Bukhara or Tashkent?

Neither city is anywhere near a coast, so swimming is a sideline in both. In Bukhara the old pools are for sitting beside, and a hotel pool is the only option in the summer heat.

Tashkent has more to offer. It has big outdoor water parks, and in July and August you can drive about 80km into the foothills to the Charvak reservoir, with pebbly shores and cool mountain water. It is a good day out rather than a reason to go.

Both cities cook the same Uzbek repertoire of plov, samsa, shashlik, lagman and stamped round bread, with tea poured endlessly. Tashkent does it on a bigger scale. It has the great communal plov kitchens serving from huge cauldrons at midday, and Chorsu Bazaar's halls of bread, meat, nuts and kurt cheese give you more to explore and graze on.

In Bukhara the attraction is the setting more than the range. You eat at tables under the mulberry trees around the old pools, but the old-town menus repeat one another. Both places are hard work for vegetarians and offer little fine dining.

This is where Bukhara pulls far ahead. The Poi Kalon ensemble, the Ark, the Samanid Mausoleum, Bolo Hauz and Chor Minor form a historic centre of rare completeness, and caravanserais and trading domes fill the lanes in between. The museums inside are modest, but the buildings are the point.

Tashkent lost most of its old town in the 1966 earthquake and is mainly a Soviet capital of avenues and squares. Its strengths are in pockets: the Hazrat Imam complex with its ancient Quran, the carved rooms of the Museum of Applied Arts and the ornate metro stations. It has better museums but far fewer monuments.

Neither is a place for a big night out, but Tashkent at least gives you a choice. There are pubs, beer gardens, a few cocktail bars and clubs around Amir Timur Square, and karaoke and long dinners with friends, mostly winding down around midnight.

Bukhara's evening is a single scene: tea and dinner by Lyabi-Hauz beneath the floodlit madrasas, then an early night. A drink means a hotel bar or a restaurant that serves beer.

Tashkent has the mountains on its doorstep, and that changes the trip. The western Tian Shan rises within about an hour and a half, with Big Chimgan above the turquoise Charvak reservoir. Summer brings hiking through walnut and juniper valleys, riding and paragliding, and winter brings skiing at Chimgan and Amirsoy.

Bukhara sits in a flat oasis of cotton fields and canals at the edge of the Kyzylkum. The desert yurt camps towards Nurata involve a long drive and an overnight stay rather than an easy outing.

These are broadly even, and both rest on the same star: Samarkand by high-speed train, slightly closer from Bukhara. The difference lies in what comes next.

From Bukhara there are short heritage and craft outings: Gijduvon's family pottery workshops, the twelfth-century minaret at Vabkent and the walled tombs of Chor Bakr. From Tashkent the alternatives are mountain valleys and the reservoir rather than towns.

Tashkent gives children more to do. It has a large zoo, fairy-tale amusement parks, summer water parks, the Botanical Garden and big parks where local families gather in the evening. Its drawbacks are the long walks along wide avenues and sights that mean little to small children, though cheap taxis help.

Bukhara is easier to move around in but thinner on entertainment. The flat, mostly pedestrian old town works well with a pushchair, but a puppet show or a camel at the summer palace is about as far as children's attractions go. Summer heat there can pass 40°C.

Both are easy without a car, but in different ways. In Bukhara almost everything lies within about 20 minutes' walk across a flat, largely car-free old town. You only need a taxi for the outlying shrine, the summer palace and the distant railway station.

Tashkent is built on a Soviet scale, so you depend on its clear, frequent metro, with stations close to the old town and the main squares, and on cheap app taxis to fill the gaps.

Bukhara is the better place to buy crafts. In its sixteenth-century trading domes and madrasa courtyards, workshops sell suzani, ikat, carpets, gold-thread caps and the famous stork-shaped scissors, often made in the next room. Quality varies, so take your time.

Tashkent's stalls around Chorsu and in the old madrasas carry similar goods, but much of the finest work comes from Bukhara and other towns and costs less at the source. Beyond that, Tashkent mostly offers malls with international chains.

Both are very cheap, and the gap between them is small. Meals, taxis and entry tickets cost little in either city.

What differs is where you stay. In Bukhara, good-value family guesthouses in old merchant houses with tiled courtyards are the norm. Tashkent's international business hotels sit well above everything else in the capital, so it pays to choose a guesthouse or mid-range hotel there.

Tashkent is the only one of the two where you can plan an evening around a performance. The Alisher Navoi Theatre stages classic opera and ballet in halls decorated in regional styles, and the conservatory, philharmonic and Russian and Uzbek drama add to the choice.

Bukhara's performances are mostly staged for visitors: folk music, dance and costume shows in a madrasa courtyard by Lyabi-Hauz, plus small puppet plays.

Bukhara is the more restful stay. Its centuries-old bathhouses under brick domes near the trading halls still offer steam, a scrub and a vigorous herbal massage. The courtyard mornings and quiet lanes at dusk set a slow pace.

In Tashkent bathing is less a part of a visit, and most visitors use hotel spas. Calm there comes from the Botanical Garden and tea-house platforms, and for a real retreat you would head to the mountain sanatoria around Chimgan.