Gdansk or Vilnius?

Gdansk has a real seaside on its doorstep. Fine sand runs almost without a break from Brzeźno to Sopot, Stogi is quieter and backed by pines, and the Hel Peninsula adds calm bay water. The sea is cool and the swimming season short, but a beach afternoon fits easily into a city stay.

Vilnius is landlocked, and the coast is too far for a day out. Summer swimming means the Green Lakes, Balžis or the shores around Trakai: pleasant on a hot day, but more of a bonus than a reason to go.

The two are equally good for eating, but the menus point in different directions. Gdansk leans towards the sea, with smoked and fried fish, herring in many forms, Kashubian country cooking, milk bars and gold-flecked Goldwasser. Its best meals tend to be in Wrzeszcz, Sopot and Gdynia rather than along the tourist quay.

Vilnius is the place for Lithuanian potato-and-rye cooking: cepelinai, cold pink beetroot soup, garlic bread with beer and Karaim kibinai. Halės market sells smoked meats, cheese, honey and forest berries. Both cities take craft beer seriously.

These two are evenly matched, but their old towns tell different stories. Gdansk's Hanseatic Main Town was carefully rebuilt from post-war ruins around Długa, the Long Market and the vast brick bulk of St Mary's. Its real strength is the twentieth century: the Museum of the Second World War, Westerplatte and the European Solidarity Centre at the shipyard.

Vilnius's UNESCO-listed Old Town largely survived, so the pleasure is in wandering its baroque streets past the Gate of Dawn and St Anne's. Its museums focus on Soviet occupation, in the former KGB building, and on the Jewish heritage of the "Jerusalem of the North".

Gdansk has more ways to spend an evening, mainly because it reaches beyond its own old town. Main Town cocktail bars, student pubs in Wrzeszcz and warehouse club nights in the shipyard are joined in summer by Sopot, where Monte Cassino street and the pier area stay busy until late and the trains run back into the small hours.

Vilnius packs its nights into the Old Town and the streets west of it, with craft beer pubs, student cellars and a small but serious electronic scene in old industrial spaces. Weekends are lively, but it is a compact scene for a night or two.

Gdansk has the wider range of scenery: beech woods and ravines in the Tricity Landscape Park, a cycle path along the shore, the Kashubian lakes about an hour away, and the dunes of the Hel Peninsula, where the Bay of Puck draws kitesurfers and windsurfers.

Vilnius has no coast, but forest comes almost into the city centre. Pavilniai and Verkiai parks are a short bus ride away, there are dawn balloon flights over the Old Town, and canoe routes run through Aukštaitija's chains of lakes.

Day trips are equally good from both, and each city has a famous brick castle nearby. From Gdansk it is Malbork, the huge Teutonic fortress about 35 minutes away by train, plus Torun's Gothic old town, Copernicus's Frombork and Pelplin Abbey. Sopot and Gdynia are easy half-days.

From Vilnius, Trakai's island castle is only half an hour away. Kaunas offers interwar modernist architecture, and Kernavė's hill forts and the Rumšiškės folk museum give a sense of rural and early Lithuania.

Gdansk is much easier with children, at least in summer. It has shallow beaches, the Oliwa zoo, Gdynia's aquarium and science centre, the Hevelianum in its hilltop fort, and boat trips to Westerplatte, all from a flat, largely pedestrian centre.

Vilnius is safe and calm, and children enjoy the funicular to Gediminas Tower, the rowing boats at Trakai and the indoor water parks. Beyond those, its sights are mostly churches and history museums, and the cobbles make pushchairs hard work.

Both are easy to get around without a car, but in different ways. Gdansk's centre is flat and mostly pedestrian, with trams to the beaches and the SKM commuter railway along the coast to Sopot and Gdynia. The main effort is the distance along that 30km strip.

In Vilnius, almost everything a visitor wants is a short walk apart, though on hilly cobbles. Beyond the centre it relies on buses and trolleybuses rather than trams, and the airport is unusually close.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and in both the souvenir worth buying is Baltic amber. Gdansk has the longer amber tradition, with workshops lining Mariacka Street, and the medieval St Dominic's Fair fills the old town every summer.

Vilnius offers a wider range of crafts: linen, ceramics, woven sashes and wooden pieces from Užupis workshops, plus the Kaziukas folk fair each March. In both cities, choose amber sellers carefully.

Both are good value next to Western Europe, with cheap transport, modest museum tickets and inexpensive beer and coffee. The main difference is when rooms get expensive. In Gdansk, July and August bring seaside prices, especially in Sopot, so late spring or early autumn costs noticeably less.

Vilnius is cheap for a capital, and only Old Town hotels on summer weekends and the smarter modern restaurants push the bill up.

In Gdansk the buildings are often the draw, while in Vilnius it is what happens on the stage. Gdansk has the Shakespeare Theatre with its opening roof, the Philharmonic in a converted power station on Ołowianka island and organ recitals in Oliwa Cathedral. In summer, Gdynia hosts a big rock and pop festival.

Vilnius has a celebrated tradition of avant-garde theatre directors, and its National Opera and Ballet is affordable. The autumn jazz festival suits a trip outside summer.

Neither city is a place to go for treatments. What they have is hotel spas and saunas. Gdansk has the stronger spa heritage through Sopot, the nineteenth-century resort with its grand seafront hotels, and locals keep up the bracing custom of winter sea dipping.

Around Vilnius, the wood-fired pirtis sauna is found at lakeside guesthouses outside the city, and Druskininkai's mineral springs are the proper spa trip. In the city itself, slow mornings in Užupis cafés are the main way to unwind.