London or The Hague?

The Hague has a beach of its own, and London has to travel to one. Scheveningen's long, wide sand is a short tram ride from the centre, with a pier and summer pavilions, and Kijkduin's dunes lie further south. London's nearest sea is Brighton's pebble shore, an hour away by train, or the sandier Kent coast at Margate and Whitstable.

The water is cold off both coasts, so neither city works for a swimming vacation. London's own swimming is in fresh water: the lidos at Brockwell Park and Parliament Hill and the Hampstead Heath ponds, where swimming is a city habit rather than a day at the seaside.

London offers far more range. Its strength is the cooking of its communities: Bangladeshi curry on Brick Lane, Punjabi food in Southall, Turkish grills in Green Lanes and Caribbean cooking south of the river. On top of that come Borough Market, a large fine-dining scene and modern British cooking.

The Hague has one outstanding strand, the Indonesian food of families from the former Dutch East Indies. A full rijsttafel or a plate of rendang here is among the best you can find outside Indonesia. Beyond that you have brown cafés on the Denneweg, seafood at Scheveningen harbour and herring from street carts, all pleasant but narrow in range.

London is in a different league here. The British Museum, the National Gallery, the V&A and the two Tates are each worth a full day, and most cost nothing to enter. The landmarks run from the Tower and Westminster Abbey to St Paul's and Greenwich, and there are more of them than a week can cover.

The Hague is smaller and stately. It has the Binnenhof around the Hofvijver, the Mauritshuis with Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, the Peace Palace and the Kunstmuseum's Mondrians. That is a fine set for two or three unhurried days, and the Vermeers alone justify the trip, but it cannot match London's breadth.

After dark the difference is stark. A London night out depends on the district you choose. Soho has late cocktail bars and a long-established gay scene, Shoreditch, Hackney and Dalston have clubs and warehouse parties, and Brixton and Peckham have big venues. Thousands of pubs run underneath it all.

The Hague winds down early. Terraces on the Plein and the Grote Markt fill after work and at weekends, and Scheveningen's beach pavilions turn to dancing on summer evenings. The club scene is thin, though, and anyone wanting a big night takes the train to Rotterdam or Amsterdam.

Neither city has mountains or dramatic terrain, and the outdoors is gentle in both, but the kind of green differs. London's is parkland: Hyde Park and Regent's Park in the centre, the hilltop views from Hampstead Heath and the deer of Richmond Park. The Chiltern beechwoods and the chalk ridges of the South Downs are an hour or so away by train.

The Hague is completely flat, and its green is coastal. The dunes of Meijendel and Westduinpark, the old Haagse Bos forest and the long beach make for breezy walks and cycle rides along the shore, with kitesurfing when the wind picks up.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference lies in distance and theme. From London, Oxford, Cambridge and Windsor are about an hour away or less, with Bath, Stonehenge and Canterbury further out. That gives you a mix of university towns, cathedrals and castles across southern England.

From The Hague the trips are shorter. Delft and Leiden are about fifteen minutes away, Rotterdam is under half an hour and Amsterdam is within the hour, and in spring you can add Kinderdijk's windmills and the Keukenhof bulb fields. It suits anyone who wants to sleep somewhere quiet and still see the country's main cities.

London gives children more to do, and much of it is free: the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum's hands-on galleries, the Young V&A, the Diana Memorial Playground and the zoo in Regent's Park. Legoland and the Harry Potter studio tour are within reach outside the city. The drawback is scale, with long journeys, stairs at many Tube stations and crowds when schools are out.

The Hague is gentler with small children. It is flat, safe and calm, and its trams take pushchairs easily. Madurodam's miniature Netherlands, the sea aquarium and sand at Scheveningen, and Duinrell nearby fill a few days well, though a wet day sends everyone indoors.

London's network is the more complete. The Underground, the Elizabeth line, the Overground, buses with top-deck views and Thames riverboats all run on one contactless card, so nowhere is out of reach without a car. The price is size: journeys between neighbourhoods are long, and the trains are crowded and hot at rush hour.

The Hague is smaller and simpler. You can walk the centre around the Binnenhof in minutes, trams run out to Scheveningen and Madurodam, and separate cycle lanes make a bicycle the natural way to get around. With two main stations on the national rail network, Delft and Leiden feel almost like suburbs.

London is one of the world's great shopping cities, while The Hague is a pleasant place to browse. London runs from the luxury houses of Bond Street and the tailors of Savile Row to Liberty, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason. Portobello Road, Columbia Road and Camden supply the weekend markets, and the bookshops of Charing Cross Road are a draw of their own.

The Hague's best streets, the Denneweg and Noordeinde, hold antique dealers, galleries and small boutiques, and the Passage arcade makes a covered stroll. The Haagse Markt is its most characterful stop, piled with fabrics and spices, but there is little luxury and no local craft to take home.

Neither city is cheap, but The Hague is easier on the wallet. Prices are at full Northern European levels and seafront hotels charge more in summer. Central rooms are often easier to find at weekends, though, once government travellers leave, and supermarket picnics are easy to put together.

In London, hotel rooms are among the costliest in Europe, small for what they cost, and theatre seats and rounds at the pub add up fast. The great saving is that the national museums, parks and markets are free, so days built around the collections make a stay more manageable.

London is one of the world's two great theatre cities, and the gap here is wide. The West End, the National Theatre, the Globe and the fringe stages above pubs offer serious drama every night, and the Royal Opera House covers opera and ballet. Five major orchestras, the Wigmore Hall and the Proms make it just as strong for classical music.

The Hague's draw is dance. Seeing Nederlands Dans Theater on its home stage is a real reason to book. The Residentie Orkest gives a full season, but most drama is in Dutch and there is no resident opera company.

Neither city is a spa destination, and the difference is in kind. London's bathing is historic and urban: Victorian and Edwardian Turkish baths in Bayswater and at Ironmonger Row, grand hotel spas in Mayfair and cold dips at the lidos, with Bath's thermal spa an hour and a half away. The city itself moves fast.

The Hague's answer is the Dutch sauna complex, built for spending a whole day among saunas, plunge pools and quiet gardens, and nudity is usually the rule. The city's calm, orderly streets and lack of late noise make it the easier place simply to slow down.