Chicago or St. Louis?

Only one of these cities has a beach. Chicago has more than twenty sandy beaches inside the city along Lake Michigan, from Oak Street right below the Gold Coast towers to the volleyball strand at North Avenue. Swimming is realistic from late June to early September, which makes a summer afternoon on the sand an easy break between sights.

St. Louis is a river city, and the Mississippi and Missouri are working rivers with strong currents that no one swims in. On a hot day there, you cool off in a pool, or you drive out to a reservoir lake in the Ozarks.

Chicago is the better city for eating, on range as much as quality. Its own specialities, deep-dish and tavern-cut pizza, Italian beef and the dressed hot dog, sit alongside a serious fine-dining strip in the West Loop. There is also outstanding Mexican cooking in Pilsen and Little Village, and South Asian food on Devon Avenue.

St. Louis has a smaller, more homely cooking tradition: toasted ravioli, cracker-crust pizza with Provel cheese, gooey butter cake and ribs. The trattorias on the Hill and the Bosnian bakeries of Bevo Mill are worth seeking out, and the Saturday Soulard Market is a pleasure. It is good, cheap eating, but not a reason to travel.

Both cities helped invent the skyscraper, but Chicago has far more to show for it. The Loop is a full lesson in tall buildings, from the Rookery to Mies van der Rohe, and the river cruise shows them best. The Art Institute and the Museum Campus give it museums of international standing, and Wright's Prairie houses are close by.

St. Louis has a handful of strong sights rather than a whole architectural city. There is the Arch with its museum of westward expansion, the Old Courthouse of the Dred Scott case, Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building and the mosaics of the Cathedral Basilica. Its art and history museums in Forest Park are free, and two or three days covers the lot.

Chicago is the much bigger night out. Late licences keep many bars open until 4am. Each neighbourhood has its own style, with dive and cocktail bars in Wicker Park, clubs in River North and the gay district in Northalsted, and house music, which was born in Chicago, still shapes its dance floors.

St. Louis goes out in separate pockets: the old taverns and blues bars of Soulard, the dance bars on Washington Avenue and the Grove for late nights. It is relaxed and local, but you will often need a taxi between areas, and outside weekends and baseball nights many streets go quiet early.

The two cities are about level here, but the outdoors is very different. Chicago's is the lake: about 29km of shoreline path for walking, cycling and skating, plus lagoons and birding in Lincoln and Jackson Parks. Beyond the city the land is flat, and Indiana Dunes and the canyons of Starved Rock are the nearest real escapes.

St. Louis has no great body of water to walk along, but it has rolling country close by. Ozark foothills with river bluffs and caves are within an hour, the Katy Trail suits cyclists, and bald eagles gather near Alton in winter. For hiking, St. Louis has more varied ground. For an easy outdoor day without a car, Chicago's lakefront wins.

St. Louis has more history within reach. Cahokia Mounds, the UNESCO-listed site of a great pre-Columbian city, is twenty minutes away, and the trip includes a climb up Monks Mound. The French colonial houses of Ste. Genevieve and the German-settled wine towns of Hermann and Augusta are each about an hour out. Nearly all of these need a car.

Chicago's options are fewer and milder, though the best one is easy without a car: Milwaukee, about an hour and a half by train. Oak Park's Wright houses are on the city's edge, and Lake Geneva and the harbour towns of southwest Michigan make pleasant drives rather than essential ones.

Both cities are good with children, and Chicago has a little more depth. The Museum of Science and Industry can fill a day. The Museum Campus has dinosaurs, beluga whales and a planetarium side by side, and summer adds lifeguarded beaches and the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, all reachable without a car.

St. Louis has the single most memorable attraction for children. The City Museum is a warehouse-sized maze of tunnels and slides that adults climb too, and Chicago has nothing like it. Its zoo and Science Center are free, but the sights are spread out and most of them need a drive.

Chicago works without a car. The L runs from both airports into the Loop, and the main sights downtown are within walking distance of one another. Crossing between neighbourhoods often takes a bus, and the January wind makes walking hard work.

St. Louis expects you to drive. MetroLink covers the airport, Forest Park, downtown and Clayton, but Soulard, the Hill, South Grand and every day trip need a car or a taxi. The upside is quiet roads and easy parking.

Chicago is a real shopping city. It has the flagships and vertical malls of the Magnificent Mile, luxury labels on Oak Street, the grand old Marshall Field's store on State Street, and independent fashion and record shops in Wicker Park and Andersonville.

St. Louis offers a pleasant afternoon instead. Cherokee Street has antiques, vintage and Latin American shops, and the Delmar Loop and Central West End have small boutiques. Big-name fashion is out in suburban malls in Frontenac and Richmond Heights.

St. Louis is easier on the wallet. Its hotels, even downtown, cost noticeably less than Chicago's, and the zoo and the art, history and science museums in Forest Park are all free. Part of the saving goes on a hire car or taxis.

Chicago is costly, with expensive downtown hotels and heavy taxes on top. Cheap taquerias, the L and the free lakefront, beaches and Lincoln Park Zoo soften the bill, and staying outside the Loop helps most.

Chicago is one of the country's great performance cities. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera lead it, theatre runs from the Goodman and Steppenwolf down to small storefront companies, and improv at Second City plays nightly. Electric blues clubs and late jazz sets fill the evenings, with free summer concerts in Millennium Park.

St. Louis has a smaller programme, but a fine one. It has a venerable symphony in the old movie palace of Powell Hall, Broadway tours at the Fabulous Fox, and summer musicals under the sky at the Muny in Forest Park. Its blues history runs through Chuck Berry and W.C. Handy, and the National Blues Museum is downtown.

Neither city is somewhere people go to unwind, though Chicago has the more interesting bathing. A Russian-and-Turkish bathhouse in Wicker Park has run steam rooms and cold plunges since the early 1900s, a Korean-style jjimjilbang lies in the suburbs, and the warm conservatories are a winter refuge.

St. Louis has only ordinary hotel and day spas. What it offers instead is an unhurried pace and slow mornings in Forest Park or the Japanese garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden.