Denver or Santa Fe?

Neither city is a beach destination, and on that they are level. What differs is how close the water is. Denver's sandy reservoir beaches at Cherry Creek and Chatfield sit on the edge of the city, and it has outdoor public pools for a summer afternoon. In Santa Fe, swimming means a hotel pool or an outing of about an hour to Abiquiu Lake or a float on the Rio Grande.

Santa Fe has the more distinctive table. New Mexican cooking, with red or green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas, is a cuisine of its own, served in old adobe dining rooms around the Plaza. The town also has a fine-dining tier unusual for somewhere so small, and the Railyard farmers' market is worth a morning.

Denver eats more widely but less memorably. Beer is its real speciality, poured in taprooms across RiNo and around Coors Field, and Federal Boulevard adds a long run of Vietnamese and Mexican cooking. Green chile turns up here too, but few dishes are unique to the city.

Santa Fe is the richer place for sightseeing. Founded as a Spanish capital in 1610, it keeps a low adobe centre around the Plaza, where the Palace of the Governors stands near the cathedral and the Loretto Chapel. Museum Hill's folk and Native American collections and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum go well beyond what its size would suggest.

Denver, a gold-rush city from 1858, offers a tidier set of sights around Civic Center Park: the gold-domed Capitol, the Denver Art Museum with its Native American holdings, and the Clyfford Still Museum. Add LoDo's warehouses and Union Station and it fills two good days rather than shaping a whole trip.

Denver is far better for going out. It has taprooms and cocktail bars in RiNo's warehouses, crowds in LoDo on game nights and dive bars along East Colfax, and bars stay open until 2am. The club scene is small, but there is always somewhere to go.

Santa Fe winds down early. A night out there usually means a long dinner and a margarita with a sunset view over the Jemez Mountains, and the streets are quiet before midnight. People who want more drive to Albuquerque.

Both sit right against serious mountains, so the difference is in the landscape rather than the quality. Denver looks onto the Rockies proper. Red Rocks and the Golden foothills are half an hour away, there are high summits over 4,000m and Rocky Mountain National Park's tundra and elk, and city bike trails follow Cherry Creek. The big ski resorts are about two hours away along a busy I-70.

Santa Fe mixes mountain and desert. Aspen forest and the Pecos Wilderness rise behind town, and its ski area is under an hour from the Plaza. To the west there are mesas and badlands, the volcanic bowl of Valles Caldera, rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge and the red cliffs around Abiquiu.

Santa Fe has the stronger list of excursions, and many of them carry real historical weight. The High Road runs through Chimayo and Truchas to Taos Pueblo, a World Heritage Site. Bandelier's cliff dwellings, the Pecos pueblo ruins, O'Keeffe country at Ghost Ranch and Los Alamos's atomic history are all within a day.

Denver's outings are pleasant small Western towns: Boulder under the Flatirons, Georgetown with its narrow-gauge railway, Manitou Springs and Estes Park at the national park gate. The great Southwestern heritage sites are out of reach from there.

Denver is much the easier city with children. City Park pairs the zoo with a museum of dinosaurs, a planetarium and dioramas, and the Children's Museum, an aquarium and an amusement park sit together near downtown. In summer the parks and splash fountains add more.

Santa Fe is built around art and long dinners, which suit few children. The children's museum, the toys in the folk art collection and the ladders at Bandelier help, but it works best for older children who like hiking and history. Its 2,100m altitude can tire little ones for the first day or two.

The two are much alike: a walkable centre surrounded by sprawl, and a hire car for nearly everything beyond it. Denver has more transit in the city itself, with a train from the airport to Union Station, light rail to the suburbs and a free shuttle along the 16th Street Mall.

Santa Fe's adobe core is smaller and more pleasant on foot, with the Plaza, Canyon Road and the Railyard within about twenty minutes of each other. Its buses are infrequent, though, and only the Rail Runner to Albuquerque reaches out of town without a car.

Santa Fe is the better place to shop, as long as you are after art or craft. Denver does better on the everyday range: the upscale mall at Cherry Creek and the boutiques around it, vintage clothes and records along South Broadway, and large flagship stores for outdoor gear, which Santa Fe cannot match, along with cowboy boots and hats.

In Santa Fe, Native American artists sell silver, turquoise jewellery and pottery directly under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, and galleries crowd Canyon Road and the Railyard. In summer the Indian, Spanish and folk art markets bring serious buyers from across the country. Fashion, department stores and luxury brands are scarce, though, and the galleries charge what a real art market charges.

Neither is cheap, but Denver is a little easier on the budget. Its prices are those of a typical American big city, and taquerias, breweries, a bed out along the light rail and free trails keep costs down.

Santa Fe charges resort rates around the Plaza, and its restaurants and galleries are priced for well-off visitors. Staying along Cerrillos Road helps, but in both places a hire car adds to the bill.

Denver has more going on through the year. Red Rocks Amphitheatre, with its stage between sandstone monoliths, is a summer concert pilgrimage. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts hosts theatre, touring musicals, symphony, opera and ballet, and Five Points has deep jazz roots.

Santa Fe has one showpiece, the open-sided opera house on a hill north of town, known for rare and new works staged as the sun sets. Add the chamber music festival and flamenco, and midsummer is rich. Outside that season, its calendar shrinks to the Lensic theatre and church concerts.

Santa Fe is the more restorative stay. Onsen-style soaking tubs sit among the pines on the road to the ski area, and the old mineral pools at Ojo Caliente are about an hour north. It has plenty of spas and healers, and its adobe courtyards and early nights slow the pace on their own.

In Denver, wellness means hotel spas and yoga studios in the city. The nearest real soak is in the historic pools and steam caves at Idaho Springs, under an hour into the mountains.