Khiva or Tashkent?

Neither city has a coast, but Tashkent at least has somewhere to swim besides a pool. Khiva, deep in the Khorezm desert, offers only hotel pools on a hot afternoon.

Tashkent adds summer water parks in town and, about an hour and a half away, the Charvak reservoir, with pebbly shores and cold mountain water. Locals escape there in July and August. It makes a day out rather than a beach vacation, but it is real outdoor bathing.

Khiva's cooking is the more unusual. Khorezmian dishes such as dill-green shivit oshi and egg-filled tuhum barak are hard to find elsewhere in the country. But most meals come from the same terraces and guesthouse tables, and after a couple of days the menus start to repeat.

Tashkent offers more to eat and more ways to eat it, from plov ladled out of cauldrons at midday kitchens to samsa, lagman and shashlik on tea-house platforms, with Chorsu Bazaar worth a visit in its own right. Neither city is much of a place for wine, and Tashkent's meat-heavy cooking is hard on vegetarians.

This is the one category where Khiva clearly wins. Ichan Kala is an intact walled Silk Road town. The turquoise Kalta Minor, the Juma Mosque with its wooden columns and the tiled harem courtyards of Tash Hauli are all a short walk apart, and the town as a whole is the main sight.

Tashkent was largely rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake, so its heritage comes in pockets such as the Hazrat Imam complex and the Kukeldash Madrasa, alongside good museums and the ornate metro stations. It is interesting as a Soviet capital, but nothing there matches Khiva's walls glowing gold at sunset.

Khiva goes quiet soon after dark. The evening means dinner on a terrace facing the minarets, a stroll through the lit lanes and perhaps a beer in a hotel restaurant, and that is all.

Tashkent offers a real night out, if a modest one. It has pubs, beer gardens, cocktail bars and a few clubs around Amir Timur Square, and karaoke and long dinners with friends are popular. Most places wind down by midnight, but on a summer evening the parks and terraces are full of people.

Khiva's surroundings are a flat irrigated oasis of cotton fields and canals that gives way to desert, with no hills or trails. The outdoor highlight is a camel ride and a night in a yurt camp in the Kyzylkum under a very dark sky.

Tashkent sits on similar flat ground, but the western Tian Shan rises within about an hour and a half, with Big Chimgan towering over the reservoir and the Ugam-Chatkal National Park beyond. That means ridge walks, horse riding and paragliding in summer, skiing at Chimgan and Amirsoy in winter, and foothills covered in tulips in spring.

From Khiva, the outing is to the Elliq Qala, the ruined desert fortresses of ancient Khorezm such as Ayaz Kala and Toprak Kala, which you reach with a hired driver. Beyond those, the obvious destinations are either across the Turkmen border or too far away.

Tashkent's advantage is Samarkand, a little over two hours away by high-speed train, which puts the Registan and Shah-i-Zinda within reach of a long day. Its other outings head into the mountains rather than to other towns.

Khiva is calm, safe and small, and older children may enjoy climbing a minaret or riding a camel. But nothing there is built for children, and the days are a series of madrasas and palaces. Tashkent has a large zoo, amusement parks, summer water parks and big parks where local families gather in the evening, which makes a longer stay with children much easier.

Children are warmly welcomed in both cities, and both are punishing in the summer heat. In Tashkent the extra strain is the distances, which cheap taxis largely solve, while in Khiva everything is close at hand.

Both are easy to get around, in different ways. Khiva's Ichan Kala is tiny, flat and largely closed to cars, so you see it entirely on foot, and the railway station is a short walk from the walls. The catch is that the airport is out in Urgench and the desert fortresses need a driver.

Tashkent is too spread out for walking, with long blocks and wide avenues. Its metro is frequent and stops close to the old town and the main squares, and app taxis cheaply fill the gaps.

Khiva's appeal is watching things being made. Woodcarvers work in the madrasa cells, carpets are knotted on looms in old-town workshops, and the lane stalls sell suzani and shaggy Khorezm sheepskin hats, though much else is repeated souvenirs.

Tashkent has a wider range. Chorsu and the stalls around it sell ikat, Rishtan ceramics and knives, and malls cover everyday needs. Neither city has much in the way of designers or luxury, and many of Tashkent's crafts are cheaper in the towns where they are made.

Both are inexpensive by any international standard. The difference is in where the money goes. In Khiva, family guesthouses with big breakfasts keep nights cheap, and the main costs are the combined monument ticket and a driver to the fortresses, best shared.

In Tashkent, meals, the metro, taxis and even opera tickets cost little, but the international business hotels are a costly exception, so your choice of bed matters more.

Khiva's main offering is the lazgi, Khorezm's quick, shimmering folk dance, staged in madrasa courtyards or over dinner in the larger hotels, with the occasional dorboz tightrope walkers on the squares. There is no theatre or concert hall.

Tashkent has the Alisher Navoi Theatre, a grand opera and ballet house with halls decorated in different regional styles. There are also conservatory and philharmonic concerts, drama in Russian and Uzbek, and maqom singing at festivals. A night at the ballet is one of the real pleasures of the capital.

Neither city is a place to be pampered. Khiva's rest lies in its stillness: the lanes empty once the day groups leave, and you can take tea on a rooftop as the minarets darken. Its historic bathhouse is only for looking at, though, and spa treatments are limited to a few hotels.

Tashkent goes a little further. It has working neighbourhood hammams and some spa complexes, and tea-house platforms and the Botanical Garden for slow afternoons. For a proper retreat, there are the mountain sanatoria around Chimgan.