Kilkenny or Liverpool?

From Kilkenny the coast is about an hour's drive, to Tramore or the coves of the Copper Coast, so a day by the sea is a scenic outing rather than part of the routine. Liverpool puts sand much closer. Merseyrail runs straight out to Crosby's iron figures and the pine-backed dunes at Formby, an easy half-day without a car.

Neither is for swimming. The Celtic Sea off Waterford and the Irish Sea off Merseyside both stay cold even in late summer, and on Liverpool's shore the tide goes far out over soft mud, so treat it as a place for walks.

Liverpool gives you more choice. Alongside scouse and fish and chips there are the independent cafés and international kitchens of Bold Street, the street-food halls of the Baltic Triangle and an old Chinatown, so a few days of meals never repeat.

Kilkenny's strength is the produce of its own county: dairy, lamb, cheese and coast seafood, served in gastropubs and in country-house dining rooms outside town. It does that well, but there is little foreign cooking or street food. Both places save their best drinking for old pubs, Victorian gin palaces in one and firelit snugs serving red ale in the other.

Liverpool has far more to see. The Three Graces and the Royal Albert Dock frame the waterfront, the Maritime and International Slavery museums tell the port's story, and the Walker's Pre-Raphaelites and two very different 20th-century cathedrals fill a second and third day.

Kilkenny is a single, well-preserved medieval town rather than a collection of major institutions. The castle, Rothe House, the Black Abbey and St Canice's with its climbable round tower all lie along one short route. It is charming and easy to take in, but you will have seen it in a day or two.

Liverpool is a real party city. There are bars and clubs packed around Concert Square and Seel Street, harder electronic nights in Baltic Triangle warehouses, easygoing locals on Lark Lane, and a student crowd that keeps weeknights busy too.

Kilkenny's night out is the pub, and its old bars with low ceilings and open fires are a pleasure. Beyond a few late bars and one small club, though, there is little dancing, and the town goes quiet midweek.

Liverpool comes out a little ahead, mostly because its green spaces are so easy to reach. You have Sefton Park and its palm house in the city, the breezy Mersey promenade, red squirrels in Formby's pinewoods a train ride away, and the Wirral Way out to the wading birds of the Dee estuary.

Kilkenny's countryside is gentler and more rural: the wooded Nore Valley Way, modest climbs on Brandon Hill and the Blackstairs, and the forest trails at Castlecomer. Most of it needs a car, but the Comeraghs are closer than Liverpool's nearest real mountains.

The two are about equal for outings, but they offer different kinds of day. From Liverpool you go by train to towns and cities: Roman Chester, Manchester's museums, the model village at Port Sunlight, and, with a longer drive, Conwy's walled town on the Welsh coast.

From Kilkenny the trips are to ruins in open country, such as the Rock of Cashel, Jerpoint's carved cloister and the walled Kells Priory, along with Viking Waterford. Apart from Waterford and Dublin, you will need a car for nearly all of them.

Liverpool keeps children busier. The World Museum's dinosaurs, aquarium and planetarium are free, the Mersey ferry is an easy treat, and Chester Zoo and Knowsley Safari Park are both close by.

Kilkenny is small, safe and calm, with castle lawns to run on and a forest adventure park and Dunmore Cave a short drive away. Castles appeal to young knights, but with no zoo or aquarium a family stay here is better kept short.

Both centres are best on foot. Kilkenny's sights sit along a single kilometre of street, while Liverpool's spread a little further and up the hill to Hope Street.

Getting beyond the centre is where Liverpool pulls ahead. Merseyrail and the ferry take you to the coast and the Wirral simply and often. In rural Kilkenny the buses are sparse, so the abbeys and villages mean hiring a car or booking a tour.

Liverpool is the better shopping city. Liverpool ONE has the national chains and department stores, and Bold Street adds vintage clothes, records and independent boutiques.

Kilkenny has one thing Liverpool lacks, a real craft tradition. The old castle stables and the studios around the county sell pottery, glass, silver and woollens made in the region. Beyond that, High Street is an hour of browsing.

Liverpool is easier on the wallet. Its big museums and galleries charge nothing, rooms cost less than in Britain's pricier cities except on match and race weekends, and the centre is small enough to walk.

Kilkenny is cheaper than Dublin, but it still charges Irish prices for rooms, pints and dinners, and weekend and festival rates climb sharply. Exploring the county also means paying for a hire car.

Liverpool has a much fuller stage. Bands play most nights around Mathew Street and the Baltic Triangle, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic runs a full season in its art deco hall, and the Everyman and Playhouse make their own theatre.

Kilkenny's music lives in the pub sessions of fiddle, flute and bodhrán. These are a genuine draw, but outside its festivals there is little formal music or theatre. The town comes alive in August, when the Arts Festival brings classical concerts into St Canice's Cathedral.

Neither is a place to come just to rest, and neither has a bathing tradition. Kilkenny is a little better for it, though, because its spas belong to country-house estates set in parkland, and the Nore villages offer real quiet.

Liverpool's spas are in city hotels, and calm there means a walk in Sefton Park, a ferry crossing or a slow hour in a gallery. Both centres are noisy on weekend nights.