Kotor or Skopje?

Kotor clearly comes out ahead, though even here swimming is something you head out for. In town you swim off concrete platforms and narrow pebble strips in the calm, sheltered inner bay. Jaz, the coves around Budva and the pink-pebble shores near Sveti Stefan are all within about half an hour.

Skopje has no sea at all. In summer, swimming means hotel or public pools, and Matka's reservoir is too cold for much more than kayaking. If you want a beach, plan separate nights at Lake Ohrid.

Both cities pour the same dark red grape, called Vranac in Kotor and Vranec in Skopje, but Skopje is the better place to eat. Kotor's strength is the bay's seafood: mussels, black cuttlefish risotto and grilled fish, best eaten at waterside konobas in Dobrota, Prcanj or Perast rather than on the uneven old-town squares, with Njegusi ham and cheese from the mountains behind.

Skopje's Balkan home cooking runs deeper. You can eat tavche gravche in clay dishes, kebapi and pastrmajlija in the Old Bazaar and burek with yoghurt at breakfast, then sit down to long tavern meals in Debar Maalo with Temjanika whites and rakija. Neither city has much fine dining or international food.

The two are evenly matched, but they offer very different things. Kotor is a single, coherent townscape: UNESCO-listed Venetian walls, the twelfth-century Romanesque Cathedral of St Tryphon, the palazzi of seafaring families and the Maritime Museum, all packed into a marble-paved triangle below the fortress of St John.

Skopje is a city of contrasts. North of the Stone Bridge lies a large Ottoman bazaar of caravanserais and mosques, with Kale Fortress above it. South of the river are the bronze statues, neoclassical facades and replica galleons of a state-funded rebuilding scheme, and the City Museum, in the ruined railway station, tells the story of the 1963 earthquake. Kotor is about beauty and Skopje about history and argument, and each takes two or three days to see.

Skopje has the livelier evenings, though neither is a party destination. Kotor winds down to drinks on the old-town squares under the lit walls, with a few bars going late in summer. For anything louder, you head down the coast to Budva's beach clubs.

Skopje's scene runs on café-bars around Debar Maalo, where coffee turns to rakija and cocktails, and the weekend crowds are mostly local. In summer the Old Bazaar courtyards and riverside spots stay busy past midnight, but weeknights are quiet.

Kotor has the more dramatic setting. Limestone walls rise more than 1,000m above the bay, and you can start walking from the town gates, on the Ladder of Kotor mule track, the fortress path or the hairpin road up into Lovcen's beech woods. Kayaking along the shore shows how close the mountains come to the water.

Skopje has its own green escapes close by. Mount Vodno rises from the suburbs and has a cable car, and Matka Canyon, half an hour away, has a boat ride to Vrelo Cave and cliff monasteries. Further out, the Sar mountains and Mavrovo add something Kotor cannot: skiing in winter. In both places the summer heat makes spring and autumn the seasons for hiking.

Kotor has the richer and easier day trips, because so much lies around one bay. Perast and the islet church of Our Lady of the Rocks are twenty minutes away, then come Herceg Novi, Budva and Sveti Stefan, Cetinje and the Njegos mausoleum over Lovcen. Dubrovnik makes a longer day.

From Skopje, the country's highlight, Ohrid, is too far for a day out. The trips that remain are more scattered: Tetovo's painted mosque, the Roman mosaics at Stobi with Tikves wineries nearby, crater-town Kratovo, and Prizren across the Kosovo border.

Neither city does much for children, and families come out about even. In Kotor the car-free old town is safe, the street cats are a hit and the bay water is calm for paddling. The fortress climb is too exposed for small legs in summer, though.

In Skopje the best outings are the Vodno cable car, the boat at Matka and evenings in City Park, with a small zoo and funfair. Busy roads, uneven pavements and no swimming beyond pools mean families usually pair it with a lake.

Both are easy on foot at the centre and awkward beyond it. Kotor's old town is car-free and takes minutes to cross, but leaving it means patchy buses, water taxis between some villages and a single bay road that jams in summer, so most people hire a car or driver.

Skopje's sights sit along a flat stretch of the Vardar. Without a metro or tram, and with buses that confuse newcomers, visitors rely on plentiful, cheap taxis for Vodno and Matka.

Skopje is the better place to shop. In the Old Bazaar workshops you can watch silver filigree and copperware being made, and Bit Pazar is a real everyday market of spices, cheese and peppers. Modern malls cover the chain stores.

Kotor's lanes mostly sell souvenirs, cat trinkets, lace and coral jewellery, and the best buys are edible: Vranac, Njegusi ham and bay olive oil from the green market. For brands, people go to the Tivat marina.

Skopje is clearly the cheaper city. Taverns, coffee, taxis and central hotels cost very little even in summer, and most sights are free or nearly so.

Kotor is moderately priced, but rooms and the terrace restaurants inside the walls charge resort rates in July and August. To keep costs down, stay in Dobrota or Muo, eat away from the main squares and visit outside high summer.

Skopje has a real season, which Kotor lacks. The Macedonian Opera and Ballet and the Philharmonic perform through the year, the Skopje Jazz Festival has run every autumn since the early 1980s, and the Debar Maalo taverns have live starogradska music.

Kotor's music is tied to occasions: the summer festival of recitals and choirs in churches and squares, concerts in the cathedral, and the masked carnival and Boka Night parades of lit boats on the bay. Outside summer, there is little more than a terrace musician.

Neither city has a bathing culture, so rest comes in different forms. Kotor's calm is on the water: early mornings on the bay, long village lunches and resort-hotel spas along the shore, with the crowded old town avoided at midday.

Skopje's Ottoman hamams serve as galleries, not baths. It does have Katlanovska Banja, an old-style thermal spa with mineral pools half an hour out, and unhurried hours over coffee on shaded terraces in Debar Maalo.