London or Rotterdam?

Neither city is a beach destination, but their shores are different. London's nearest seaside is the pebble beach at Brighton, about an hour away by train, with sandier stretches at Margate and Whitstable in Kent. Rotterdam's Hoek van Holland is a wide sandy beach backed by dunes, reached by metro, with huge ships passing close offshore.

For swimming, London has the stronger habit, and it is in fresh water: the lidos at Brockwell Park and Parliament Hill, and the Hampstead Heath ponds. In Rotterdam the constant wind and cool North Sea mean most people walk along the beach rather than go in.

London eats on a different scale. Bangladeshi cooking on Brick Lane, Punjabi food in Southall, the Turkish grills of Green Lanes and Borough Market are only the start. On top of that come a large fine-dining scene and the pub rituals of the Sunday roast and afternoon tea.

Rotterdam's food is also shaped by its immigrant communities, with Surinamese roti and Cape Verdean and Indonesian kitchens, but on a smaller scale, mostly around the Markthal and the Witte de Withstraat. Dutch cooking itself rarely goes beyond herring and bitterballen, and fine dining is a small tier. Rotterdam is a pleasant place to eat, not a reason to come.

London has an extraordinary run of major museums, most of them free, and landmarks spanning a thousand years, from the Tower and Westminster Abbey to St Paul's and the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. A week there still leaves plenty unseen.

Rotterdam's appeal is of another kind. Most of the old centre was lost in 1940, so the sights are its modern buildings: the Erasmus Bridge, the Cube Houses, the Markthal and the mirrored Depot Boijmans. Its museums are good rather than great, and the old city survives mainly in Delfshaven, so two or three days cover it.

London offers a much bigger night out, spread across districts with different characters. There are late cocktail bars and a long-established gay scene in Soho, warehouse clubs in Shoreditch and Dalston, big venues in Brixton, and pubs everywhere.

Rotterdam goes out on a smaller, more local scale, with terraces on the Witte de Withstraat and around the Oude Haven. Its strength is hard electronic music: it is the birthplace of gabber, and its harbour warehouses hold techno nights. Outside weekends, though, the centre empties early.

London is the greener city. Richmond Park's deer and ancient oaks, the views from Hampstead Heath and the gardens at Kew give real breathing space. The Chilterns and the South Downs, with good marked footpaths, are about an hour away by train.

Rotterdam's outdoors is flat and shaped by water: the lake in the Kralingse Bos, bike rides along dykes into the polders, and the tidal creeks of the Biesbosch for canoeing and birdwatching. Neither city has mountains, but Rotterdam gives walkers less to work with.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is in where the trains go. From London the outings are English: the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, Windsor Castle, the Roman baths at Bath, Stonehenge, and the cathedrals of Canterbury and Salisbury.

From Rotterdam the journeys are shorter, and some cross a border. Delft is a quarter of an hour away, and The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht are all within about an hour. The windmills of Kinderdijk are reached by water bus, and Antwerp is an hour to the south.

London fills more days with children, and many of them cost nothing: the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Young V&A and the pirate ship playground in Kensington Gardens. Legoland and the Harry Potter studio tour are outside the city. The drawbacks are long distances, crowds when schools are out, and Tube stairs with a buggy.

Rotterdam is smaller and calmer. It is flat and easy to cross, its highlights are Blijdorp zoo and the children's harbour area at the Maritime Museum, and Madurodam is a short train ride away. There is less to fill a long stay.

London's network is more complete. The Underground, the Elizabeth line, the Overground, buses and Thames riverboats reach almost everywhere, all paid with one contactless card. The cost is the city's size: long journeys, stairs and packed trains at rush hour.

Rotterdam's metro, trams and water taxis are simpler to learn and cover a smaller area, though they still reach the beach and Kinderdijk. The postwar centre is spread out, so a bike, on paths that run almost everywhere, is the easiest way to get around.

Shopping is one of the widest gaps between the two. London has the luxury houses of Bond Street, tailoring on Savile Row, and department stores such as Harrods, Liberty and Fortnum & Mason. Then come the weekend markets on Portobello Road, in Camden and on Columbia Road.

Rotterdam does high-street shopping well along the Lijnbaan, the Beurstraverse and in the Bijenkorf. There are independent vintage and record shops on the Meent and the Nieuwe Binnenweg, but few luxury labels.

Rotterdam is the cheaper stay, mostly because of its hotels. Rooms are plentiful, and the city is under less tourist pressure than Amsterdam. Meals and drinks still cost what they do anywhere in the Netherlands.

London is expensive on every front, from small, costly central rooms to theatre seats and rounds at the pub. Its free national museums and parks are a real saving, but a visit will still cost noticeably more.

London has one of the deepest stages anywhere: the West End, the National Theatre and the Globe, the Royal Opera House, five major orchestras, the Wigmore Hall and the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, plus jazz cellars and grime venues.

Rotterdam has a strong orchestra at De Doelen and hosts the North Sea Jazz Festival each July, one of the world's major jazz gatherings. Beyond that, there is no opera house and much of the theatre is in Dutch, so a visitor's choice narrows quickly.

Neither city is a place to slow down, but each has its own bathing tradition. In London that means the surviving Victorian and Edwardian Turkish baths in Bayswater and at Ironmonger Row, the spas of the grand Mayfair hotels, and the thermal spa at Bath an hour and a half away.

Rotterdam follows the Dutch sauna tradition, with large wellness complexes on the edge of the city that have outdoor pools and quiet gardens. The sauna areas are mostly textile-free. In the centre, people find calm in the Kralingse Bos or on a terrace by the water.