Cape Town or Nairobi?

Cape Town has beaches on two very different coasts. The white coves of Clifton and Camps Bay lie beneath the Twelve Apostles, but the Atlantic there is cold enough that most people only take a quick dip. On the False Bay side, Muizenberg, St James and the tidal pools are warm enough in summer for a proper swim.

Nairobi has nothing like this. It sits on a highland plateau far inland, and the Kenyan coast is a flight away. A swim means a hotel pool unless you add separate days by the Indian Ocean.

Cape Town eats better and more widely. It has its own Cape Malay cooking, with bobotie, fragrant curries and koeksisters, plus snoek and yellowtail by the harbour at Kalk Bay or Hout Bay. Ambitious chefs work around Bree Street and Woodstock, and wine estates are less than an hour away.

Nairobi does fewer things, but it does them well. Weekend afternoons are spent around nyama choma, the long-settled South Asian community makes excellent Indian food, Ethiopian restaurants are easy to find, and the coffee is grown just outside the city. Upmarket dining has much less depth.

Neither city has a grand old quarter, but Cape Town has far more to see. Robben Island, the District Six Museum and the Castle of Good Hope tell the story of Dutch settlement and apartheid. The museums around the Company's Garden, the painted Bo-Kaap and Zeitz MOCAA add enough for three or four days.

Nairobi was founded as a railway depot in 1899, and its sights fit into a day or two. The highlights are the National Museum with its early human fossils, the Karen Blixen farmhouse and the city view from the roof of the convention centre.

Both cities stay out late, and in both you take a ride-hailing car between districts after dark rather than walking. The difference is in style. Cape Town spreads its evenings across Long Street's backpacker bars, the cocktail and wine bars of Bree and Kloof Streets, the gay quarter of De Waterkant and summer sundowners above the Atlantic, and it is much calmer outside December to March.

Nairobi's scene is more local and more about music. Rooftops and clubs in Westlands play Afrobeats, amapiano and gengetone until dawn, mostly from Thursday to Saturday, while neighbourhood pubs fill up for football and grilled meat.

Table Mountain rises straight behind Cape Town's centre, and the wild country runs from there to the sea. You can hike Platteklip Gorge or climb Lion's Head for sunrise, walk through fynbos found nowhere else on earth, see penguins at Boulders and whales in False Bay from June to November, and learn to surf at Muizenberg. Chapman's Peak Drive then takes you down the peninsula to the cliffs of Cape Point.

Nairobi offers savanna and big game instead of mountain and ocean. Buffalo and giraffes graze in the national park at its southern edge, Karura Forest has shaded trails and waterfalls, and the Ngong Hills give ridge walks above the Rift Valley. Within two hours you can cycle through Hell's Gate or walk the crater rim of Mount Longonot.

Here Cape Town is well ahead. Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl and the smaller wine valleys are under an hour away and could fill several days on their own. Further out, Hermanus is known for whale watching from its cliffs and Tulbagh for its street of Cape Dutch houses, though you will need a car or a tour.

Nairobi's nearby outings are modest: the tea estates of Limuru and the prehistoric hand axes at Olorgesailie. Kenya's great heritage towns, Lamu and old Mombasa, are on the coast and too far for a day.

Children get memorable days in either city, but the settings are very different. Cape Town mixes sea and mountain: the Two Oceans Aquarium at the Waterfront, penguins on the sand at Boulders, the cableway up Table Mountain and the treetop walkway at Kirstenbosch. In summer the calm tidal pools at St James and Fish Hoek suit small swimmers, though the Atlantic beaches are too cold for long swims. These places lie far apart around the peninsula, so you will need a car to get from one to the next.\n\nIn Nairobi the days revolve around animals.

At the Giraffe Centre in Langata, children hand-feed Rothschild's giraffes from a raised platform. At the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust they can watch young elephants at their bottle feed and mud bath, and the national park is close enough for a morning game drive. Heavy traffic and few pavements make the city tiring with small children, so staying in Karen or Langata, close to these sights, saves hours on the road.

Cape Town at least has a core you can walk by day, covering the City Bowl, the Bo-Kaap and the Waterfront, and MyCiTi buses that a visitor can actually use to reach the airport, the Atlantic beaches and Hout Bay. For the peninsula and the Winelands you will want a car, and the roads are good and a pleasure to drive.

Nairobi asks for more patience. The sights are scattered across distant suburbs and linked by some of Africa's most congested roads, so a short hop can take an hour. Matatu routes are hard for visitors to work out and pavements are scarce, so most people rely on ride-hailing or a hired driver.

Cape Town is the place for South African design, Nairobi for handmade crafts. In Woodstock's warehouses and along Bree and Kloof Streets you will find local ceramics, leather, homeware and fashion, and wine and rooibos make easy things to take home. The Waterfront mall covers the chains.

Nairobi's Maasai Market moves between sites around the city during the week, selling beadwork, soapstone and kiondo baskets, and bargaining is expected. In the workshops around Karen you can watch glass and textiles being made. The malls in Westlands and Gigiri are comfortable but could be anywhere.

Cape Town gives you more for your money. Good restaurants, even tasting menus, cost a fraction of prices back home, and wine, car hire and fuel are cheap. Rooms are the exception, but they are only really expensive at the December to January peak.

Nairobi is cheap at street level, but most visitors stay in secure international hotels priced well above local costs. Non-residents also pay much higher park fees than Kenyans, and a game drive means paying for a vehicle and driver, so wildlife viewing adds a lot to the bill.

Cape Town has more on stage. Cape jazz is the city's own sound, its annual jazz festival is one of the largest in Africa, and Kirstenbosch holds sunset concerts on its lawns in summer. Artscape, the Baxter Theatre and the Cape Philharmonic cover opera, drama and orchestral music.

Nairobi's best nights are live bands playing benga, rumba and Afro-fusion, and the traditional dances at Bomas of Kenya. There are plays, spoken word and comedy, but almost no opera or classical music.

Cape Town has a slow outdoor pace that does much of the work a spa would. You can spend a long lunch on a wine estate, go to a morning yoga class on the Atlantic seaboard, wander Kalk Bay or swim in a False Bay tidal pool with the regulars. The spas on the grander Winelands estates are good value, and hot springs are a drive inland in the Overberg.

Nairobi is noisy and congested, so it is harder to unwind there. Rest means a hotel spa or a garden hotel in Karen with cool mornings and breakfast on the veranda, and many visitors save their downtime for a safari lodge.