Kyoto or Tainan?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, but Tainan at least sits on the sea. The long grey-sand shore beyond Anping, at the Golden Coast and Yuguang Island, makes a fine place for a sunset walk over the Taiwan Strait. Strong currents mean swimming there is often discouraged, though, so a hotel pool is the realistic way to swim.

Kyoto is inland, so a swim means the freshwater strands of Lake Biwa, which fill with families in July and August. The clear water of the Sea of Japan coast is more than two hours north, an overnight trip rather than an afternoon.

These are two of East Asia's great food cities, but they reward very different appetites. Kyoto is about precision: seasonal kaiseki in old wooden houses, Buddhist temple cooking at Daitokuji and Tenryuji, tofu and yuba, pickles from Nishiki Market and sake from the Fushimi breweries.

Tainan is about grazing. The day runs from fresh beef soup or milkfish porridge at breakfast, through danzai noodles and coffin bread at stalls that have made one dish for three generations, to shaved ice and the weekend night markets. Kyoto has the tasting menus, while Tainan has the street food Kyoto lacks.

Kyoto's heritage is on another scale. It has seventeen UNESCO-listed sites, from Kinkaku-ji to Ryoan-ji's rock garden, Fushimi Inari's tunnels of gates and well over a thousand other temples, plus whole districts of machiya townhouses in Higashiyama and Gion. You could spend weeks here and still be finding new things.

Tainan tells a story Kyoto cannot: Taiwan's earliest chapters, from the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia and Chihkan Tower to Koxinga, the Qing and the Confucius Temple, which was the island's first school. Its incense-filled temples and Japanese-era buildings make for absorbing days, and the Chimei Museum adds European painting. Still, it is a rich town rather than a world capital of heritage.

Both cities wind down early, and in both the serious night out is a short train ride away, to Osaka from Kyoto and to Kaohsiung from Tainan. In Kyoto the evening centres on drinking, in the sake bars and standing izakaya of lantern-lit Pontocho and along Kiyamachi, with riverside terraces in summer.

In Tainan the evening centres on food. People eat their way through the night markets, and afterwards there are a few quiet cocktails or whiskies in the townhouse bars around Shennong Street and Haian Road.

In Kyoto the outdoors starts at the edge of town. Trails climb to Daimonji in the eastern hills, Arashiyama's bamboo and wooded slopes mark the west, and a cedar-forest path links Kurama and Kibune. Cherry blossom and maple colour make the seasons a reason to travel in their own right.

Tainan's landscape is flat coastal wetland. You can take a boat through the mangrove tunnel at Sicao, see the black-faced spoonbills that winter at Qigu, and walk among the bleached salt pans. It is unusual rather than beautiful, and summer heat limits outdoor time to the early morning.

Kyoto is among the best day-trip bases anywhere. Nara's great Buddha and deer, Osaka's food streets, Uji's tea and Byodo-in, and Himeji Castle are all quick rail rides away, and the fast trains mean little planning is needed.

Tainan's options are good but fewer. Kaohsiung is close, with Lotus Pond and Cijin Island, and beyond it lie Foguangshan's Buddha Museum and the umbrella makers of Meinong. Chiayi opens the way to the Alishan forest railway, while Lukang sits at the limit of what a day allows.

Kyoto works better with children. The Railway Museum's steam roundhouse and simulators, the aquarium, and the ninja shows at Toei Studio Park give younger visitors something made for them, and the city's calm and cleanliness make the temples manageable.

Tainan is warm towards children, and the night-market games, Anping's forts and Tree House, and the mangrove boats go down well. Little else is built for families, however, and the city's theme park and big zoo are in Kaohsiung.

Kyoto's flat central grid is good for walking and excellent for cycling, and trains, the Randen tram and buses reach the temples on the edges, though the buses crawl in peak seasons. Tainan has no metro, its buses are slow, and the high-speed rail station sits well outside town. Beyond the walkable old core around Chihkan Tower and Shennong Street, you will be relying on taxis, ride-hailing and bike-share.

Kyoto is a place for buying things that last. Family workshops sell Kiyomizu-ware, Nishijin silk, fans, incense and hand-forged knives, and you can add the Teramachi arcades, the department stores of Shijo and the monthly flea markets at To-ji and Kitano Tenmangu.

Tainan's shopping is smaller and more personal. Townhouse shops around Shennong and Zhengxing streets sell indigo cloth, ceramics, tea and Taiwanese design, and the 1930s Hayashi Department Store, with its rooftop shrine, is worth seeing for itself.

Rooms are where the two cities part most. Kyoto's hotels and ryokan inns are dear at any time and become scarce and costly in the cherry blossom and autumn colour seasons, while Tainan's hotels and guesthouses cost clearly less, so the same budget buys more nights or a better room there. Both feed you well for little day to day, but Kyoto's finest cooking means a kaiseki splurge, whereas Tainan's most celebrated food comes from stalls and is cheap by any standard.

Transport shifts the balance a little the other way. Kyoto's trains and buses are inexpensive and reach almost every temple, while Tainan has no metro, so the taxi hops between the old centre, Anping and the Chimei Museum become a steady daily cost. Tainan's cocktail bars and few smart restaurants are no bargain either. Even so, a stay there costs clearly less than one in Kyoto, as long as you eat where the locals eat.

Kyoto has a real stage tradition. There are the spring dances of the geisha districts, kabuki at the Minamiza, Japan's oldest kabuki house, and regular Noh, as well as a concert hall and ROHM Theatre for orchestral music and opera.

Tainan's most memorable performances are informal ones: Taiwanese opera and glove puppetry on stages in front of temples on festival days, sometimes played for the gods to empty stools. Beyond those, the formal programme is thin, and the major shows take place in Kaohsiung.

Kyoto offers more ways to slow down. You can soak in century-old neighbourhood sento, stay in a ryokan with a wooden tub, sit in zazen meditation, or spend a night in a temple lodging, and Arima's hot springs are close by.

Tainan's main draw is the unusual grey mud springs at Guanziling, about an hour away. In town there are foot-reflexology parlours and unhurried tea rooms, but scooter noise and heat make deep rest harder to find.