Cluj-Napoca or Sofia?

Neither city has a beach, and both are a long way from the Black Sea, so a sun-and-sea trip means booking separate nights on the coast. What differs is the summer swim. Around Cluj the draw is floating in the buoyant outdoor salt lakes at Turda, while Sofia's options are park pools and the lake at Pancharevo on the city's edge.

Both serve hearty home cooking rather than a gourmet scene, but the traditions differ. Cluj eats where Romania meets Hungary: cabbage and meat bakes, sour ciorbă soups, sarmale with polenta and fried papanași, with serious specialty coffee in the student streets around Piața Unirii.

Sofia leans Balkan, with grilled kebapche, shopska salad, cold tarator and banitsa for breakfast, served in folk-style mehana taverns. Its real strength is wine from local grapes such as Mavrud and Melnik, where Cluj's glass is more likely a Târnave valley white.

Sofia offers more to see and more variety across the centuries. Roman Serdica lies excavated around the metro, the Rotunda of St George, a mosque and an Orthodox cathedral sit minutes apart, and Boyana Church's medieval frescoes and the Thracian gold in the history museum are worth the trip on their own. The catch is that the streets in between can be plain.

Cluj is the handsomer old town but the thinner list: Gothic St Michael's on Piața Unirii, baroque palaces, the Bánffy Palace art museum and stretches of medieval wall. The open-air section of the ethnographic museum is its standout, and a day or two covers it.

Evenings out are on a similar scale, good for a weekend rather than a reason to travel. Cluj is the more student-driven, with cellar bars and terraces around Piața Muzeului, cheap campus bars and a few clubs in industrial courtyards, though it goes quiet in summer when term ends.

Sofia feels a little older and steadier, with cocktail, craft beer and wine bars around Shishman Street, bars beneath the grand old buildings and park terraces in summer.

Sofia wins clearly here, because a real mountain starts at the edge of town. Vitosha's boulder rivers, spruce forest and the summit of Cherni Vrah are reachable by city bus and gondola, and the glacial Seven Rila Lakes and proper skiing at Borovets are a short drive further.

Cluj's surroundings are greener and softer: forest walks in Făget, the limestone canyon of Turda Gorge for a half-day hike, and the caves and karst plateaus of the Apuseni, which need a car and an early start.

Both make good bases for outings, with a different flavour to each. From Cluj the Turda Salt Mine is the essential trip, joined by Alba Iulia's star-shaped citadel, Bánffy Castle at Bonțida and the whitewashed village of Rimetea, so the theme is castles, Habsburg forts and Hungarian and Saxon towns.

Sofia's outings are fewer but weightier: Rila Monastery in its mountain valley and Plovdiv's Roman theatre and painted old town, each about two hours away, plus the revival village of Koprivshtitsa.

Families will find both calm and safe but short on attractions built for children. The difference is the big day out: in Cluj it is underground at the Turda Salt Mine, with its lake, small Ferris wheel and play areas, while in Sofia it is up on Vitosha by gondola, though broken pavements make pushchairs harder work there.

In both cities the centre is easy on foot, but the networks differ. Sofia has a clean, simple metro linking the airport, the centre and the foothills of Vitosha, so you rarely need a taxi, though signs away from the centre are mostly in Cyrillic.

Cluj is flat and small enough that almost everything lies within a twenty-minute walk of Piața Unirii, with buses and trolleybuses for the rest. Leaving town is the weaker point there, with slow trains making a hired car the practical choice.

Neither is a shopping destination, and the best buys in both are crafts rather than fashion. Cluj's are Transylvanian: embroidered blouses, painted ceramics and wooden work from folk-art fairs and the ethnographic museum shop, with the Christmas market on Piața Unirii as the high point.

Sofia has the stronger main street in pedestrian Vitosha Boulevard, plus rose oil, Troyan pottery and the icon and curiosity stalls near Alexander Nevsky.

Both are cheap by Western European standards, but Sofia stretches a budget further. It is one of the least expensive capitals in the EU, and meals, wine, hotels and trips to Rila add little to the bill.

Cluj's tech and university economy pushes prices above the Romanian norm, and rooms become scarce and costly during the summer festivals. Its opera and theatre seats remain a bargain.

Cluj has the fuller stage life, because it runs two of everything: a Romanian opera and theatre sharing one ornate house, a Hungarian opera and theatre in their own, and a philharmonic season. In summer it adds some of Eastern Europe's biggest music festivals.

Sofia's season is solid and affordable, with opera and ballet, the Sofia Philharmonic and big shows at the National Palace of Culture. Its distinctive sound is Bulgarian choral and Orthodox singing. In both cities, plays are in the local languages, so music and dance suit visitors best.

Cluj has no bathing tradition of its own, so unwinding there is mostly a matter of slowing down: the Botanical Garden, the lake in Central Park and long coffees away from the student streets. The nearest thing to a cure is at Turda. People go down into the old salt mine to breathe its dry, salty air for their lungs in any season, but floating in the outdoor salt lakes is for summer only. Otherwise the choice is hotel wellness centres and a few day spas.

Warm mineral water rises beneath Sofia itself, and you notice it in the centre, where locals fill bottles at the public taps beside the old Central Mineral Baths. To bathe in that water, you go out to the city's edge or to Bankya, about half an hour west, and it is just as good in a snowy January as in July. Further out, whole resorts such as Velingrad are built around the hot springs, so a slow trip here has much more to it than one in Cluj.