Isle of Skye or Lofoten?

Neither is a place for a long swim, because both seas reach only about 13°C in late summer. Lofoten still has the better shore. It has pale sand and turquoise water at Haukland, Uttakleiv and Ramberg, Skagsanden beneath the peaks and Kvalvika, which you can only reach on foot, and there is often a waterside sauna nearby to warm up in afterwards.

Skye has fewer beaches worth the drive: the coral sand at Claigan near Dunvegan and the black-sand bays at Talisker and Staffin. Its most memorable swim is inland, in the icy pools of Glen Brittle.

The two eat at a similar level, but from different catches. Skye's strength is shellfish: langoustines, scallops and Loch Harport oysters, along with hill lamb and venison. A few country restaurants out on the Dunvegan and Sleat peninsulas are well known, and the distillery at Carbost provides the dram afterwards.

Lofoten is all about cod: stockfish from the drying racks, bacalao, cod tongues and fish soup, best in the late-winter skrei season. Choice is thin on both islands. On Skye you book ahead. In Lofoten many visitors buy fish on the quay and cook it in their cabin.

Lofoten gives the sightseer more to do. The Lofotr Viking Museum at Borg, with its chieftain's longhouse rebuilt on the original site, is a bigger sight than anything on Skye. The preserved fishing villages of Nusfjord and Å, with their museums of the winter cod fishery, show a whole way of life where it happened.

Skye's history is clan and crofting history, which you see at Dunvegan Castle, at the Clan Donald ruins and Museum of the Isles at Armadale, and in the thatched cottages at Kilmuir. On both islands the sights fill a couple of wet days rather than a whole trip.

Evenings are quiet on both islands, with no clubs and nothing open late. Only the setting differs. On Skye the night out is a whisky at a hill inn in Sligachan or Carbost, or a Portree bar full of climbers. In Lofoten it is a beer on a quay in Henningsvær, though more often a ridge walk under the midnight sun or a wait outside for the northern lights.

Both islands are above all landscapes, and either repays a week on foot. Lofoten edges it. Its granite peaks rise straight from the sea above white bays, and short climbs such as Reinebringen give huge views. It also has two distinct seasons: the midnight sun in early summer, then northern lights and ski touring down to the shore in winter.

Skye answers with the Black Cuillin, Britain's most serious mountain ridge, the strange landslips of the Quiraing and the Storr, and otters, sea eagles and summer whales. Its weather is wetter and its midges worse, so when you go matters more there.

Skye has more to reach beyond its own shores. The bridge leads to Eilean Donan Castle and Plockton. Short ferries go to Raasay and to Mallaig for the Glenfinnan viaduct, and a longer crossing from Uig makes a full day on Harris.

Lofoten's outings are mostly the next village along the E10, and Reine, Henningsvær and Svolvær soon start to look alike. Beyond them lie the bird islands of Værøy and Røst and a long drive to Vesterålen, so most visitors spend their spare days on hikes and boat trips instead.

Lofoten is the easier choice with children. The Viking longhouse at Borg, with costumes and boats, and the small aquarium at Kabelvåg give two proper outings, and the sand and rock pools at Ramberg and Haukland are kinder to small children than most of Skye's shore.

Skye has dinosaur footprints at Staffin and seal-spotting boats from Elgol, but little built for children, longer slow drives and worse summer midges. Both suit an outdoors family in a self-catering cabin better than one looking for attractions.

You need a hire car on both islands, but Lofoten is the easier drive. One good road, the E10, links the whole chain by bridges and tunnels in about two hours. Getting there takes more planning, though: a small airport, the ferry from Bodø or a long drive.

Skye is simple to reach over the bridge from the mainland but harder going once you arrive. Its roads are single-track with passing places, and in summer traffic queues on the Trotternish loop and the Fairy Pools road. Portree is the only place you can easily explore on foot.

Neither suits a shopping trip, but Skye has a little more to browse. Its potters, silversmiths and weavers sell from studios around Waternish, Dunvegan and Sleat, and Portree has gift and outdoor shops. In Lofoten it comes down to galleries and glassblowers in Henningsvær and Svolvær, wool sweaters and a pack of stockfish to take home.

Skye is clearly the cheaper of the two, though not cheap for Britain: summer rooms are scarce and meals out cost full UK prices. Lofoten is very expensive, with Norwegian prices for meals, drink, groceries, fuel and car hire.

On both islands the landscape costs nothing and self-catering helps, whether that is a hostel or shared cottage on Skye or a cabin kitchen in Lofoten. On Skye, spring and autumn also make a real difference.

Skye has a living tradition to hear. In summer there are fiddle and pipe sessions in Portree pubs, village-hall ceilidhs that visitors can join, and concerts at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Sleat. The piping at the Portree Highland Games each August adds to it.

Lofoten has a few small summer festivals, concerts in churches and old fish-processing buildings, and the odd pub band in Svolvær. Neither has a theatre or a concert season, and both go quiet in winter.

Neither island is built for pampering, and on both the rest comes from space and silence more than from treatments. On Skye there is no bathing custom to speak of: a few country-house hotels offer massages, and unwinding mostly means a self-catering base on one of the quieter peninsulas, well away from the queues at the famous viewpoints, with the long May and June evenings to sit out in.

Lofoten gives that quiet a routine Skye lacks. Wood-fired saunas line its shores, a few of them moored out on the water, and an evening spent sweating and then dropping into a sea of barely 12°C is part of a visit there in a way it never is on Skye. Its dark season brings a deeper stillness too, which suits a slow winter stay in a cabin.