Cape Town or Sydney?

Sydney wins this one easily. Bondi, Bronte, Coogee, Manly and the Northern Beaches offer warm water and real surf, and harbour coves such as Balmoral and Camp Cove give calmer swimming under the fig trees, most of it a bus or ferry ride from the centre.

Cape Town's Atlantic beaches are at least as beautiful to look at, with Clifton and Camps Bay set among granite boulders below the Twelve Apostles, but the water is icy and a swim there means a quick, sharp plunge. For warmer water you go half an hour to False Bay, to Muizenberg, St James and Boulders, and only in summer.

Both cities eat well, in quite different ways. Cape Town has a kitchen of its own in Cape Malay cooking from the Bo-Kaap, with bobotie, curries and the overstuffed gatsby roll, plus braai and line fish by the harbour at Kalk Bay or Hout Bay. Wine estates are under an hour away, and the ambitious tasting menus on Bree Street and in Woodstock cost far less than you would expect.

Sydney has no cuisine of its own and makes up for it with range. You get oysters and prawns from the harbour, the fish market at Pyrmont, and whole suburbs of Vietnamese, Lebanese, Indian and Chinese cooking a train ride out. A flat white and a long brunch are the weekend ritual, though eating out is expensive.

Neither is a dense historic city, and a few days covers the essentials in each. Where they differ is in the story they tell. Cape Town's sights deal with a hard history: Robben Island, the District Six Museum and the Castle of Good Hope, with Zeitz MOCAA in its grain silo adding contemporary African art.

Sydney's culture revolves around the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, both best seen from a ferry. Add the convict-era sandstone of The Rocks, Hyde Park Barracks and the Aboriginal collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

A night out is about as good in either city, but the feel differs. Cape Town has the rowdier edge, with Long Street's backpacker bars and clubs, summer sundowners on the Camps Bay seafront and weekend clubs that run into the small hours. The scene is spread out, though, and you will use ride-hailing between areas after dark.

Sydney leans on small cocktail bars in basements and laneways, the old pubs of The Rocks and the later, more alternative venues of Newtown and Enmore, with Oxford Street at the heart of the LGBTQ scene. Clubs are fewer, and the city goes quiet well before dawn.

Cape Town has the more extraordinary setting. Table Mountain rises straight out of the centre, the national park runs down the peninsula to Cape Point, and its fynbos belongs to the richest of the world's six floral kingdoms. Penguins, seals, baboons and whales are all within easy reach, and Chapman's Peak Drive is one of the great coastal roads.

Sydney's outdoors are gentler but still very good. There is the Bondi to Coogee clifftop walk, the coastal trails and waterfalls of the Royal National Park and the eucalyptus valleys of the Blue Mountains about two hours west, plus sailing and paddling on the harbour. What it lacks is a mountain on the doorstep.

Cape Town has the better choice of day trips, because the Winelands lie less than an hour away. Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl can fill several days with tastings, long lunches and Cape Dutch streets, and Hermanus adds whale watching from its clifftops. Nearly all of it needs a car or a tour.

From Sydney the distances are longer and the places fewer. The Hunter Valley is two hours north, Katoomba, Leura and the Southern Highlands are pleasant, and Newcastle and Wollongong are easy by train. Even so, most of what lies within reach is scenery rather than towns.

Sydney is the easier city with children. The ferries are an outing in themselves and take you to Taronga Zoo, and the aquarium and the Maritime Museum's real ships sit together at Darling Harbour. Luna Park, the netted harbour beaches and the koala and kangaroo parks fill the remaining days.

Cape Town has real highlights of its own in the Two Oceans Aquarium, the Boulders penguins and the cableway ride. But the sights are spread out, a car is nearly essential, and the cold Atlantic leaves the small swimmers to the tidal pools of False Bay.

Sydney is far simpler without a car. One tap-on card covers trains, metro, light rail, buses and ferries, and the boats from Circular Quay are the best part of the network. The eastern beaches do need a bus, though, and the suburbs sprawl well beyond it.

In Cape Town only the City Bowl, Bo-Kaap and Waterfront are walkable, and the MyCiTi buses cover the airport and the Atlantic seaboard. Almost everything else means driving or cheap ride-hailing, and after dark you go door to door by car.

Sydney offers more to shop for. Pitt Street Mall, the Victorian galleries of the Queen Victoria Building and the Strand Arcade hold international flagships and Australian designers, Paddington is good for local fashion, and Australian swimwear is a speciality.

In Cape Town shopping is more about tracking things down: the V&A Waterfront mall covers the basics, Woodstock and Bree Street sell ceramics, leather and local design, and African crafts, wine and rooibos make the souvenirs. Neither city is a luxury destination.

The gap is wide, and it shows most at the table. In Cape Town, a long lunch on a Franschhoek estate or a multi-course dinner on Bree Street costs far less than a comparable meal in Sydney. Wine is cheap whether it comes from a shop, a restaurant list or a cellar door. Getting about is cheap too: car hire, fuel and ride-hailing, which you will rely on anyway, cost little. The one real exception is a sea-view room in Camps Bay or Clifton over December and January.

Sydney is dear in exactly the places where Cape Town is cheap. Restaurant meals and drinks cost a lot, and a hotel near the harbour or the beaches takes a large share of any budget, especially in summer. The savings come from elsewhere: public transport is fairly priced, the Asian food courts and suburban cafés feed you for much less than a harbour-view table, and the beaches, coastal walks and main galleries are free.

Sydney has the fuller stage. The Opera House has performances nearly every night from Opera Australia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Bangarra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra give the scene real depth, and the pubs of Newtown and Enmore supply the gigs.

Cape Town's strength is a sound of its own. Cape jazz, its large annual jazz festival and the summer sunset concerts on the Kirstenbosch lawns are the highlights, with Artscape and the Baxter covering enough formal theatre for a couple of evenings.

Sydney has a real bathing ritual in its rock-cut ocean pools at Bondi, Bronte, Clovelly and Coogee, where Wylie's Baths and McIver's Ladies Baths keep an unhurried, old-fashioned feel. Day spas and a few Korean-style bathhouses add steam and soaking.

Cape Town has no baths or hammams of its own. There, rest means long lunches on a wine estate, hotel spas that are good for the price, yoga along the Atlantic seaboard and early swims in the False Bay tidal pools.