Minneapolis or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither city has a coast, but only Minneapolis has real swimming. Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska and Lake Nokomis have small sandy strips with lifeguards, and the water is warm enough for an after-work swim from late June into early September.

Around Winter Park, Grand Lake and the reservoirs near Granby are fed by snowmelt and stay cold even in midsummer. People use them for boats and paddleboards rather than swimming. If you want to bathe, it means a hotel pool or the hot springs pools down the valley.

Minneapolis gives a food-minded traveller far more to explore. Lake Street and Eat Street have Mexican, Vietnamese, Somali and Ethiopian kitchens, and there are Hmong markets and the Midtown Global Market. Northeast and the North Loop add chef-led restaurants and brewery taprooms.

Winter Park eats like the ski town it is. There are breakfast burritos before the lifts open, green chile and burgers at the lodges, and a few dinner rooms serving elk and trout. The food keeps you going for a day outdoors, but on busy winter weekends you need to book or eat early.

The difference here is large. Minneapolis has the Minneapolis Institute of Art, with its wide-ranging collection and free general admission, the Walker Art Center and its Sculpture Garden, and the milling history of St Anthony Falls told at the Mill City Museum. That is enough for two or three full days.

Winter Park has the railway history of the Moffat Tunnel and a small homesteading museum in Fraser, and little else. If you want a day of galleries from there, you drive to Denver.

Minneapolis has the better nights out, though they are friendly rather than wild. There are taprooms and old bars in Northeast, cocktail bars in the North Loop warehouses, and weekend crowds downtown and in Uptown. Summer patios are the best of it.

In Winter Park the evening peaks at the base village when the lifts close. After après-ski and a pint at a taproom on the main road, a town of early risers goes quiet, and in summer it is quieter still.

Winter Park has real mountains. Winter Park's groomed runs and Mary Jane's bumps and tree runs rise to summits above 3,600m. There is backcountry terrain on Berthoud Pass, a lift-served bike park in summer, and moose, elk and high tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park about an hour north.

Minneapolis offers something gentler, though it is unusually good for a city. The Grand Rounds is a ring of about 80km of parkways and paths past the lakes, Minnehaha Falls and the Mississippi gorge. In winter there is cross-country skiing in Theodore Wirth Park and skating on frozen lakes. The land is flat, made for cycling and paddling rather than climbing.

Both have a short list of good outings, but they are different in kind. From Minneapolis they are urban and riverside: St Paul's Capitol, cathedral and Summit Avenue mansions by light rail, then Stillwater on the St Croix and the towns around Lake Pepin by car.

From Winter Park they are mountain drives. You can cross Berthoud Pass to the Victorian mining streets of Georgetown and Idaho Springs, visit the boardwalk at Grand Lake, or spend a city day in Denver or Boulder. The views are better, but a winter storm on the pass can close the road and cancel the plan.

Both suit children well, in different ways and seasons. Minneapolis 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 there are two zoos. In summer there are lake beaches and paddle boats, though many attractions are a drive apart.

Winter Park is built for a family ski week. It has a large children's ski school, gentle slopes at the base, tubing and sleigh rides, and an alpine slide and mini golf in summer, all in a compact village. The drawbacks are the altitude, which can disturb sleep for the first night or two, and few indoor options on a bad day.

Outside the centre you need a car in both places, but Minneapolis lets you get a little further without one. Two light-rail lines link the airport, the Mall of America, downtown and St Paul. The skyways keep downtown walks indoors in winter, and protected bike lanes and the Midtown Greenway make cycling the best way to reach the lakes.

In Winter Park, a free shuttle links the ski base, the town and Fraser, which is enough for a ski week. But lodgings are spread along the highway, and trailheads and the national park need a car. Getting there from Denver means crossing Berthoud Pass, in whatever weather it brings.

Of the two, Minneapolis is the one where you can actually go shopping, though it is more convenient than memorable. Besides the hundreds of chain stores at the Mall of America, Nicollet Mall is the main downtown street, and the artists' studios and makers' shops of Northeast are busiest on their open-studio weekends. Local goods are mostly Scandinavian-heritage crafts and northwoods outdoor wear. Luxury labels are thin on the ground, and there are no old market halls to browse.

Winter Park's shops are there to keep a mountain trip going: ski and snowboard tuning, bike shops, outdoor clothing and a few souvenir stores at the base village. They are useful when you have forgotten your gloves, but for anything more you have to drive to Denver.

Minneapolis is easier on the wallet. The art institute, the Sculpture Garden and the lakes cost nothing, light rail is cheap, and the immigrant kitchens and taprooms are good value. That keeps daily spending moderate by American standards.

A winter week in Winter Park means lift tickets, rentals, lessons and resort-priced meals, with few cheap places to eat. A condo with a kitchen in Fraser helps. Summer costs much less, because the trails are free and lodging rates drop.

Minneapolis is a serious city for theatre and music. It has the Guthrie with its bridge over the Mississippi, touring Broadway shows on Hennepin Avenue, the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall, opera and chamber music at the Ordway, and First Avenue, the club tied to Prince. There is something worth booking most nights of the year.

Winter Park has free summer concerts in the town park with the mountains behind, and a band in an après-ski bar in winter. For a play or a symphony, you spend the evening in Denver.

Winter Park is the better place to unwind. It has clean mountain air, a hot tub in most condos and lodges after a day outside, and a few spas for tired legs. About half an hour west, Hot Sulphur Springs has mineral pools stepping down a hillside above the Colorado River. Late spring and autumn are the calmest weeks.

Minneapolis has no hot springs, but it does have a Nordic sauna tradition. In winter, saunas are set up on frozen lakes, with a cold plunge to follow. Otherwise there are ordinary day spas and the local habit of a calm walk round a lake at dusk.