Kyoto or Yokohama?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Yokohama at least has the sea at hand. The Shonan coast at Zushi, Kamakura and Enoshima and the Miura Peninsula are 30 to 60 minutes away by train, with broad grey-brown sand and crowded summer weekends, and Hakkeijima has a small man-made beach within the city.

Kyoto is inland, so a swim means the freshwater strands of Lake Biwa such as Omi-Maiko, the plain city beach at Suma, or a night away on the clear Sea of Japan coast around Amanohashidate. In summer most visitors cool off by the rivers instead.

Kyoto is where Japanese cooking is at its most refined. There is kaiseki in old wooden houses in Gion, shojin ryori in temple precincts such as Daitokuji, yuba, tofu and tea sweets, and on top of that Nishiki Market and the sake breweries of Fushimi. For a city of its size it has a remarkable number of serious restaurants.

Yokohama eats more heartily and with more of a foreign accent. Japan's largest Chinatown, its own iekei ramen and sanma-men, and the grill bars of Noge make excellent casual meals, but much of the region's fine dining is in Tokyo.

This is the widest gap between the two. Kyoto's heritage is world class, from Kiyomizu-dera and the moss garden of Saiho-ji to Nijo Castle and the vermilion gates of Fushimi Inari, with the machiya lanes of Higashiyama binding it together. It can fill a week and still leave temples unseen.

Yokohama's story is narrower and later: a treaty port of the 1850s, told through the Western houses on the Yamate Bluff, the Red Brick Warehouses and the liner Hikawa Maru. Tellingly, its finest sight, Sankeien, is a garden of old buildings moved there from Kyoto and Kamakura.

Both cities turn in early and send their late crowds elsewhere, Kyoto's to Osaka and Yokohama's to Tokyo. Even so, Yokohama gives more of an evening out. Noge's warren of izakaya and standing bars fills with office workers, and Kannai, the station area and the harbour-view bars of Minato Mirai add pubs and karaoke.

Kyoto's going out is concentrated in Pontocho and along Kiyamachi, in small sake and whisky bars with river terraces in summer, while Gion after dark is for a stroll rather than a drink.

Both have good walking close at hand, but of different kinds. Kyoto's is gentle and immediate: the Higashiyama hills and the Kyoto Trail start right behind the temples, Arashiyama's bamboo marks the western edge, and the cedar path from Kurama to Kibune is a short train ride north.

From Yokohama you travel a little further but get more variety: the sea cliffs of Enoshima and the Miura coast, proper mountain hikes in the Tanzawa range, Hakone's volcanic valleys and, on clear winter days, Mount Fuji on the horizon.

Both are excellent bases, but Kyoto has more within easy reach. Nara, Osaka, Uji, Kobe and Himeji Castle are all an hour or less by rail, each a different kind of day, and the castle towns on Lake Biwa add more.

Yokohama's great advantage is Tokyo, under half an hour away, with Kamakura's Great Buddha and Zen temples even closer and Hakone's hot springs about an hour and a half away. It is a strong list, just less packed than Kyoto's.

Yokohama is set up for children in a way Kyoto is not. Minato Mirai alone has the noodle museum, a Ferris wheel and the Anpanman museum, Hakkeijima pairs an aquarium with rides, and Tokyo Disneyland is about an hour away. The flat harbour and the lifts and nursing rooms in stations make life with a pushchair simple.

Kyoto is safe and polite, and the Railway Museum, with its roundhouse of steam engines, is a real treat. Most days, though, are spent at temples, and many families end up taking the train to Osaka for its theme park and aquarium.

Yokohama is the easier city to move around. One tap-on card covers the Minatomirai Line, JR, the subways and the private railways, signs are in English, and the harbour walk from Minato Mirai to Chinatown is flat. Only the Bluff and the bus out to Sankeien take effort.

Kyoto's flat central grid is lovely on foot or by bicycle, but its great temples ring the edges of the basin, where the two subway lines barely reach. Getting to them means piecing together private railways, the Randen tram and buses that are slow and packed in the busy seasons.

Kyoto is the better place to buy something worth keeping. Family-run shops sell Kiyomizu-ware, Nishijin silk, incense, lacquer and hand-forged knives, tea merchants weigh out matcha, and the monthly flea markets at To-ji and Kitano Tenmangu are worth planning around.

Yokohama is convenient rather than distinctive, with department stores and underground arcades at the station and malls along the waterfront. Its own touches are Motomachi's leather goods and Chinatown's teas and tableware. Neither city has much luxury fashion.

Costs come out much the same, with cheap everyday meals and low train fares in both, so the difference is in where the money goes. In Kyoto it goes on rooms: ryokan are dear, and rooms grow scarce and costly in cherry blossom and autumn colour season, while a kaiseki dinner is a splurge.

Yokohama has plenty of moderate business hotels around Kannai and Sakuragicho, and many of its sights, from Yamashita Park to the Bluff houses, are free. Summer weekends and big concerts push its room rates up.

Neither is a big stage city, but they offer different evenings. Kyoto's strength is tradition: the spring dances of the geisha districts, kabuki at the Minamiza, the oldest kabuki house in Japan, and regular Noh. Much of it follows the seasons, though.

Yokohama leans towards Western music, with the pipe organ at Minato Mirai Hall, opera and dance at the Kanagawa Arts Theatre, touring acts in the harbour arenas and a jazz heritage that lives on in the old record cafés of Noge. For kabuki, Yokohama's audiences go to Tokyo.

Kyoto is the more restful stay. Century-old sento, ryokan with deep wooden tubs, hot springs at Kurama and Ohara, zazen sessions, tea ceremonies and nights in temple lodgings are all within the city, at their calmest early in the morning or in winter.

Yokohama's bathing is more everyday, neighbourhood sento and a large spa complex on the waterfront, and its quiet corners are Sankeien's ponds and the rose gardens on the Bluff. For a proper onsen inn, both cities send you out of town, to Arima from Kyoto and to Hakone from Yokohama.