Kotor or Ohrid?

Neither town has a real beach on its doorstep. In both you swim from concrete platforms, jetties and short pebble strips. The difference is the water: Kotor has warm salt water in a sheltered but less clear inner bay, while Ohrid's lake is fresh, very clear and cooler, with a season that barely lasts past mid-September.

Kotor has the better fallback, because the sand at Jaz and the coves around Budva are half an hour over the hill. Ohrid keeps its beach life close to town, with Potpeš and the coves below Kaneo within walking distance and longer shores with loungers at Lagadin and Gradište.

Both kitchens are narrow and repeat themselves along the waterfront, and in both towns the better meals are found away from the main crowds. Kotor's food leans towards the sea, with mussels, black cuttlefish risotto and octopus, plus Njegusi ham and dark Vranac from the mountains behind. Ohrid serves inland home cooking such as beans baked in earthenware, stuffed peppers and grilled meat, along with lake fish like belvica and Macedonian wine from Tikveš.

Ohrid has the deeper layers of history. St Sophia's frescoes, the church at Kaneo on its rock above the water, the rebuilt church at Plaošnik tied to the Cyrillic tradition, a Hellenistic theatre and an icon gallery add up to more sights than Kotor has.

Kotor's strength is the walled townscape as a whole: St Tryphon's Cathedral, the palazzi of the seafaring families, the Maritime Museum and the walls zigzagging up to St John's fortress. It rewards a few hours of wandering, but there are fewer places to go inside.

Both are quiet towns that only come alive in summer, and neither has a real club scene. In Kotor, an evening means a drink on a terrace under the floodlit walls, with Budva's seafront clubs half an hour away if you want a late night. Ohrid's evenings centre on the lakefront promenade and the old bazaar, where café-bars stay open late in summer and beach clubs on the southern shore play music into the small hours.

Kotor has the more striking setting and more to do in it. Limestone walls rise more than 1,000m almost straight from the bay, the Ladder of Kotor and the fortress path start at the town gates, and Lovcen National Park and Lake Skadar are both within reach.

Ohrid's landscape is gentler but still fine. It has the deep, clear lake and Galičica National Park, with summits above 2,000m and viewpoints where you can see Ohrid and Prespa together. The lakeshore path and the spring-fed pool at the southern end of the lake are good for easier days.

Kotor is the better base for outings. Perast and its island church are twenty minutes away. Herceg Novi, Budva, Sveti Stefan, Cetinje and the Njegos mausoleum on Lovcen all make easy days, and Dubrovnik and Ostrog work for longer ones.

Ohrid's options are fewer and further apart. You can take the boat to St Naum in summer, visit Struga close by, or go to Bitola and Heraclea Lynkestis, which are more than an hour away. Korçë is across the Albanian border. The roads are slow, so most of these trips need a car.

Ohrid works better with children, mainly because the clear lake gives them whole days of easy swimming right by town. The reconstructed pile village at the Bay of Bones also makes a proper outing. The steep cobbled lanes of the old town are hard going with a pushchair, though.

Kotor's old town is flat, car-free and full of cats, but its main sight is a hot, exposed fortress climb, and the lanes fill with day visitors at midday. Families usually end up swimming off the shore or driving to the sand near Budva.

Ohrid is the simpler town to get about. The promenade, the bazaar and the old town sights are a short walk apart, and there are plenty of taxis for short hops, though the old town's stairs tire older visitors.

Kotor's walled centre is flat and takes minutes to cross, but leaving it is the hard part. The single road round the bay jams in summer and the buses are infrequent, so most visitors hire a car or a driver much sooner than they would in Ohrid.

Ohrid has one thing worth buying that Kotor cannot match: the Ohrid pearl, made by a few families in workshops around the old bazaar, along with hand-carved wood and icons. Kotor's lanes sell souvenirs, lace and coral jewellery, and its best buys are things to eat and drink, such as Vranac, Njegusi ham and honey from the green market. Neither town has a fashion scene.

Ohrid is clearly the cheaper stay. Guesthouses, meals with wine, taxis and entry fees all cost little, and only lakefront rooms in July and August cost noticeably more.

Kotor is moderately priced but charges resort rates inside its walls in high summer. An apartment in Dobrota or Muo and a visit in May, June or September bring the cost down, but a hire car, which you are more likely to need here, adds to it.

Kotor's summer programme is lighter than Ohrid's. Its churches host recitals and choirs, while carnival masks and the decorated boats of Boka Night make the season more festive than formal.

Ohrid's festival has run every summer since the early 1960s and brings opera, classical concerts and theatre to St Sophia and the ancient theatre. Outside the summer, neither town has much going on in the way of live performance.

In Kotor you have to plan for calm. Stay along the shore in Dobrota or Muo, see the walled town early or late, and keep out of its lanes at midday in summer. Ohrid offers that slow pace without any effort, with still mornings by the lake and quiet evenings on the promenade in May, June and September.

For treatments, both towns rely on hotel spas, since neither has a bathing tradition of its own.