Bucharest or Sofia?

Neither city works for a beach trip. Both sit far inland, and the Black Sea coast is a separate journey from each. The difference is in how you cool off. Bucharest relies on hotel pools and the large pool complexes on its edge, with Lake Snagov to the north for a summer swim, while Sofia has open-air pools in its parks and the lake at Pancharevo on the south-eastern fringe.

Both cities serve hearty food from the countryside, but Bucharest gives a hungry visitor more to explore. Its taverns serve sour ciorba, sarmale and grilled mici, and beyond them there is a solid layer of modern bistros, specialty coffee and Romanian wine bars around Calea Victoriei, Dorobanti and Piata Romana. Piata Obor, with its cheese, pickles and smoked meat, is worth the trip across town.

Sofia eats well within a narrower range: grilled kebapche, shopska salad, clay-pot dishes and banitsa from the corner bakery, with a lighter touch in the bistros near Vitosha Boulevard. Its real pleasure is the wine, as glasses of Mavrud and Melnik are poured all over the centre.

There is roughly as much to see in each city, but the history is laid out differently. Bucharest runs from the early eighteenth-century carved stone courtyard of Stavropoleos in Lipscani, through the Belle Epoque mansions and the domed Athenaeum on Calea Victoriei, to the vast Palace of the Parliament at the end of its 1980s boulevard. The art museum in the former royal palace and the open-air Village Museum complete a picture made mostly of contrasts.

Sofia's oldest layers are easier to see because they lie right in the centre. Roman Serdica is excavated around the metro, and the fourth-century Rotunda of St George is a few minutes from a mosque, a cathedral and the gold domes of Alexander Nevsky. Further out are the medieval frescoes of Boyana Church, listed by UNESCO, and the Thracian gold in the National Museum of History, which give the city a stronger claim on antiquity.

Bucharest is the clear choice for going out. The Old Town's cobbled lanes fill every evening with terraces, cocktail bars and clubs, and the city's well-known techno and minimal scene plays until long after sunrise. Summer moves the party onto rooftops and open-air venues.

Sofia's evenings are smaller and more relaxed. Most of the drinking happens in the cocktail bars, craft beer pubs and wine bars around Shishman and Tsar Ivan Asen streets, and in cellar bars beneath old buildings. It makes a good sociable weekend, but there are only a few clubs to finish the night in.

This is where Sofia pulls far ahead. Vitosha rises above 2,200m right behind the city, and a bus and gondola take you into spruce forest and up towards Cherni Vrah in under an hour. Further south, the glacial Seven Rila Lakes and the ski runs of Borovets make easy outings, and the Pirin range is within longer reach.

Bucharest is flat, so its green spaces are city parks: the lake at Herastrau, the old Cismigiu garden and the reed beds of Vacaresti, which are good for birdwatching. For real hills you take the train two hours north to the Bucegi, and that trip works better with a night there.

Sofia has the better pair of day trips. Rila Monastery, with its striped arcades in a mountain valley, and Roman Plovdiv with its painted merchant houses are each about two hours away and both well worth it. Koprivshtitsa and the Iskar Gorge add quieter options.

Bucharest has one standout, Peles Castle above Sinaia, and two short outings to the Brancovenesc palace at Mogosoaia and the island monastery at Snagov. After that the choice runs out, because Brasov and Bran are too far for a comfortable return in one day.

Bucharest keeps children busier. The Grigore Antipa museum is lively, the Village Museum lets them wander among farmhouses and windmills, and the thermal complex on the northern edge, with its slides and warm pools, fills a whole day in any weather. Heavy traffic and wide boulevards are the price you pay.

Sofia is calmer to move around with children but has fewer attractions made for them. A day on Vitosha with the gondola and the forest trails is the highlight, along with the science centre and the playgrounds of Borisova Gradina. In both cities, broken pavements make pushing a pushchair hard work.

Sofia is the easier city to get around. Its main sights sit close together in a compact centre, and the metro runs straight from the airport through the middle and on towards Vitosha's foothills. The one drawback is that signs away from the centre are mostly in Cyrillic.

In Bucharest the walkable core along Calea Victoriei is longer, crossings are wide, and the metro misses parts of the centre. Trams and buses get stuck in some of Europe's worst rush-hour traffic, which is why most visitors fill the gaps with ride-hailing apps.

Neither city is worth a trip for shopping, but Bucharest has a little more range. It has big malls in the north, a few luxury labels around Piata Victoriei and Romanian designers selling from boutiques in the old villa districts. Embroidered blouses and painted eggs from the Village Museum shop and the park craft fairs are the best local buys.

Sofia's offer fits into an afternoon: the chain stores along Vitosha Boulevard, then rose oil, Troyan pottery and the icon flea market near Alexander Nevsky for something to take home.

Both are among the cheaper capitals in the European Union, and Sofia stretches a budget a little further. A meal in a mehana, a good bottle of Bulgarian wine and a central hotel all cost little, and even a trip up Vitosha or out to Rila hardly adds to the bill.

Bucharest is good value at the tavern and on the metro, and ride-hailing is cheap. However, the smarter restaurants and cocktail bars in the north of the city charge close to Western European prices, and the Palace of the Parliament tour has a notable fee.

Bucharest has the stronger classical calendar. The George Enescu Philharmonic plays under the frescoed dome of the Romanian Athenaeum, the National Opera runs a full season, and in the years when the Enescu Festival is held, it brings leading orchestras to the city in late summer and early autumn.

Sofia's season is solid and easy to get into, with opera and ballet, the Philharmonic at Bulgaria Hall and big shows at the National Palace of Culture. What it does best is Bulgarian choral and Orthodox singing, which you won't hear in Bucharest. In both cities the theatre is in the local language.

Bucharest puts its relaxation in one place: the huge thermal-water complex half an hour north, where warm pools sit under a glass dome and saunas and quiet areas are set among palms. It easily fills a day, but the city itself is loud, so calm otherwise means a slow morning by the lake in Herastrau.

In Sofia the mineral springs are part of everyday life, and locals fill bottles at the warm taps beside the old Central Mineral Baths. To actually bathe, you go to the pools on the city's edge or to the spa town of Bankya, half an hour west. Velingrad is there for a longer spa stay, and the pace of the capital is gentler.