Chicago or Minneapolis?

Both swim in fresh water rather than the sea, and only from late June to early September. Chicago has much more of it: over twenty sandy beaches along Lake Michigan, from Oak Street under the Gold Coast towers to the volleyball crowds at North Avenue, all facing open water that stretches to the horizon.

Minneapolis has smaller sandy strips on Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska, Lake Nokomis and Cedar Lake. These smaller lakes warm up a little more by late July, and a swim after an evening bike ride is the local habit. Still, they are neighbourhood ponds for an afternoon, not a city shoreline.

Chicago is the stronger food city by a distance. It has a canon of its own in deep-dish, tavern-cut pizza, Italian beef and the dressed hot dog, a serious tasting-menu tier around Randolph Street, and whole neighbourhoods cooking Mexican in Pilsen and South Asian on Devon Avenue.

Minneapolis is good in a narrower way. Its most interesting cooking is Somali, Ethiopian, Vietnamese and Hmong, along Eat Street and in the Midtown Global Market, plus the Juicy Lucy and a brewery taproom culture in Northeast. Fine dining is limited, and few people travel there just to eat.

Chicago is a sightseeing city in its own right. You can take the river cruise past the early steel-frame towers and Mies van der Rohe's glass, visit Wright's Robie House, and spend days on the Art Institute's Impressionists and the Field Museum.

Minneapolis is mainly about its museums. The free Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Walker's contemporary collection are excellent, and the Mill City ruins and Stone Arch Bridge tell its flour-milling story, but two or three days covers it.

Chicago goes out later and harder. Bars can stay open until 4am, River North has proper dance clubs, house music was born here, and Wicker Park, Logan Square, Wrigleyville and Northalsted each have a distinct crowd.

Minneapolis closes at 2am and has a modest club scene. Its evenings are friendly rounds of brewery taprooms in Northeast and cocktail bars in the North Loop, best on summer patios and much quieter in winter.

Minneapolis is the greener city. The Grand Rounds loops about 80km of paths past the Chain of Lakes, Minnehaha Falls and the wooded Mississippi gorge, with canoeing in summer and groomed ski trails at Theodore Wirth Park in winter. The St Croix bluffs are about an hour away.

Chicago's outdoors is essentially one long strip of lakefront, a 29km shore path past harbours and skyline, plus birding in Jackson Park. For dunes or sandstone canyons you have to travel an hour or more to Indiana Dunes or Starved Rock.

Neither city has much to offer within a day's reach, and both lists are pleasant rather than compelling. Chicago's best outing is a separate city: Milwaukee, an easy train ride away, with its lakefront art museum and breweries. Lake Geneva and the Michigan harbour towns need a car.

Minneapolis's best is its twin. St Paul's Capitol and Summit Avenue mansions are a light-rail ride away, and beyond that you need to drive to the river towns of Stillwater and Lake Pepin.

Chicago gives children more in one place. The Museum of Science and Industry with its coal mine and U-boat, dinosaurs and belugas side by side on the Museum Campus, the free Lincoln Park Zoo and Navy Pier's Ferris wheel make full days without much travel.

Minneapolis works well too, especially in bad weather, with an indoor amusement park and aquarium at the Mall of America and the Science Museum in St Paul. Its attractions are spread out and often a drive apart, though, while the summer lakes and bike paths make for easy, gentle outdoor days.

Chicago is the easier city without a car. The L runs from both airports into the Loop, and the main sights from Millennium Park to the Museum Campus are a flat walk apart. Crossing between neighbourhoods often means a bus, though.

Minneapolis has two light-rail lines covering the airport, the Mall of America and St Paul, and skyways that keep you indoors downtown in winter. Its real strength is cycling on protected lanes and the Midtown Greenway, but outlying trips need a car.

Chicago has the wider range. The Magnificent Mile has flagships, Oak Street has luxury labels and the old Marshall Field's store on State Street is worth seeing for its Tiffany ceiling, with independent boutiques in Wicker Park and Andersonville.

Minneapolis shopping centres on the Mall of America, reached by light rail and helped by the absence of sales tax on clothing. North Loop boutiques and Northeast makers add some character, but there is little luxury retail.

Minneapolis is the more reasonably priced of the two, with moderate downtown hotels, cheap light rail and free entry to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Sculpture Garden and the lakes. Hiring a car for outings adds to the cost.

Chicago costs more, mainly because of downtown hotel rates and steep hotel and sales taxes. Taquerias, the L and the free lakefront and Lincoln Park Zoo soften the bill, as does staying outside the Loop.

Both are serious theatre cities, but Chicago goes deeper. It has a world-class symphony at Symphony Center, the Lyric Opera, Steppenwolf and the Goodman, dozens of storefront companies and Second City's nightly improv, all set against its own electric blues and late jazz sets.

Minneapolis answers with the Guthrie Theater above the Mississippi, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Ordway's chamber orchestra and opera, plus First Avenue's rock history from Prince's day. It is less extensive, but there is still something good on most nights.

Neither is a place to unwind, and the difference is mostly one of tradition. Chicago's bathing is urban and old-world: a Russian-and-Turkish bathhouse in Wicker Park, a Korean jjimjilbang in the suburbs and warm conservatory glasshouses for winter afternoons.

Minneapolis has a Nordic heritage, with winter saunas set up on frozen lakes and cold plunges in between, and its slower, polite pace makes a lakeside walk at dusk the usual way to wind down.