Edinburgh or Kilkenny?

Edinburgh at least has sand you can reach by city bus. Portobello's long beach and Victorian promenade sit on the eastern edge of town, and the broad East Lothian strands at Gullane and North Berwick are a short trip further. The North Sea is cold, though, and most people walk rather than swim.

Kilkenny is inland, so the coast means an hour's drive to Tramore or the coves of the Copper Coast. The water there is slightly less bracing, but going to the seaside is a day out by car rather than part of the stay.

Edinburgh offers more choice and more ambition. West-coast scallops and langoustines, Highland game and a handful of serious modern dining rooms in Leith and Stockbridge give a visitor several good dinners, and the whisky bars, with their long shelves of single malts, are a draw on their own.

Kilkenny's table is smaller and more rural: county lamb, cheeses and dairy, gastropub steak and chowder, with the most ambitious cooking in country-house kitchens outside town. Its drinking is rooted in centuries of brewing beside St Francis Abbey. In both places street food is scarce, but in Kilkenny the range of cuisines runs out quickly.

Edinburgh is a capital's worth of heritage: the castle rock, the Royal Mile's closes and St Giles', Holyroodhouse, and the Georgian crescents of the New Town, together a single World Heritage Site. On top of that come the national collections, from Pictish stones to old masters, mostly free.

Kilkenny is a compact medieval town rather than a city of museums. The walk from its Norman castle to St Canice's Cathedral, with the round tower to climb and Rothe House and the Black Abbey on the way, is coherent and charming, but it is done in a day or two where Edinburgh fills several.

Both towns go out to the pub, but Edinburgh offers more variety. Victorian bars on Rose Street, Grassmarket dens under the castle and harbour pubs in Leith sit alongside basement cocktail bars around George Street and the late, loud Cowgate, and in August the centre barely sleeps.

Kilkenny's evenings happen in low-ceilinged bars with fires and snugs on High Street and Parliament Street. Weekends are lively with wedding and birthday groups, but there is one small nightclub, and midweek the town is quiet early.

Edinburgh has the rare luxury of wild ground inside the city. Arthur's Seat rises over Holyrood Park a short walk from the Royal Mile, and the Pentland Hills give real ridge walking within half an hour. The gannets of the Bass Rock and the edge of the Highlands are within reach for a longer day.

Kilkenny's surroundings are softer: farmland, the wooded Nore valley down to Inistioge, and modest climbs on Brandon Hill and the Blackstairs. Its wilder country, the Comeragh corrie lakes and the Wicklow Mountains, requires a drive of an hour or more.

Edinburgh is the easier base because the train does the work. Glasgow, Stirling Castle and Linlithgow Palace are all under an hour by rail, and St Andrews and the Borders abbeys make full days without a car.

Kilkenny has a fine set of excursions of its own, focused on monastic and Norman sites: the Rock of Cashel, the carved cloister at Jerpoint and Kells Priory in its fields, with Waterford and Glendalough further out. Apart from Waterford and Dublin by train, nearly all of them need a car.

Edinburgh keeps children busy for several days. There are soldiers' stories at the castle, dinosaurs and machines in the National Museum, Dynamic Earth under Arthur's Seat, the optical illusions of Camera Obscura and the hillside zoo. The steep cobbles and August crowds are the price.

Kilkenny is gentler and simpler: a small, safe town with castle lawns to run on. The best outings, the tree-top courses near Castlecomer, Dunmore Cave and the open farms, are a drive away, and once the knights and castles are done there is no zoo or aquarium to fall back on.

Both centres are walked rather than driven, but they feel different underfoot. Edinburgh's sights spread over hills, bridges and stairways, which takes effort, though the dense bus network, the tram to Leith and the airport, and Waverley station in the middle make the wider city and the rest of Scotland easy to reach.

Kilkenny's centre is a level, single kilometre, simpler on foot than Edinburgh's ridges. Beyond it, rural buses are sparse, so the county's abbeys and villages mean a hire car, a taxi or a tour.

Cashmere, tweed and tartan from specialist kiltmakers are what Edinburgh sends visitors home with, along with single malts from shops with deep shelves, where Kilkenny's equivalent is a handmade pot, glass or piece of silver. Edinburgh also has far more ground to cover, with chains along Princes Street, upmarket labels around George Street and St Andrew Square, independents on the curve of Victoria Street and small boutiques in Stockbridge. The Royal Mile's tartan souvenir shops are worth approaching with care.

Kilkenny's shopping fits into an afternoon. The design shops in the former castle stables opposite the gate, and the studios of potters, weavers and silversmiths around the county, are the real reason to browse. High Street's boutiques, bookshops and delis are pleasant but few, and serious fashion means a trip to Dublin.

Neither is a budget destination, and the costs fall in different places. In Edinburgh the burden is the hotel room, which becomes extreme during the August festivals and at Hogmanay, while the free national museums, Arthur's Seat and cheap buses offset some of it.

Kilkenny's rooms are easier midweek but climb at weekends and festival times, and meals and pints cost what they do anywhere in Ireland. Its heritage sites charge little, but the hire car needed to see the county is the extra cost Edinburgh visitors avoid.

Edinburgh's August is in a league of its own, with the Fringe filling cellars, churches and tents, the International Festival bringing major orchestras and opera, and the Tattoo on the castle esplanade. The rest of the year still offers two resident orchestras, Scottish Opera and Ballet at the Festival Theatre, and strong drama at the Lyceum and Traverse.

Kilkenny's strength is nightly traditional music in the pubs, plus a run of festivals: the August arts festival with concerts in St Canice's, a comedy festival and a roots weekend in May. Beyond those weeks there is little orchestral music or major theatre.

Neither is a place to come for spas, though Edinburgh has slightly more to offer. The Victorian Turkish baths at Portobello, the modernist Commonwealth Pool and the shoreside saunas of the cold-water swimmers are unusual extras, while restful mornings in the Botanic Garden are best kept for outside August.

Kilkenny's version of rest is the country-house hotel spa in parkland, and the quiet villages along the Nore. Staying out of town matters there too, as the centre is noisy on weekend nights.