Jerusalem or Nicosia?

Neither city has a beach of its own, and from either one the sea is a full day out. From Jerusalem the fast train makes Tel Aviv's long sandy shore easy to reach without a car. The Dead Sea adds something different: you float on very salty water off a rocky shore.

Nicosia's beaches at Larnaca or around Kyrenia are a little closer by road, but in practice you need a car, and there is nothing like the Dead Sea to compare. In late summer the water is about equally warm on both coasts.

Jerusalem has more variety. Mahane Yehuda is a market by day and a place for grills and drinks at night. The city's Arab cooking, with its hummus and knafeh, sits beside Kurdish, Iraqi and Yemenite Jewish dishes. Plan around kosher menus and the Friday-to-Saturday closures in the west.

Nicosia offers less choice but does its own food well: long meze evenings in the old town lanes, souvla from the grill, and Turkish Cypriot kebabs and pastries a short walk across the Green Line. Beyond Cypriot cooking the choice thins out quickly.

This is where the two cities differ most. Jerusalem's Old City holds the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock within one square kilometre, with excavations underneath that go back to the Bronze Age. The Israel Museum and Yad Vashem would each be worth the journey on their own, and the city needs several days.

Nicosia is rewarding on a smaller scale: its ring of Venetian walls, the antiquities in the Cyprus Museum, and the Selimiye Mosque, a Gothic cathedral with minarets added, just across the Green Line. Two or three days cover it well, but none of its sights has the international weight of Jerusalem's holy places.

Neither city is a place for a big night out, and in both the serious clubbing happens elsewhere, in Tel Aviv or on the Cypriot coast. Jerusalem's evenings revolve around the Mahane Yehuda stalls, which turn into bars after dark, and the pubs around Nahalat Shiva. Much of the west is quiet on Friday nights for Shabbat.

In Nicosia, going out mostly means drinking late on the pavement. The bars around Faneromeni Square only fill up towards midnight, and warm summer nights outdoors are the best part of it.

Jerusalem has the edge if you like contrast. The pine-covered Judean Hills lie to the west and the Wadi Qelt canyon and the desert to the east. The waterfalls of Ein Gedi and the dawn climb to Masada are about an hour or so away.

Nicosia's own plain is flat and dry in summer, so the walking starts at the ridge trails of the Kyrenia range or in the Troodos. There, pine forest, cool summer air and peaks near 2,000m give Nicosia something Jerusalem lacks: real mountains, with snow on the top in winter.

Both make excellent bases, but Jerusalem's day trips carry more weight. Bethlehem is just to the south, Masada and Qumran are by the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv and Jaffa are a short train ride away, and Caesarea, Acre and the Baha'i gardens in Haifa are about two hours out. Some West Bank sites mean a checkpoint, so a guide helps.

From Nicosia most of the small island is within reach, from Kyrenia harbour and Bellapais to Famagusta, Salamis and the painted churches of the Troodos. For most of these trips, though, you will need a hire car.

Jerusalem is the better choice with children, mainly because it has places made for them: the Biblical Zoo, the aquarium beside it and the Bloomfield Science Museum. Older children also enjoy the ramparts and Hezekiah's Tunnel. The Old City's steps make a stroller useless, though.

Nicosia welcomes families and feels safe, but it has no zoo or aquarium of note, the beaches need a car, and the heat of July and August is hard on young children. It works better as a day out from a base on the coast.

Jerusalem is easier to manage without a car. The light rail runs from the Old City walls out to Yad Vashem, buses cover the rest, and a fast train reaches Tel Aviv and the airport. Public transport stops completely for Shabbat, though, and the hills make for steep walking.

In Nicosia the walled old town is compact, and crossing to the north at Ledra Street takes only minutes. Outside the walls there is no rail and the buses are of little use to visitors, so most people hire a car. Traffic drives on the left.

Jerusalem's shopping is more distinctive. The Old City souq sells olive wood, spices and embroidery, the Armenian Quarter has hand-painted ceramics, and the shops around Ben Yehuda Street sell Judaica in silver and glass. Mamilla has the familiar international brands.

Nicosia's shopping is more of an ordinary high street, with chain stores on Ledra Street and designer labels on Makarios Avenue. For local goods there is Lefkara lace at the Handicraft Centre, and spices and copperware in the Bandabulya market across the line. Neither city is a place to shop for fashion.

Nicosia is clearly the cheaper of the two. A meze dinner or a souvla lunch fills you up for little, coffee is cheap and the northern half costs less again. The main extra cost is the hire car most visitors need.

Jerusalem is expensive by Mediterranean standards. Hotels cost a lot, especially during festivals and pilgrimage seasons, and restaurant meals and drinks are priced high. The free holy sites, cheap hummus and falafel, and meals in the Arab neighbourhoods help, but only up to a point.

Both scenes are small and mostly local, and Jerusalem's is a little fuller. It has the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Theatre, the yearly Israel Festival and summer concerts at the Sultan's Pool below the walls, though most plays are in Hebrew.

Nicosia has the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra and theatre in Greek. For a visitor its strength is the informal music: rebetiko, folk and jazz in the old town bars, and open-air concerts in the moat in summer.

Jerusalem's calm mostly lies outside the city. An hour away at the Dead Sea there are mineral mud, sulphur pools and the dense, buoyant water. In town, the holy sites feel charged rather than restful, and the real pause comes each week when Shabbat empties the streets of West Jerusalem.

Nicosia's calm is part of everyday life in the old town: long coffee breaks in shaded squares, a quiet lull on summer afternoons, and steam and massage in Ottoman bathhouses such as the Omeriye Hammam. For a longer rest, the cool pine villages of the Troodos are close by.