Cambridge or Manchester?

Both are inland, and the seaside is a day out at best from either one. From Cambridge it is about an hour and a half by car to the shingle of Suffolk or the sandy Norfolk shore on the North Sea. From Manchester, trains run to the dunes and pinewoods at Formby or the promenade at Blackpool on the colder Irish Sea.

For a swim, Cambridge has more on hand: the long open-air lido on Jesus Green and the river at Grantchester Meadows, where locals bathe on hot afternoons. Manchester's swimming is in indoor pools, and its coast is better for sea air and fish and chips than for getting in the water.

Manchester gives you more to eat your way through. One of Britain's larger Chinatowns sits behind the art gallery, Wilmslow Road in Rusholme is lined with cheap South Asian restaurants, and the old mills of Ancoats and the Northern Quarter hold food halls and independent kitchens. Its drinking is stronger again, with craft breweries under the railway arches and good coffee.

Cambridge eats mainly in its old pubs, low-beamed rooms by the river serving ales and Sunday roasts, with the daily market on Market Hill, riverside tea rooms and a decent run of Asian and Mediterranean places along Mill Road. It is comfortable, but you will cover it in a few days.

Cambridge is the stronger sightseeing city. Eight centuries of college building are packed along the Backs, and King's College Chapel, Trinity's Great Court and the Wren Library form a historic core that few cities of any size can match. The Fitzwilliam's art and antiquities, along with Kettle's Yard and the smaller university museums, add depth. Expect to pay at some colleges and to find them shut around exams.

Manchester's story is industrial and political, told through the neo-Gothic Town Hall, the John Rylands Library, the Castlefield warehouses and the Science and Industry Museum on the site of the oldest passenger railway station. It rewards curiosity, and most collections are free, but it has nothing to stand beside King's.

Manchester is one of the best places in Britain for a night out, and its dance-music past still shows. The Northern Quarter's warehouse grid is full of cocktail bars, dive bars and small DJ rooms, Canal Street's Gay Village is among Europe's oldest, Deansgate draws a dressed-up weekend crowd, and autumn and winter bring big warehouse raves.

Cambridge evenings mean historic inns, riverside pub gardens and a few livelier bars around Regent Street and Mill Road, with a small student club scene. Both cities quieten in summer when the students go home, but in Cambridge anyone wanting a big night takes the train to London.

Manchester has real hills on its doorstep. The gritstone edges and moorland of the Peak District start at the city's eastern fringe, and the Hope Valley line puts you at the foot of Kinder Scout and Mam Tor in under an hour. Heaton Park, with its woodland and boating lake, gives you space within the city too. The catch is weather: on the moors, expect low cloud and mud.

Cambridge's outdoors is flat and gentle. You can punt through the Backs, cycle the towpath to Grantchester past grazing cattle, and look for birds and wild ponies at Wicken Fen. The skies are wide and the cycling is easy, but there is no scenery to speak of.

Both are excellent bases, and the choice is about what kind of outing you want. From Cambridge, London is under an hour by train, and the rest is quiet East Anglia: Ely's cathedral above the fens, the timber-framed wool towns of Lavenham and Long Melford, Norwich, and grand country houses such as Audley End and Wimpole, several of them easier to reach by car.

Manchester sits at the hub of the northern rail network, so its trips are mostly other cities and hill country. Liverpool's waterfront, Chester's Roman walls and York Minster are all an easy ride, and Buxton, Chatsworth and the Lake District towns take you out into the landscape.

Both work about equally well with children, but in different ways. Cambridge is small, flat, safe and green, so punting, the free Museum of Zoology with its whale skeleton, and the aircraft at Duxford make for relaxed days. The hushed colleges do little for children, though.

Manchester's strength is indoor variety for rainy days: hands-on engines at the Science and Industry Museum, dinosaurs at the Manchester Museum, and an aquarium, a Lego attraction and a real-snow slope out at the Trafford Centre, plus stadium tours for football fans. Chester Zoo and Alton Towers are within a day out. The centre does get rowdy on weekend evenings.

Both centres are flat and compact enough to walk. Cambridge's is smaller and largely pedestrian, and a hired bicycle is the local way to reach Grantchester or the further colleges. The station is a fair walk out, and the buses are only adequate.

Manchester adds the yellow Metrolink trams, which run out to Salford Quays, Old Trafford and the airport, and Piccadilly and Victoria stations make it easy to leave by rail. Rain and event-day crowds on the trams are the drawbacks. In neither city is a car worth having in the centre.

Manchester is northern England's shopping capital and has much more to offer. Big department stores sit around Exchange Square, designer labels line King Street and Spinningfields, and in the Northern Quarter you will find record shops, vintage clothing and Afflecks, the long-running multi-storey warren of alternative stalls. The vast Trafford Centre adds a day of malls if you want one.

Cambridge shopping is small and fits round sightseeing. Its real draw is books, from old academic booksellers to second-hand dealers in the lanes, along with the market on Market Hill and independent shops on Green Street and Trinity Street.

Manchester is the easier city on the wallet, though not a cheap one. Weeknight hotel rooms are reasonable, curry houses and food halls keep meals cheap, and most museums are free. Check the dates, though, because a home match or an arena concert pushes room rates up sharply.

Cambridge is expensive to stay in, with limited hotel stock and summer and graduation peaks, and eating out carries south-east England prices. It has its own savings: the Fitzwilliam and most university museums are free, evensong costs nothing, and a college room out of term, where one is offered, can be the best deal in town.

Manchester has far more on stage. There is a deep gig circuit from Northern Quarter back rooms up to a huge arena, the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic play at the Bridgewater Hall, and the Royal Exchange stages theatre in the round inside the old cotton hall. HOME and the touring musicals at the Palace and Opera House add to it.

Cambridge has one thing Manchester cannot offer: choral evensong sung by the world-famous choirs of King's, St John's and Trinity, free to attend in term. Beyond that there are touring plays at the Arts Theatre, student comedy in the Footlights tradition, and the Folk Festival every summer.

Neither city has a spa tradition, but Cambridge is by far the easier place to unwind. An afternoon in a punt, a bench in a college garden or the Botanic Garden, or a meadow walk to tea in a Grantchester orchard all slow the pace. The streets around King's Parade fill with tour groups in summer, so the calm is best found early, late or at the edges of town.

Manchester is loud and busy, especially at weekends, and Victoria Baths is a heritage building to look round rather than a place to swim. For real rest, locals take the train out to the Peak District or the old spa town of Buxton.