Chongqing or Lijiang?

Neither city is a beach destination. Both are far inland, and anyone who wants the sea will need a separate trip. What differs is how you might cool off. In Chongqing's punishing summer, locals use hotel pools and hot-spring resorts. Lijiang's lakes are cold mountain water for boating or birdwatching, and few hotels there have a pool at all.

For eating, the two cities are far apart. In Chongqing, food is a reason to travel in itself: tallow hotpot heavy with numbing pepper, xiaomian noodles for breakfast, chillied chicken and chuanchuan skewers, served in hillside neighbourhoods where kitchens stay open into the small hours. The one real limit is spice, though you can ask for a split pot.

Lijiang's Naxi and Yunnan cooking is pleasant rather than memorable. Baba flatbread, goat hotpot and wild mushrooms in the rainy season are the highlights, but the Old Town lanes repeat the same menus at tourist prices. The best meals there are simple breakfasts eaten outside the walls.

On sightseeing the two are fairly evenly matched, though what you see is very different. In Chongqing the city itself is the spectacle: towers on ridges, monorails through hillsides and the lit-up peninsula at night. Add the Three Gorges Museum and the wartime-capital sites such as the Stilwell Museum, and you have a modern city with a layer of twentieth-century history.

Lijiang offers a historic townscape and a living minority culture: the UNESCO-listed Naxi lanes of Dayan, the Mu Family Mansion, the Dongba pictographic script and the Ming-era murals at Baisha. Much of it was rebuilt after the 1996 earthquake and has a staged feel, but the setting is far prettier. Each city takes two or three days to see.

Chongqing offers more after dark and more variety. An evening might move from the river views to hotpot, then on to the glossy table-service clubs of Jiujie or a craft-beer bar near Jiefangbei, and you will be out among locals until late.

Lijiang's famous nightlife is mostly one canal-side strip of open-fronted bars with singers and drums, crowded with tour groups and easy to find but much the same from door to door. The better option there is a quiet drink in a courtyard bar in the back lanes or in Shuhe, because proper clubs hardly exist.

Lijiang has much the grander landscape. The glaciated Jade Dragon Snow Mountain rises about 30km from town, Blue Moon Valley has turquoise pools below it, and Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of China's great treks. Lashi Lake adds wetland birds and horse trails. The mountain itself is crowded and tightly managed, and the altitude is noticeable at the top.

Chongqing's nature mostly comes in half-day doses: forest paths on Nanshan looking back at the skyline, and the wooded slopes of Jinyun Mountain. Its big landscapes, the Wulong karst and the Three Gorges, take a long day or a cruise, and summer heat and winter haze limit when they are worth doing.

Both cities make good bases for excursions, but they lead to different things. From Chongqing, a fast train reaches Chengdu's teahouses and pandas in about an hour, and the Dazu Rock Carvings and the Song-era Diaoyu Fortress add serious history. Stilt-house towns such as Songji and Laitan make gentler outings.

Lijiang's trips lead into other cultures. Dali's walled town and the Bai villages on Erhai Lake are to the south, and Songzanlin Monastery in Shangri-La gives a first taste of Tibet. Lugu Lake and Shaxi need an overnight stay.

Chongqing is the easier choice with children, despite its stairs. It has the zoo's giant pandas, the riverfront science museum and theme parks on the edge of town, and the cable car and building-threading monorail are a treat for younger children. Summer heat and spicy food are the main drawbacks, so go in spring or autumn.

Lijiang has little beyond the car-free Old Town, its streams and the park at Black Dragon Pool. The town already sits at 2,400m and the snow mountain goes much higher, so its biggest sight is best skipped with small children.

Chongqing is much easier to get around. Its metro and monorail lines, with English signs, cover nearly everything a visitor wants, and cable cars, escalators and cheap taxis help on the slopes. The difficulty is vertical: the layered streets confuse map apps and mean plenty of stairs.

Lijiang's Old Town is small and walkable, if mazy, but beyond it there is no rail transit and buses are hard to use without Chinese. The mountain, the gorge and the lake are spread out, so most visitors hire a driver or rely on taxis and ride-hailing apps that need Chinese payment.

Chongqing has far more shopping. The malls and department stores around Jiefangbei and in Guanyinqiao carry international and luxury brands, although it is much the same as any big Chinese city. The best local things to buy are hotpot base and Sichuan pepper.

In Lijiang almost every Old Town house is a shop, but the hand drums, scarves and trinkets repeat from lane to lane. Pu'er tea and carefully compared silver are the purchases worth making, and there is no fashion shopping at all.

Both are cheap places to visit, with Chongqing a little cheaper overall. Its food, metro rides and comfortable hotels all cost little, and the main extras are Yangtze cruises and cable cars. Lijiang's guesthouses and breakfasts are just as easy on the budget, but the Old Town entry fee, the expensive snow mountain outing and the marked-up main lanes add up faster.

Neither city is worth planning a trip around for performance, and each has one tradition worth catching. In Chongqing that is Sichuan opera with its face-changing and fire-spitting, and the glass Grand Theatre and a symphony orchestra add touring ballet and concerts. In Lijiang it is Naxi ancient music, a Taoist ritual repertoire played by older musicians in an Old Town hall, alongside large song-and-dance shows staged for tour groups.

Chongqing has a real bathing culture, which Lijiang lacks. Centuries-old hot springs at Beiwenquan and Nanwenquan offer outdoor pools in wooded valleys, and cheap foot-massage parlours open late round off a hotpot night. The city centre itself is noisy and steep, though, so getting proper rest means heading out to the edges.

Lijiang offers slowness rather than treatments: tea in a sunny courtyard inn and early walks in Shuhe or Baisha before the groups arrive. Beyond hotel spas and simple massage shops, that is all it offers.