Louisville or Minneapolis?

Neither city has a sea, but only Minneapolis gives you real swimming. Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska, Lake Nokomis and Cedar Lake have sandy strips and lifeguards, and on summer evenings they are within cycling distance of the centre. The season runs only from late June to early September.

Louisville's river, the Ohio, is a working waterway with barges and strong currents, not somewhere to swim. Here a swim means a pool, or a drive out to the reservoir lakes in the countryside.

The two are about equally good, but in very different ways. Louisville eats and drinks Southern: hundreds of bourbons along Whiskey Row, the hot brown, burgoo and Derby pie, and farm-to-table cooking in NuLu and the Highlands. Its range narrows once you step outside those traditions.

Minneapolis is most interesting for its immigrant cooking. Lake Street and Eat Street have Mexican, Vietnamese, Somali and Ethiopian kitchens, and Hmong markets sell food found in few other American cities. Add brewery taprooms and the Juicy Lucy, and you are trading bourbon for craft beer.

Both cities fill two or three good days, but Louisville's sights are about its own story: Churchill Downs and the Derby Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Slugger factory and the Victorian mansions of Old Louisville.

Minneapolis leans towards art. The Walker Art Center, the large and free Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Sculpture Garden are the main draws, and the Mill City Museum and the Stone Arch Bridge at St Anthony Falls tell the story of its flour-milling past.

Neither city is for clubbing, and both are good for an evening in the bars. Louisville's bars sit along Bardstown Road and in the bourbon bars of NuLu, and some have licences to stay open very late. The whole city goes out during Derby week in spring.

Minneapolis spreads its nights across Northeast's taprooms, the cocktail bars of the North Loop and the weekend crowds in Uptown. Last orders come at 2am, and summer patios are the best of it, while winter keeps people indoors.

Minneapolis gets more out of its green space. The Grand Rounds links the Chain of Lakes, Minnehaha Falls and the Mississippi gorge on about 80km of paths, and the city keeps using them in winter, with ski trails at Theodore Wirth Park and skating on frozen lakes.

Louisville has fine Olmsted parks in Cherokee and Iroquois, and fossil beds at the Falls of the Ohio. Its best outing, though, is Mammoth Cave, a drive of around an hour and a half, which beats anything near Minneapolis.

Here Louisville is well ahead. Bourbon country starts within an hour, with Bardstown and the distilleries around Frankfort and Lawrenceburg. Beyond them are Lexington's horse farms and Keeneland, Shaker Village and Lincoln's birthplace, enough for several different days out by car.

Minneapolis has St Paul on the light rail, plus Stillwater and the river towns on Lake Pepin. After those, the farmland around it offers little.

Minneapolis offers families more, and more of it works in any weather. The Mall of America has an indoor amusement park and an aquarium. St Paul has the Science Museum and the Children's Museum, and in summer there are lake beaches and paddle boats.

Louisville is relaxed and easy with children. There is a good zoo and the Kentucky Science Center, Kentucky Kingdom has roller coasters, and the Mega Cavern runs underground ziplines. You need a car for nearly all of it, and the summer heat cuts long outdoor days short.

Minneapolis is much easier without a car. Light rail runs from the airport to downtown and the Mall of America, the skyways cover downtown in winter, and protected bike lanes and the Midtown Greenway take you out to the lakes.

Louisville has no rail at all. Apart from the walk between Main Street, the waterfront and NuLu, you will be driving or using ride-hailing to reach Churchill Downs, the Highlands or the parks, though the traffic is light.

For shopping, Minneapolis is the stronger choice. It has the country's largest mall within easy reach, no sales tax on clothing, and independent boutiques in the North Loop and Northeast.

Louisville's shops are small and local: vintage clothes and records on Bardstown Road and a few design stores in NuLu. Its best buys are rare bourbons, Derby hats and racing souvenirs.

Both cities cost about what you would expect in the American Midwest and South, with tax and a tip added to every meal. The savings come in different places. Louisville's hotels are good value outside racing season, but Derby week sends prices far higher, and without a car or ride-hailing the city is hard to manage.

In Minneapolis, the free art museum and Sculpture Garden, the cheap light rail and good-value immigrant kitchens help keep daily spending down. Conventions and big sporting events push hotel prices up.

Minneapolis is far ahead here. The Guthrie Theater is one of the country's leading companies and stands among a wide circuit of other theatres. The city has two orchestras and an opera company, and First Avenue carries the legacy of Prince. There is something worth seeing on most nights of the year.

Louisville has a full set of companies at the Kentucky Center, and Actors Theatre is known for new American plays. Bluegrass and Americana bands play the Bardstown Road bars, but overall it is a steady local programme rather than a reason to choose the city.

Minneapolis has a tradition of its own to offer: Nordic saunas, which in winter set up on the frozen lakes, with a cold plunge between rounds. A walk around a lake at dusk is the gentler local way to wind down.

Louisville has hotel spas and a slow porch-sitting pace, but nothing comparable. For a proper spa break, you would drive about an hour and a half to the old mineral-spring resorts of French Lick and West Baden Springs in Indiana.