Budapest or Mostar?

Neither city is a beach destination, and the swimming differs in kind. Budapest swims in pools: big summer lidos such as Palatinus on Margaret Island, with Lake Velence's warm, shallow water within an hour by train and Lake Balaton further off.

Mostar's swims are wilder and colder. There are quick plunges into the mountain-fed Neretva, and a day at the Kravica waterfalls, about 40km south. It is also the closer of the two to salt water, since the Adriatic at Neum is a little over an hour's drive away.

Budapest gives you far more to eat and drink. There is paprika-rich cooking, the tiled Great Market Hall, layered cakes in Austro-Hungarian coffee houses, a modern restaurant tier and wine bars pouring Tokaji, Eger reds and Balaton whites.

Mostar's table is narrower but satisfying: charcoal-grilled ćevapi in somun bread, flaky burek and slow-cooked vegetable dishes, with Herzegovina's Žilavka and Blatina to drink. Bosnian coffee from a copper džezva is the local ritual. Beyond Bosnian home cooking, there is little choice.

Budapest needs several days. The UNESCO-listed Danube panorama links Parliament with the Castle Hill palace and Matthias Church. Beyond that there are serious collections at the Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery, the Dohány Street Synagogue, Art Nouveau buildings and the communist statues of Memento Park.

Mostar's sights centre on one great image, the rebuilt Old Bridge with divers leaping from its arch. Around it are the Kujundžiluk bazaar, the Koski Mehmed Pasha Mosque and carpeted Ottoman houses. The war-scarred former front line gives it real weight, but it is a compact set that fills a day or two.

Here the gap is wide. Budapest's old Jewish Quarter is one of Europe's best-known places to go out, with ruin bars spread through crumbling courtyards, cocktail bars and clubs along Kazinczy and Király streets, and party boats on the Danube in summer.

A night in Mostar means a long dinner on a terrace facing the lit bridge, then perhaps a cocktail bar or a student club at the weekend. It suits couples who want a calm evening, not anyone looking to stay out late.

Mostar has the more dramatic setting. It sits in a karst basin under bare limestone peaks, with the jagged Prenj range to the north, rafting and kayaking in the Neretva canyons, the Buna spring bursting from a cliff at Blagaj, and the Hutovo Blato wetland for birds. You need to time your visit for spring or autumn, as the valley's summer heat makes walking hard.

Budapest's outdoors is gentler but closer to hand. The beech-forested Buda Hills, reached by cogwheel railway and chairlift, start within half an hour of the centre. The Danube Bend's ridges and riverside cycle path are about an hour away.

Budapest has the wider and easier list. Szentendre's Baroque lanes and Gödöllő's royal palace are short suburban train rides away. Visegrád and Esztergom line the Danube Bend, and Eger, Hollókő and Pannonhalma are within about two hours.

Mostar's outings are smaller and more intimate. There is the dervish tekke at Blagaj, the walled hillside village of Počitelj, Stolac's medieval tombstones, and Konjic with Tito's bunker. Sarajevo makes a long but scenic train day through the Neretva gorge. Most of the others need a car or a tour.

Budapest is much better set up for children. It has one of Europe's oldest zoos with Art Nouveau animal houses, the Children's Railway run by uniformed schoolchildren, the hands-on Palace of Wonders, and summer lidos with wave pools and slides.

Mostar can entertain a family for an afternoon or two, with the bridge divers, a minaret climb and swimming at Kravica. However, slippery cobbles defeat pushchairs and the summer heat is hard on small children, though restaurants welcome them warmly.

Budapest is easy to get around without a car. Central Pest is flat, tram line 2 doubles as a sightseeing ride along the Danube, the boulevard trams run all night, and the little yellow carriages of metro line 1 run under Andrássy Avenue.

In Mostar, the old town, the bridge and the Austro-Hungarian centre fit into one walk, in good shoes on the polished stone. The trouble starts once you want to leave the centre, because city buses serve residents and Blagaj, Počitelj and Kravica are really reached by car, taxi or tour.

Budapest is the better place to bring things home from. There is Herend and Zsolnay porcelain, paprika and Tokaji from the Great Market Hall, small design boutiques in Districts V and VII, and communist-era finds at the Ecseri flea market.

Mostar's shopping is essentially the Kujundžiluk. In this old coppersmiths' street, a few craftsmen still hammer coffee sets by hand among stalls of imported souvenirs, and there is little fashion or design beyond it.

Mostar is the cheaper of the two by a clear margin. Family guesthouses, grilled meals, local wine and coffee all cost little, and you only pay more for bridge-view terraces and old-town rooms in midsummer.

Budapest is good value for a capital, with cheap transport and wine and plenty of mid-range rooms near the centre. Costs climb quickly along Váci utca and in the grand cafés, though, so it pays to eat where locals do.

For live music, Budapest is in another league. You can hear opera in the neo-Renaissance State Opera House, chamber music in the Art Nouveau hall of the Liszt Academy, and orchestras at Müpa. Add operetta, folk dance ensembles and church concerts, and there is something worth a ticket most nights.

Mostar has a national theatre and a youth theatre playing mostly in local languages, plus open-air concerts in summer. Outside that season, live music usually means a band in a café bar.

Budapest is one of the great places in the world to bathe. More than a hundred thermal springs feed the neo-Baroque Széchenyi, the mosaic halls of the Gellért and the sixteenth-century Ottoman pools of Rudas and Király, and an afternoon in the baths is part of a normal stay.

Mostar's hammam near the bridge is a historic building, not a working bath, and spa treatments are limited to a few hotels. Rest there comes from the pace: shaded coffees and the quiet early mornings by the river.