Foz do Iguacu or Sao Paulo?

Foz do Iguaçu lies far inland, so swimming means the hotel pool or the lifeguarded lake beaches that towns on the Itaipu reservoir have built, half an hour to an hour away by car. The falls are for getting soaked on a boat, not for bathing.

Sao Paulo is not a beach city either, but the Atlantic is close enough for a day out. Guarujá and Santos are about an hour or more down the Serra do Mar, and the lovelier coves of Ilhabela and Ubatuba are worth a weekend. Expect jammed roads on summer weekends.

Foz eats well thanks to its borders. There are rodízio churrascarias, buffets with weighed plates at lunch, and esfihas and kibbeh from its large Lebanese community, with parrillas and Malbec across the bridge in Puerto Iguazú. Beyond that the choice runs out quickly.

Sao Paulo is in another league. The same Lebanese cooking is only one strand among the sushi counters of Liberdade, the cantinas of Bixiga, the mortadella sandwich at the Mercado Municipal and the kitchens of Jardins and Pinheiros that cook with Amazonian ingredients. The food alone can justify the trip.

Foz has a handful of unusual sights rather than a cultural life. There is the tour into the Itaipu dam, a mosque and a Buddhist temple that reflect its Arab and Chinese communities, and the obelisk where three countries meet. There is no old town to wander.

Sao Paulo has far more to fill the days, though its heritage is twentieth-century rather than colonial. MASP's glass easels and the Pinacoteca's Brazilian collection are the core, and the modernist buildings of Niemeyer and Lina Bo Bardi are what set the city apart. Allow for the long distances between them.

After a day at the falls, most visitors to Foz settle for a long dinner, a few terrace bars on the main avenue or a casino over the border. Sao Paulo is the opposite: botecos spilling onto the pavement in Vila Madalena, rougher bars in Baixo Augusta, electronic clubs with an international reputation and one of Latin America's largest LGBTQ+ scenes, with nights that run until morning.

Here Foz do Iguaçu has no rival. The falls stretch for nearly 3km through rainforest protected on both banks. You see them from the cliff-edge walkway on the Brazilian side and from the Argentine trails that reach the edge of the Devil's Throat, with boats, rafting and wildlife along the way.

Inside Sao Paulo, the green space is Ibirapuera Park and the Cantareira hills. The Atlantic Forest of the Serra do Mar and the mountains around Campos do Jordão are worth the effort, but the traffic makes them early starts or weekends away.

From Foz the outings are border crossings: Puerto Iguazú paired with the Argentine side of the falls, and the shopping chaos of Ciudad del Este, with time to allow for queues at the border. The Jesuit missions are too far away for a comfortable day.

Sao Paulo has a longer list, though a gentler one. There is the old coffee exchange in Santos's restored centre, the craft market at Embu das Artes, the wineries around São Roque and the flower town of Holambra. None is unmissable, and an early start beats the traffic.

Foz do Iguaçu is the easier place with children, because one big outdoor sight does the work. The noise, spray and coatis come on a short walkway with a lift at the end, followed by macaws and flamingos in the bird park's aviaries. Heat, mosquitoes and time in taxis are the drawbacks.

Sao Paulo offers more variety: the hands-on Catavento museum, the zoo's drive-through safari, an aquarium and water parks about an hour out. Long car journeys and crowded pavements wear small children down, though.

Both cities lean on cars, for different reasons. In Foz the compact centre is not where the sights are. A city bus runs out to the falls about 20km away, but Itaipu and the Argentine side mean taxis, transfers and border posts.

Sao Paulo at least has a clean, easy metro linking Paulista, Liberdade, Luz and Pinheiros, and districts such as Jardins and Vila Madalena are walkable on their own. The network is small for a city this size, though, so ride-hailing through heavy traffic fills the gaps.

In Foz, shopping means a bargain hunt across the bridge in Ciudad del Este, with electronics and perfume stacked in crowded galleries, plus duty-free shops and gemstone souvenirs in town. Sao Paulo is Brazil's shopping capital, with Brazilian labels and swimwear on Rua Oscar Freire, design studios in Pinheiros, weekend fairs at Liberdade and MASP, and the wholesale crush of Rua 25 de Março.

For a visitor from Europe or North America, day-to-day costs are low in both cities, so the difference lies in where the money goes. In Foz it goes on the sights: foreign visitors pay higher entry fees at both national parks, and the bird park, the boat rides and the Itaipu tours add up over a packed few days.

In Sao Paulo, padaria breakfasts, boteco beers and the metro cost little, and many museums have free days. The stylish hotels in Jardins and the acclaimed restaurants cost close to Southern European levels.

Foz has little to offer beyond dinner shows of Latin American folk dance put on for tour groups. Sao Paulo can fill every evening. The state symphony plays at Sala São Paulo, a concert hall inside an old railway station, the Theatro Municipal stages opera and ballet, and there are musicals in Portuguese. Above all there is live Brazilian music, with samba circles, choro and jazz in bars and in the low-cost SESC centres.

Neither is a place to come for rest, and neither has a bathing tradition. In Foz, relaxing means a resort hotel on the falls road, with a pool and gardens for a day off between sightseeing, in a town that is unhurried if not restful. Sao Paulo has polished day spas in Jardins and Itaim and some Japanese-style relaxation, but the best break is a car-free Sunday on Avenida Paulista or an afternoon in Ibirapuera.