Cambridge or Inverness?

Inverness has the better shore, though neither city is somewhere to plan a beach vacation. Nairn's long, clean sands are about twenty-five minutes away, and Rosemarkie and Chanonry Point on the Black Isle are prettier still. With the firth staying cold even in August, those beaches are for walking and dolphin watching rather than swimming.

Cambridge is inland, and the Suffolk and Norfolk coast is about an hour and a half's drive away. Swimming there means fresh water, at the 1920s Jesus Green Lido or in the river at Grantchester Meadows.

The two eat about equally well, in different ways. Cambridge has no local cuisine but more variety: old riverside pubs serving Sunday roasts, street food on Market Hill, tea rooms, and Asian and Mediterranean cooking along Mill Road.

Inverness has a real regional larder, with west coast langoustines, Moray Firth seafood, venison and smoked salmon, and whisky bars with long lists of malts. The choice is narrow, though, and in summer the best tables need booking.

Cambridge is far stronger here. Eight centuries of colleges line the Backs, with King's College Chapel, Trinity's Great Court and the Wren Library at their heart, and university museums led by the Fitzwilliam add art and antiquities on a scale unusual for a small city.

Inverness has a handsome sandstone castle above the Ness, a cathedral across the river and a compact museum of Highland and Pictish history. Its most important site, the Culloden battlefield, is out of town on the moor.

Neither is a party town, but Cambridge has a little more going on. Bars around Regent Street and Mill Road and the student clubs keep things busy during term, summer evenings spill onto the riverside greens, and London is under an hour away for a bigger night.

Evenings in Inverness centre on wood-panelled pubs and whisky bars around Church Street, where a slow dram is the point. On weeknights the town is quiet well before midnight.

This is where Inverness clearly leads. Loch Ness and the Great Glen start twenty minutes away, Glen Affric's pine forest and the Cairngorm plateau are about an hour out, and Torridon and the road to Skye are within reach for a long day. Bottlenose dolphins can be watched from the shore at Chanonry Point.

Cambridge's outdoors is gentle and flat: punting through the Backs, water meadows on the way to Grantchester, and birds and wild ponies at Wicken Fen. It is lovely for an afternoon, but there are no hills.

Cambridge is the better base for outings, mostly by train. London is under an hour away, Ely Cathedral about fifteen minutes and Norwich a little over an hour. The Suffolk wool towns, Bury St Edmunds and Audley End are an easy drive.

From Inverness, the trips are to single sites rather than towns: Urquhart Castle, Cawdor, Fort George, the Clava Cairns and the Speyside distilleries. Most are much easier by car or on a tour, and there is no other city within reach.

Both are small, safe and easy with children, but the days look different. Cambridge leans on indoor exhibits: the whale skeleton at the free Museum of Zoology, the Sedgwick's dinosaurs and the historic aircraft at Duxford, with punting as the outdoor treat.

Inverness is more about being outside, with monster-hunting boat trips on Loch Ness, dolphins at Chanonry Point and polar bears at the Highland Wildlife Park. The Aquadome pool is there for the frequent wet days.

Cambridge is the easier place to be without a car. Colleges, museums, market and river are packed into a flat, largely pedestrian centre, and a hired bike covers the rest. The one awkward walk is from the station on the edge of town.

Inverness's centre is just as walkable and its station is central, with scenic lines to Kyle of Lochalsh and Thurso. The glens and castles, though, lie down single-track roads with sparse buses, so most visitors hire a car or book tours.

Cambridge offers more browsing. Academic and second-hand bookshops are the speciality, with independent shops on Green Street and Trinity Street and vintage shops along Mill Road, all on a modest scale.

Inverness is quicker to cover but more distinctive in what it sells: tartan, tweed, knitwear, Celtic silver and malt whisky, mostly in and around the 1870s Victorian Market.

Rooms take the biggest bite in Cambridge, where hotels are few and demand from university visitors and conferences stays steady all year, and eating out costs what it does in the wealthy south-east. Free university museums, free evensong and a centre you can cover on foot help to balance that.

Inverness works out cheaper, mainly because its rooms come down a long way outside July and August. Walking in the glens costs nothing, though car hire, tours and distillery visits soon add up.

Cambridge has the richer programme, and its signature is choral evensong. The choirs of King's, St John's and Trinity sing in candlelit chapels during term, and the Arts Theatre, the student ADC Theatre and the long-running Folk Festival add drama, comedy and music.

Inverness relies on Eden Court for touring theatre and concerts. Its own strength is traditional music: fiddle and accordion sessions in the pubs and Highland music at the summer Games.

For a slow, restful few days Cambridge has the edge, even with no spas of its own to speak of. An afternoon drifting in a punt, a bench in a college garden or the Botanic Garden, and tea in an orchard at Grantchester all make for quiet hours, as long as you avoid King's Parade on summer afternoons.

In Inverness the calm comes from the pace of the town: walks round the Ness Islands, long light evenings and a dram by the fire. For pampering there are spas at the country-house hotels around Loch Ness and a sauna at the Aquadome.