Cusco or Luxor?

Neither city has any beach life, so a sea day means a separate trip from both. Cusco is the harder case. It lies high in the Andes with cold nights and glacial water, and the Pacific is a flight away.

Luxor at least gives you somewhere to swim. Most riverside hotels have a good pool, which is welcome in the desert heat, and the Red Sea coast around Hurghada is about four hours away by road, close enough to add a few days of sand and warm water at the end.

Cusco is the better place to eat. Highland cooking has real depth, with many kinds of potato and maize, river trout, alpaca, picantería stews and the San Pedro market. San Blas and the streets around the Plaza de Armas add Novoandino tasting menus that do interesting things with native ingredients.

Luxor eats simply. Ful, taameya, koshari and fresh flatbread are good and honest, and the home cooking in West Bank guesthouses is often the best meal of a stay. Visitor dining, though, relies on hotel buffets and rooftop views more than on the cooking, and there is little drinking culture.

Both are ancient capitals, but Luxor's heritage is on another scale. Ancient Thebes covers both banks of the Nile. Karnak's Great Hypostyle Hall, the floodlit Luxor Temple, the painted royal tombs and the temples at Deir el-Bahari and Medinet Habu fill several full days.

Cusco is more compact, and two eras are layered on top of each other. Inca walls such as Hatun Rumiyoc carry Spanish churches, Qorikancha holds up the Santo Domingo monastery, and Sacsayhuamán looms above the town. Cusco also has a colonial old town worth wandering in its own right, while modern Luxor is plain.

Cusco has a real if small night scene. Bars and clubs just off the Plaza de Armas fill with backpackers and trekkers, some stay open late at weekends, and San Blas has quieter cocktail and craft beer bars.

In Luxor, an evening out means a hotel bar or a rooftop terrace, or tea and shisha in a street café while families stroll the corniche. In both places the early starts for tours keep nights short, but only Cusco offers anything you could call a night out.

This is where the two cities differ most. Cusco opens onto the high Andes: the terraced Sacred Valley under the Cordillera Urubamba, Humantay lake, Vinicunca at over 5,000m, multi-day treks, rafting, and condors and vicuñas on the puna.

Luxor's landscape is one striking contrast, a green strip along the Nile set against bare desert cliffs. The pleasures are gentle: a felucca at sunset, birds on the river islands, cycling past West Bank fields and a walk over the Theban hills. For much of the year the heat limits even these to early mornings.

Cusco has more good days out within reach. Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero, Moray and the Maras salt pans are all in the Sacred Valley, Tipón and Andahuaylillas lie to the south-east, and Machu Picchu is the great prize, though it really needs an overnight stay.

Luxor's excursions are temple runs along the river. Dendera, Esna and Edfu are each outstanding and all can be reached in under two hours. Abydos makes a longer day. Both lists stick to one theme, but Cusco's mix of living villages, farmland and ruins gives more variety than temple after temple.

Neither is easy with young children, but Luxor is the less difficult of the two. The main dangers there are heat and long walks with no shade, which a hotel pool, short morning outings and a winter visit can deal with. Older children who love mummies will remember the tombs, a felucca and a balloon at dawn.

Cusco adds altitude sickness, which small children may not be able to describe, as well as steep cobbles and narrow pavements. Families with young children often spend most of their time in the lower Sacred Valley, where the llamas and alpacas are the highlight.

Cusco's centre is small and walkable from the Plaza de Armas, and taxis are cheap for the climb back uphill. The challenge is the gradient in thin air, plus cobbles. Trips into the valley rely on tours, drivers or shared minibuses, and Machu Picchu has its train.

Luxor is split by the river. The East Bank sights are a walk or a calèche ride apart, and the ferry crossing is simple. The West Bank sites, though, are spread across kilometres of desert edge, so you need a driver for the day, and agreeing fares before every ride makes getting about more tiring than in Cusco.

Cusco gives you a real reason to shop: alpaca knitwear, woven blankets and naturally dyed textiles from cooperatives such as those in Chinchero, plus ceramics and silverwork from the San Blas workshops. You still need to look past the factory-made stock around the main square.

Luxor's souk and site stalls sell spices, scarves, papyrus and galabiyas, much of it mass-produced, and the sellers are persistent. The hand-carving at the West Bank alabaster workshops is the one thing worth seeking out.

Both are cheap places to stay and eat, and in both the big sights take most of the money. Luxor goes further for everyday spending. Even its grand riverside hotels are good value, and the ferry costs almost nothing. The main expense is entry fees at every temple and tomb, which add up over several days.

Cusco's daily costs are also low, and a combined ticket covers many sites. The Machu Picchu train and entry, and guided treks such as the Inca Trail, are heavier and hard to avoid, so a Cusco trip usually costs more overall.

Cusco's festival calendar gives it a stage that Luxor has no equivalent for. Inti Raymi re-enacts the Inca sun festival at Sacsayhuamán around the June solstice, and Corpus Christi and the Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage fill the streets and high hills with masked dancers. On ordinary evenings there are folkloric dance shows in the centre and panpipe and charango bands over dinner, though there is little formal theatre or classical music.

Luxor's one regular performance is the sound-and-light show at Karnak, where you walk through the floodlit temple. Beyond that, belly dance and tanoura whirling are staged in hotels and on cruise boats, so the evening entertainment here is the monuments rather than anything on a stage.

In Cusco, rest usually means leaving the city. Around the main square there is cheap massage on every street and there are hotel spas, some pumping oxygen into the rooms, but the altitude, cold nights and pre-dawn tour departures make the city itself a tiring base. The real calm is down in the Sacred Valley, where riverside lodges offer yoga and gardens.

In Luxor, rest comes from the shape of the day rather than from treatments: a long afternoon by the pool, then sunset on the water. Spas are found in the larger riverside hotels, some with a hammam, and the mud-brick guesthouses among the West Bank fields are the quiet place to stay, while the East Bank's traffic and touts are anything but restful. Neither has a bathing tradition, and the two come out about even. Each is restful only once you get away from its busy centre.