Guilin or Kyoto?

Neither city is a beach destination. Around Guilin, swimming means a summer dip in a calm bend of the Yulong or Li near Yangshuo, with the peaks rising above you. It is a pleasant way to cool down, but there is no sandy shore to spend a day on.

Kyoto gives you slightly more choice. In July and August the sandy western shore of Lake Biwa, at places like Omi-Maiko, makes an easy afternoon out with warm freshwater, and Suma on Osaka Bay is a plain city beach about an hour away. For clear sea and white sand, the Sea of Japan coast needs an overnight trip.

Kyoto is one of Asia's great food cities. Kaiseki in old Gion houses, temple cuisine at Daitokuji and Tenryuji, tofu, yuba and tea sweets, the stalls of Nishiki Market and the sake breweries of Fushimi give a stay real depth.

Guilin's eating is honest but narrow. A mifen breakfast with fermented chilli, river snails and Yangshuo beer fish are worth trying, but after a few days the night-market skewers and tour-group restaurants start to repeat themselves.

Here the gap is widest. Kyoto has seventeen UNESCO sites, from Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji to Nijo Castle, more than a thousand temples and shrines, and whole districts of wooden townhouses. A week barely covers it.

Guilin's sights are mostly limestone hills and caves turned into parks, such as Elephant Trunk Hill and Reed Flute Cave. The Jingjiang Princes' City and the Longyin Cave inscriptions supply the history, and a day or two is enough.

Both are quiet after dark, but the evenings feel different. In Kyoto you drink sake or whisky in small bars and izakaya along Pontocho and the Kiyamachi canal, and for a big night you take the train to Osaka.

Guilin's evenings are spent strolling past the lit-up lakes and eating skewers around Zhengyang Street. The only real party strip is Yangshuo's loud, touristy West Street.

Guilin's karst is a landscape people cross the world to see: hundreds of peaks rising from the plain along the Li River, rafting on the Yulong, cycling and climbing around Yangshuo, and the Longji terraces carved into whole mountainsides.

Kyoto's nature is gentler and closer. It means forest trails in the Higashiyama hills, the bamboo of Arashiyama, the cedar path from Kurama to Kibune and the Hozu gorge, with cherry blossom and maple colour shaping the seasons. It is lovely and easy to reach, but not as dramatic.

Kyoto sits at the centre of a remarkably rich region. Nara's Todai-ji, Uji's Byodo-in, Osaka, Kobe and Himeji Castle are all an hour or less away by fast train, so a different day trip every day is easy.

From Guilin the outings mostly follow the same theme of river villages and scenery: Yangshuo, Xingping and Daxu, the ancient Lingqu Canal, and the Zhuang and Yao villages among the terraces. They are rewarding but less varied.

Kyoto is easier with children. It is safe and orderly, and the Railway Museum, aquarium, zoo and Toei's samurai shows break up the temple visits, with Nara's deer and Osaka's theme park close by.

In Guilin, children enjoy the rafting, the coloured caves and the river cruise, but there is little else made for them. With hot, wet summers and not much English spoken, families usually need a driver arranged in advance.

Kyoto's flat grid is easy to walk and cycle, and a dense mix of JR, private railways, the Randen tram and buses reaches almost everything, though buses crawl in peak seasons.

Guilin's lake-ringed centre is compact on foot, but there is no metro and bus signs are mostly in Chinese. Visitors rely on taxis, ride-hailing and mobile payment apps, and reaching the terraces means a long, winding drive.

Kyoto is a city for beautiful objects. Family-run shops sell Kiyomizu ceramics, Nishijin silk, lacquer, incense and hand-forged knives, and the arcades, department stores and the To-ji and Kitano Tenmangu flea markets add to the choice.

Guilin's shopping is limited to souvenir lanes and night markets. The best things to take home are edible or handmade: chilli sauce, osmanthus tea, Sanhua liquor and minority brocade.

Guilin is much cheaper day to day. Meals, taxis, trains and countryside guesthouses cost very little, and only the entry fees for cruises, caves and parks add up.

Kyoto is mid-range. Noodle counters, food halls and transport are reasonable, but hotels, ryokan and kaiseki dinners are expensive, especially when rooms fill up for cherry blossom and autumn colour.

Kyoto has real living traditions on stage: the spring geisha dances, kabuki at Minamiza, regular Noh performances, plus a concert hall and small jazz bars. On a random night, though, the choice can be thin.

What Guilin offers is spectacle made for visitors, above all Impression Liu Sanjie on the Li River at Yangshuo. Beyond that there are acrobatics and the occasional Gui opera.

Kyoto has a genuine culture of calm. There are century-old sento bathhouses, onsen at Kurama and Arashiyama, ryokan tubs, zazen sessions and gravel gardens to sit before, best enjoyed early in the day.

Guilin's version is simpler: cheap foot massage everywhere, hot springs at Longsheng two hours away, and slow days at a guesthouse among the rice fields outside Yangshuo.