Cape Town or Windhoek?

Cape Town has some of the most photographed sand in the world. Clifton's coves and Camps Bay sit under granite boulders with the Twelve Apostles behind them. The Atlantic there is icy, though, so the real swimming is half an hour away on False Bay, at Muizenberg, St James and Kalk Bay's tidal pools, from December to March.

Windhoek sits on an inland plateau with no beach within a day's reach. Even the coast at Swakopmund is too cold for a comfortable swim. In the city, swimming means a guest-house pool on a hot afternoon.

Cape Town has much more to offer at the table. It has its own creole cuisine of bobotie, curries and koeksisters from the Bo-Kaap, fish eaten by the harbours at Kalk Bay and Hout Bay, and chef-driven restaurants along Bree Street and in Woodstock. Wine from the Winelands appears on every list.

Windhoek's strengths are narrower but distinctive. Game such as oryx and kudu is on most menus, kapana beef is grilled over open fires in Katutura, and German-style bakeries and lagers survive from the colonial era. A few good meals are easy to find, but on a long stay the variety runs out.

Cape Town's history fills three or four days. You can take the ferry to Robben Island, where Mandela was held, and visit the District Six Museum, the Castle of Good Hope, and the museums and gallery around the Company's Garden. Zeitz MOCAA adds a major collection of contemporary African art.

Windhoek's sights fit into a single day on one short ridge: the Christuskirche, the Tintenpalast and the Alte Feste. The Independence Memorial Museum deserves your time for how frankly it covers the Herero and Nama genocide, but after that there is little else to see.

Cape Town has a real night out. Long Street is for rowdy bars, Bree and Kloof Streets for cocktails and wine, and De Waterkant is the gay quarter. In summer there are sundowners at Camps Bay and clubs open into the small hours. Use ride-hailing to get between areas.

Windhoek winds down early. Evenings mostly mean dinner, a beer garden or a lounge bar in Klein Windhoek, plus a handful of clubs on weekends. Katutura's shebeens are the city's most authentic night out, and they are best visited with a local.

Few cities anywhere match Cape Town here. Table Mountain, Lion's Head and the national park reaching down to Cape Point begin at the edge of the centre, and they are covered in the fynbos of the world's richest floral kingdom. Add penguins, seals, whales in False Bay, surf lessons at Muizenberg and the drive along Chapman's Peak.

Windhoek offers quieter thornbush highland. There are hiking trails among zebra and oryx at Daan Viljoen, game farms within easy reach, and reliably clear skies. Namibia's famous landscapes, Sossusvlei and Etosha, are a night away rather than on the doorstep.

As a base for days out, Cape Town is far stronger, mostly because wine country starts just beyond its suburbs. Stellenbosch's Cape Dutch university streets, Franschhoek's Huguenot valley, Paarl and Constantia are near enough to leave after breakfast and be back for dinner, and there are so many estates that you can go back several times without visiting the same cellar twice. Clifftop whale watching at Hermanus and the old Cape Dutch houses of Tulbagh add variety further out. The trains are no help for any of this, so hire a car or book a tour.

Windhoek is a place to set off from rather than return to. Within an easy drive there is little more than Okahandja, about an hour north, with its woodcarvers' market and the graves of Herero chiefs. Swakopmund and the country's great sights are so far across the desert that each one means a night away. From Windhoek you move on from one lodge to the next, while in Cape Town you can unpack once and come back to the same bed every evening.

Cape Town gives children far more to do: the Two Oceans Aquarium, the penguins at Boulders, a ride on the cableway, Kirstenbosch's treetop walkway, and calm tidal pools at St James and Fish Hoek. The catch is that the sights are spread out, so you will need a car.

Windhoek has nothing built specifically for children. Its highlight for families is a game drive where children can see giraffe and zebra up close. A suburban guest house with a pool makes an easy stop on the way to Etosha.

You will want a car or ride-hailing in both cities, but Cape Town gives you slightly more choice. The City Bowl, Bo-Kaap and Waterfront are walkable by day, and MyCiTi buses reach the airport, the Atlantic beaches and Hout Bay. Ride-hailing is cheap, and the coastal roads are a pleasure to drive.

Windhoek has a compact walkable centre around Independence Avenue but no public transport a visitor can realistically use. Visitors book taxis or hire a car, which they need anyway for the road trip that usually follows. In both cities, avoid walking after dark.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Cape Town has more range. There is the large Waterfront mall, independent South African design in Woodstock and on Bree and Kloof Streets, African crafts at Greenmarket Square, and wine to carry home.

Windhoek's shopping is mostly crafts, and the Namibia Craft Centre in the old brewery is the place to go for baskets, Herero dolls and ostrich-shell jewellery. Beyond that there are malls that are useful for stocking up before a road trip.

Cape Town gives you more for your money. Visitors from abroad can eat tasting menus, drink estate wine and hire a car for much less than at home. The main expense is rooms near the beaches in the December to January peak.

Windhoek is cheap enough day to day, with inexpensive kapana, beer and suburban guest houses. The cost lies in how Namibia is travelled: taxis or a hire car, and safari lodges and guided trips priced for international visitors.

Cape jazz gives Cape Town a sound of its own. A few clubs keep it alive, and a large international jazz festival is held every year. In summer, Sunday sunset concerts on Kirstenbosch's lawns bring picnics beneath the mountain, while Artscape stages opera, ballet and musicals and the Baxter puts on South African drama, enough for a couple of evenings out.

Windhoek offers no regular circuit you can count on. The National Theatre of Namibia hosts local drama, dance and choirs, and shambo or Namibian kwaito turns up in a few bars, so check what is on during your stay.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, so both rely on hotel and estate spas. Cape Town relaxes you better. You can spend slow lunches in the Winelands, take early yoga on the Atlantic seaboard and join the year-round morning swimmers in False Bay's tidal pools.

Windhoek does have one thing Cape Town lacks nearby: the thermal pools at Gross Barmen, about an hour away. Otherwise its calm comes from garden guest houses, wide skies and cool, clear winter nights between long days on the road.