Delhi or Udaipur?

Neither city has a beach or any swimming outside a hotel pool, as both lie far inland. Where they differ is the water you look at. Delhi's Yamuna plays no part in a visit, while Udaipur's lakes are central to it, with boat rides on Pichola and heritage hotels whose pools look over the water. Beach time on either trip means flying on to Goa or Kerala.

Delhi is one of India's great eating cities and Udaipur is not. The lanes around Chandni Chowk alone, with stuffed parathas, slow-cooked nihari and kebabs over coals, outdo most whole towns. Delhi also invented butter chicken and dal makhani, and its restaurants range from Kashmiri and Keralan kitchens to modern tasting menus.

Udaipur offers a few good days of Mewari cooking: dal baati churma, laal maas, thalis with refills and morning kachori in the bazaars. The lakeside rooftops sell the view more than the food, so the best meals are found away from the water.

Delhi has the deeper and broader list of sights. It has three UNESCO sites in the Red Fort, Humayun's Tomb and the Qutb Minar, along with Jama Masjid, the Lodi tombs, the imperial avenue of Kartavya Path and the national collections of art and antiquities. The cost is distance, because the sights are scattered and each day needs planning.

Udaipur's strength is coherence. The City Palace, the white island palaces on Lake Pichola and the havelis around Jagdish Temple form one romantic picture that two or three days cover properly, where Delhi could fill a week.

Neither is a nightlife destination, but Delhi can at least give you a proper night out. There are rooftop bars in Hauz Khas Village, pubs under the Connaught Place colonnades and bigger clubs and brewpubs in Gurugram, all best at weekends and reached by taxi.

Udaipur's evening is a sunset drink over Lake Pichola, a long dinner and an early night. It has a few hotel and lounge bars and no club scene at all.

Udaipur sits in a real landscape of low Aravalli hills wrapped around Pichola, Fateh Sagar and the other lakes. The Sajjangarh forest, walks through hill villages and cycling routes are close by, and the Kumbhalgarh sanctuary lies further out. Delhi's outdoors comes down to parks such as Lodhi Gardens and Sunder Nursery, the scrubby Ridge forest and winter birdwatching at Okhla and Sultanpur, and smog often rules out exercise in the cooler months.

Both make strong bases, but for different kinds of outing. From Delhi the prize is Agra and the Taj Mahal by fast train, with Fatehpur Sikri and the Krishna towns of Mathura and Vrindavan as other choices, and rail is the way to travel.

Udaipur's trips are to Rajput forts and temples by road. You can pair the long walls of Kumbhalgarh with the marble Jain temple at Ranakpur, drive east to Chittorgarh, or stay close at Eklingji and Nagda. These are long days with a hired driver rather than a train ride.

Both are hard work with small children, and in both, Indian families will make a fuss of them. Delhi has more built for children, with the National Rail Museum, the zoo, the science centre and big water parks on the outskirts, but heat, smog and traffic weigh heavily on a young family.

Udaipur offers boat rides, puppet shows and the cable car instead, in a smaller place where the main trouble is narrow old-city lanes with hardly any pavement. It works best for older children who are curious about palaces and history.

Delhi is harder to cross but much better equipped. Its metro is clean, air-conditioned and signed in English, and it reaches most monuments and the airport, with autos and app taxis covering the gaps. Udaipur has no public transport a visitor would use: its old city is compact enough to walk, though narrow and full of motorbikes, and the hilltop sights and every day trip need a hired driver.

Delhi is by far the bigger market. Crafts from every state are gathered at Dilli Haat and the state emporiums, Old Delhi has specialist bazaars such as Khari Baoli for spices, and the city adds designer boutiques in Khan Market and Shahpur Jat, bargain streets at Janpath and Sarojini Nagar and luxury brands in the South Delhi malls.

Udaipur's range is narrower but more local: miniature paintings made in workshops by the City Palace, bandhani and block-printed textiles, silver and puppets. There is no fashion shopping, and sellers near the palace push hard.

Both are very cheap day to day, with street food, thalis and autorickshaw rides costing little. The difference is where the money goes. In Delhi the metro keeps transport cheap and the expense lies in grand hotels, smart South Delhi restaurants and imported drinks. In Udaipur the splurge is the lake view itself, in the form of a room in a palace or heritage haveli on Pichola.

Delhi has a real performing season. Through the cooler months, the halls around Mandi House and Lodhi Road host Hindustani recitals and Kathak and Bharatanatyam dance. The National School of Drama anchors the country's theatre, though plays are mostly in Hindi, and qawwali at the Nizamuddin shrine is free.

Udaipur offers a staged introduction rather than a full programme: the folk dance show at Bagore ki Haveli, puppetry kept alive by Lok Kala Mandal, and folk musicians at the December crafts fair at Shilpgram.

Udaipur is the gentler place to slow down. Ayurvedic massage and yoga are on offer throughout the old city, the lakeside palace hotels run spas, and the lake at sunset gives the day its calm. Its back lanes are still loud, so the peace is found in the hotel and on the water.

Delhi has good hotel spas and Ayurveda centres in South Delhi, but the noise, traffic and winter smog never let up. Real quiet comes only early in the morning in its gardens or inside a gurudwara or Sufi shrine.