Louisville or Nashville?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Nashville has a little more to offer in summer. Percy Priest and Old Hickory lakes are on its edge, with small swimming areas and warm water, and a pontoon afternoon is easy to arrange.

Louisville's Ohio River is a working river and not for swimming, so a swim there means a pool or a drive out to the reservoir lakes in the countryside.

The two eat at a similar level, but each has its own signature. Louisville's table is built around bourbon: Whiskey Row pours, the hot brown, burgoo and Derby pie, with the best restaurants in NuLu, the Highlands and Butchertown.

Nashville answers with hot chicken and meat-and-three cafeterias, and it has more range in its immigrant food. Nolensville Pike's Kurdish, Mexican and Vietnamese places give it a variety Louisville lacks, though downtown Nashville leans on bar food for the crowds.

The sightseeing is about equal, and each city's sights follow its own story. Louisville's are about sport and whiskey: Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Slugger Museum among Whiskey Row's cast-iron fronts, plus the Victorian mansions of Old Louisville to walk through.

Nashville's are almost all about music, led by the Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Museum of African American Music and a daytime tour of the Ryman. The Parthenon replica and the Hermitage add variety, but Louisville keeps more of its nineteenth-century streets.

Nashville is clearly the bigger night out. Lower Broadway's multi-storey honky-tonks have live bands on every floor and crowds out until the small hours, and on weekends the strip feels like one long party, with East Nashville's dive bars and lounges as the calmer option.

Louisville's evenings are quieter and more local. Bardstown Road has patios and neighbourhood pubs, and NuLu has bourbon bars. Neither city has much of a club scene, and Louisville only reaches Nashville's pitch around Derby time.

The outdoors are about equal, and gentle rather than dramatic in both, so the real difference is the setting. Louisville's Olmsted parks, Cherokee and Iroquois, put wooded hills inside the city, and across the river the Falls of the Ohio let you walk out on fossil beds at low water.

Nashville has Radnor Lake's quiet trails and the Warner Parks, and more to do on the water: easy canoeing on the Harpeth, boating on the lakes, and the Natchez Trace Parkway for cycling. Mammoth Cave, the world's longest known cave system, makes a day out from either city.

Louisville has the better day trips. Bourbon country starts within an hour, with Bardstown and the stone warehouses toward Frankfort and Lawrenceburg, and Lexington's thoroughbred farms, Shaker Village and Lincoln's birthplace are all easy outings by car.

Nashville's best trip is Franklin, with its preserved Main Street and Civil War sites, and Leiper's Fork is close by. Lynchburg's whiskey and Chattanooga are a long drive, so the list after Franklin is shorter.

Both work well enough with children, with a good zoo and a hands-on science centre each. Louisville adds Kentucky Kingdom's coasters and water park, and the tram and zipline tours of the Mega Cavern underground.

Nashville has the Adventure Science Center's planetarium, the Lane Motor Museum and the Parthenon, but parents need to steer around Lower Broadway, which is built for adult drinking. In both cities you will be driving between attractions.

Both are car cities with buses and no rail, so the practical difference is small. In Louisville you can walk Main Street, the waterfront and NuLu, but Churchill Downs and the parks need a drive, and the light traffic makes that easy.

Nashville's walkable core is a little richer, with Broadway, the Ryman, the Gulch and the pedestrian bridge close together. Beyond it, the interstates clog at rush hour and the Opry and Hermitage are well out.

Nashville is the better place to shop, mainly because of its theme. Broadway's boot and hat shops, guitar stores of real depth and Hatch Show Print's letterpress posters give it purchases you won't easily find elsewhere, and 12 South has independent boutiques.

Louisville's shopping is smaller: vintage and records on Bardstown Road, a few NuLu design shops, and above all bottles of bourbon you can't get at home.

Louisville is the cheaper of the two, mostly because of its hotels. Outside Derby week, rooms downtown come at moderate rates and parking is easy, although tips, tax and a hire car still add to each day.

Nashville's downtown hotels are expensive, especially on weekends with group demand. Its saving grace is the free music on Broadway, and staying midweek and away from downtown helps a lot.

Here the two cities are far apart, and Nashville wins easily. The Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman's famous acoustics, songwriter nights in small rooms and bands on Broadway from late morning give it live music most people travel for, with the Schermerhorn Symphony Center for classical.

Louisville has a full set of companies, including its orchestra, opera, ballet and Actors Theatre's new American plays, plus bluegrass in the Bardstown Road bars. It is a solid programme, but not a reason to choose it over Nashville.

Neither city does relaxation well, and neither has a spa tradition beyond hotel spas. The difference is what is nearby. From Louisville, the old mineral-spring resorts of French Lick and West Baden Springs are about an hour and a half away, and horse country makes for a calm drive.

In Nashville the quiet is in the leafy streets of Belmont and Hillsboro, well away from downtown's late nights.