Haarlem or Utrecht?

Haarlem has the sea on its doorstep. Zandvoort's long sandy beach is about ten minutes away by train, and the dune-backed strand at Bloemendaal aan Zee is a bike ride away, so a beach afternoon fits easily into any warm day. The North Sea stays cool and the swimming season is short, but a walk along the shore or an afternoon at the beach pavilions is a real pleasure.

From Utrecht the same coast is an hour or more away, so going there takes a whole outing. For a swim, people in Utrecht go to the recreation lakes on the edge of the city, such as the Maarsseveense Plassen. They are fine for cooling off but not worth travelling for.

Neither city is a food destination, and the meals are much alike. What differs is the setting and the range. Haarlem leans on its long brewing history, with craft beer taps, brown cafés around the Grote Markt and a Saturday market selling herring and freshly fried kibbeling.

Utrecht's students bring more variety to everyday eating, with Indonesian and Surinamese kitchens and casual bistros around the Twijnstraat and Lombok. Its cellar terraces on the Oudegracht wharves let you eat right at the water's edge, below street level.

Both reward two or three unhurried days of sightseeing, but they have a different character. Haarlem is a Golden Age town, with the portraits of Frans Hals, the 18th-century oval room at Teylers Museum, the huge church of St Bavo and the hofjes tucked behind plain doors.

Utrecht feels more medieval. Its centre is built around the Dom Tower, which you can climb, and the two-level Oudegracht canal. Its museums lean towards design, with the De Stijl collection at the Centraal Museum and the Rietveld Schröder House, a UNESCO-listed masterpiece of modern architecture.

Utrecht is the livelier of the two after dark. Thanks to its large student population, the bars around the Neude, the Janskerkhof and the canal wharves fill on weeknights as well as weekends. There are also a few clubs and late venues, some of them run by student and cultural groups.

Haarlem's evenings are gentler. They centre on brown cafés and terraces around the Grote Markt and the Botermarkt, which are busy on summer weekends and wind down well before dawn. From either city a real club night means the train to Amsterdam, which is a little closer from Haarlem.

Haarlem has the better countryside, and it starts at the edge of town. The dunes, pine woods and small lakes of Zuid-Kennemerland, grazed by Highland cattle and wild ponies, lead out to long beach walks. In spring the bulb fields towards Leiden add colour.

Utrecht's landscape is quieter farmland and river scenery, best seen by bike along the Vecht past country estates and windmills. The wooded ridges and heath of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug and the sailing lakes at Loosdrecht add variety, but they take a little more travel to reach.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is in which direction each one faces. Haarlem looks towards Amsterdam, a quarter of an hour away, and towards Leiden and the coast. The Keukenhof, Alkmaar and Zaanse Schans are also easy outings.

Utrecht sits in the middle of the rail network, so it opens up the east and south of the country as well. From there you can reach Kasteel de Haar, the Kröller-Müller Museum, the open-air museum near Arnhem and the old centre of Den Bosch, while Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague are all short rides away.

Utrecht has more that is made with children in mind. The Railway Museum, in an old station, is among the best children's museums in the country, Miffy has her own museum for toddlers, and Kasteel de Haar makes a ready-made fairy-tale outing.

Haarlem is just as relaxed about children, and its mostly car-free centre and the dunes give them room to run. Apart from the fossils at Teylers Museum, though, little in town is aimed at them, so families often take the train to the zoo and science museum in Amsterdam.

Haarlem is easy to get about on foot or by bike. Its flat historic centre takes about twenty minutes to cross on foot from the station at its northern edge, and separate bike paths run straight into the dunes and down to the beach. Beyond the centre you rely on trains and regional buses, which serve the coast and the bulb fields well but are fewer than in a larger city.

Utrecht is easier still. Utrecht Centraal, the country's busiest station, sits right beside the old town, so the Dom, the canals and even the Railway Museum are a short walk from the platform. Trams and buses on the same tap-in card reach the outer districts and the Uithof campus, and the huge underground cycle park at the station puts you on a bike as soon as you arrive. You do not need a car in either city.

In both cities shopping makes a pleasant afternoon rather than a reason to visit, and in both the best of it is in independent shops along small streets. Haarlem's boutiques, design shops and delicatessens are close together on Gierstraat, Kleine Houtstraat and Schagchelstraat, south and west of the Grote Markt.

Utrecht has a large covered mall at Hoog Catharijne for the chains, and its markets offer more variety, with a flower market on the Janskerkhof and a textile market by the canal. Neither city has a luxury shopping street, so for serious fashion shopping you go to Amsterdam.

In either city, a bed is what costs the most, because both historic centres have few hotels for the demand. In Haarlem, rooms tend to be small for the money and fill early in tulip season and summer, because many visitors to the region use the town as a calm base. Regular train outings and museum tickets add to the bill.

Utrecht's rooms cost what they would in any large Western European city, and weekends and festival weeks cost more. Its students give a careful traveller a little more room to save, with cheap lunch cafés, snack bars and simple pubs around the university quarter, and museum entry is modest. In both towns a rental bike keeps the cost of getting around close to nothing.

Utrecht has the richer music life. TivoliVredenburg stacks several halls in one building and can have the Radio Philharmonic, pop, jazz and experimental acts on the same evening. The Festival Oude Muziek is one of Europe's leading early-music festivals.

Haarlem offers less, but it has a speciality of its own. There are classical concerts at the 19th-century Philharmonie and, above all, recitals on St Bavo's great organ, home to an international organ festival with a history of generations. Neither city has an opera house, and theatre in both is mostly in Dutch.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and in both the large Dutch sauna complexes are out in the surrounding region rather than in town. The calm comes instead from the pace of each place.

In Haarlem that means the quiet almshouse courtyards after dark and a bike ride through the dunes. In Utrecht it means slow evenings on the canal wharves and the cloister garden of the Pandhof beside the Dom.