Lima or Puno?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Lima at least has the Pacific. Below its cliffs the Costa Verde offers pebbles and surf, and the sandy coves around Punta Hermosa and San Bartolo, about an hour south, make a decent summer day out.

Puno's waterfront is a working lake port at 3,800m, with water that stays cold enough to make any swim a brief dare. A dip off an island cove on a sunny afternoon is the most it offers.

This is the widest gap between the two. Lima is one of the great eating cities of the Americas, and its range runs from market stalls in Surquillo and lunchtime ceviche to chifa, Nikkei and tasting menus built on Peru's ecosystems, with pisco sours to match.

Puno eats simply and well enough: lake trout, quinoa stews, chairo soup and hot drinks at the Mercado Central counters. Beyond the traveller restaurants on Jirón Lima there is little depth, and most visitors treat it as a refuelling stop.

Lima has far more to see. The UNESCO-listed centre around the Plaza de Armas, San Francisco's catacombs, the Larco Museum's pre-Columbian gold and adobe pyramids such as Huaca Pucllana among the apartment blocks can fill several days.

Puno's own sights fit into an afternoon: the baroque cathedral, the view from Kuntur Wasi, a couple of small museums and the Yavari steamship. Its living culture lies out on the lake rather than in the town.

Lima has a real night out. Barranco's mansion bars and clubs fill from midnight, Miraflores adds a more polished scene around Parque Kennedy, and the dancing leans towards salsa and cumbia.

Puno's evenings usually end with dinner and a pisco sour on Jirón Lima. The cold, the altitude and early boat departures see to that, except during the festival season, when the streets take over.

Puno's landscape is the stronger draw. Lake Titicaca runs to the horizon with the snow peaks of the Cordillera Real beyond, and its reed-bed reserve shelters ibis and the flightless Titicaca grebe. Kayaking and village walks on the Capachica peninsula are the main ways out into it, though thin air limits how much you can do.

Lima's outdoors faces the sea and is gentler: cycling the clifftop malecón, paragliding from its parks, surfing below, and swimming with sea lions at the Palomino Islands. Inland its desert hills stay brown except when the winter fog greens the lomas.

Puno is built for excursions. The floating Uros islands are a short boat ride away, Taquile and Amantaní take longer crossings, and the stone towers of Sillustani and the colonial churches of Juli are easy road trips across the altiplano.

Lima has fewer good options within a day. Pachacamac's adobe temples and the old port of Callao are worthwhile, but Caral, Paracas and the Ica vineyards are far enough away to need an overnight stay.

Lima is the far easier place with children. Parque de las Leyendas pairs a zoo with ruins, the fountains of the Circuito Mágico del Agua light up at night, and the cliffside playgrounds and summer beaches fill the gaps. The traffic and long distances are the main strain.

Puno is genuinely hard on small children: altitude sickness, freezing nights and poorly heated rooms. Apart from climbing a reed watchtower on the Uros islands, there is little for them.

Puno's advantage is scale. The plaza, Jirón Lima, the market and the port are a few minutes apart, and boats and colectivos reach everything else. The catch is the climb back up from the lake, which leaves newcomers short of breath.

Lima is pleasant on foot only within Miraflores and Barranco. Beyond them, the Metropolitano is the quick way to the centre, and otherwise you rely on ride-hailing through some of South America's slowest traffic.

Both cities sell alpaca, but Lima gives you more choice and more certainty about quality. Specialist knitwear shops in Miraflores and San Isidro, the Petit Thouars craft markets with goods from every region, and Barranco's design shops give it the edge, along with large malls for everything else.

Puno's port market is mostly sweaters, ponchos and chullo hats of uneven quality. Its real strength is buying knitting and weaving directly from the makers on Taquile.

Lima is good value for a capital. Set lunches in neighbourhood restaurants, ride-hailing across town and most museum entries cost little, and a mid-range room in Miraflores or Barranco undercuts most Western capitals. The bill climbs at the top end, where the celebrated tasting menus charge international prices and the upscale cevicherías and cocktail bars of Miraflores add up quickly.

Puno is cheaper still for everyday spending, with simple guesthouses in the centre, colectivos and set lunches all costing very little. Its pricier end is real, though. The handful of comfortable lakeside hotels are a clear step up from the family guesthouses, and the traveller restaurants on Jirón Lima charge noticeably more than the places townspeople use.

Lima has more to offer through the year. Barranco's peñas, with música criolla and Afro-Peruvian cajón, go on late and get the audience dancing, while the Gran Teatro Nacional and the Teatro Municipal stage the symphony, ballet and opera.

Puno's moment is February, when the Candelaria festival fills the streets with masked dancers, brass bands and panpipes for days on end. For the rest of the year it offers dinner shows of Andean music.

Neither city is built for rest, but Miraflores and San Isidro at least have hotel spas, day spas and massage studios. An early walk or yoga session in the clifftop parks brings some calm above the Pacific before the traffic starts.

In Puno, pampering stops at a massage in one of the better lakeside hotels, and the thin air makes the first days tiring rather than restful. Its quiet is of a different kind: dusk on the islands, or an hour in the sun with coca tea while your body adjusts.