in its area, served with frites, carbonnade and shrimp croquettes. Its immigrant quarters add real range, from Matonge to the Moroccan and Turkish kitchens of Saint-Josse.

Dijon goes deeper and narrower. The cooking is classic Burgundian, with boeuf bourguignon, jambon persillé and Époisses from the stalls of Les Halles, and the wine comes from vineyards a short drive south. There is little beyond French regional food, but within that range it is hard to beat.

Brussels has more to see and more of it is of the first rank. The Grand-Place is one of Europe's great squares, the Royal Museums hold Bruegel, Rubens and a whole museum given to Magritte, and Horta's UNESCO-listed houses in Saint-Gilles and Ixelles make it a pilgrimage for Art Nouveau. The drawback is the setting, with grand buildings broken up by office blocks.

Dijon is smaller but more of a piece. Its half-timbered streets and Renaissance mansions surround the Palace of the Dukes, whose fine arts museum holds the Valois tombs with their sculpted mourners. Two or three days covers it, including the gargoyles of Notre-Dame and Sluter's Well of Moses.

Brussels is much the livelier city after dark. Drinkers fill the streets around Saint-Géry and the Bourse, Flagey and Châtelain draw a local crowd, and Saint-Gilles cafés stay busy late. A long-established techno club in the Marolles and a queer scene around Rue du Marché au Charbon give it some range beyond the bars.

In Dijon, a night out means wine, beer and a late dinner, mostly along Rue Berbisey and around Place Émile Zola. The students keep it going during term, but the clubs are few and the streets are quiet by around midnight.

Dijon has the better outdoors on its doorstep. The combes just west of town offer walking trails, limestone cliffs for climbing and views over the roofs. The Burgundy Canal towpath and the signed vineyard route towards Beaune make for easy, scenic cycling, and the Morvan hills and lakes are about an hour and a half away.

Brussels relies mostly on the Sonian Forest, whose tall beech stands are lovely for a walk or a ride, and on city parks such as the Bois de la Cambre. Beyond them the land is flat, and real hills mean a longer trip to the Meuse valley and the Ardennes.

Both are excellent bases, but Brussels is the more complete one, and almost everything is reachable by frequent trains. Ghent and its Van Eyck altarpiece are about half an hour away, Antwerp a little more and Bruges about an hour, and Paris is a realistic day out by high-speed train.

Dijon's excursions centre on wine and abbeys: the Grands Crus villages, Beaune's Hospices, Fontenay Abbey and the ramparts of Semur-en-Auxois. They are memorable, but apart from Beaune and Besançon most need a car, a bike or a small tour.

Brussels does much more to keep children busy. The Atomium and Mini-Europe stand side by side, the Natural Sciences museum has its herd of Iguanodons, the comic murals turn a walk into a treasure hunt, and Walibi and Pairi Daiza are close enough for a day out. Traffic and cobbled pavements are the main nuisances.

Dijon is calmer and safer to wander, with a pedestrian centre, the planetarium at the Jardin de l'Arquebuse and the lawns of the Colombière. After that, the vineyards and tastings appeal to parents rather than children.

Both are easy to manage without a car, but in different ways. Brussels is a capital spread over a lower and an upper town joined by a steep hill, so a stay usually means using the metro, trams and buses as well as walking. Its strongest point is the rail link, with the main stations running straight to the airport and on across Belgium.

Dijon is small enough that a visitor hardly needs public transport at all, because the station, the market and the ducal palace are a few minutes apart on flat, mostly pedestrian streets. The catch is outside town. In Brussels a car only gets in the way, but the Burgundy wine villages away from the railway call for a hire car, a bike or a tour.

Brussels gives a browser far more to explore. There are master chocolatiers in the Galeries Royales and on the Sablon, antiques on the Sablon too, and an early-morning flea market on Place du Jeu de Balle. Rue Antoine Dansaert has the Belgian designers and Avenue Louise the luxury labels.

Dijon's shopping is mostly for the table: mustard in many flavours, pain d'épices, cassis and Burgundy from the wine merchants. Rue de la Liberté has a department store and the familiar chains, but little for anyone shopping for fashion.

Dijon is the easier city on the wallet. Prices are those of a French regional city, the set lunch in a bistro is an affordable way to eat well, and you can walk everywhere. The bill climbs only when cellar tastings, wine tours and serious restaurants take over.

Brussels has Northern European costs, and its weekday hotel rates are set for EU and business travellers. Weekend stays bring those rates down, and frites, immigrant cooking and good-value beer help keep daily costs reasonable.

Brussels belongs to a different league here. La Monnaie is known for adventurous opera, Bozar and Flagey host the national orchestra and visiting ensembles, and the Queen Elisabeth Competition is a fixture of the classical year. Add contemporary dance and theatre in French and Dutch, and rock halls that every European tour stops at.

Dijon has a respectable programme for its size, with the Opéra de Dijon in the old Grand Théâtre and in the Auditorium, which is known for its acoustics. The season follows the academic year and thins out to outdoor events in summer.

Neither has a bathing tradition, so the difference lies in the pace. Brussels offers hammams run by its North African community and its Art Deco public pools, but the rhythm of a working capital and its traffic rarely lets you switch off. Dijon has only a few hotel spas, some with grape-based treatments, but its quiet squares and slow afternoons in the vineyards make it the more restful place to stay.