Montreal or Vancouver?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Vancouver has more of a beach life. English Bay, Kitsilano and the long sands of Jericho and Spanish Banks are inside the city and face the mountains. On summer evenings they fill with picnics, volleyball and people watching the sunset, and the saltwater pool at Kitsilano offers a warmer swim than the sea.

Montreal's options are fewer and more organised: the supervised lake beach at Parc Jean-Drapeau, the small river beach at Verdun, and the sandy shore at Oka about an hour away. The lake water there is actually warmer in July than Vancouver's sea, but the season is short and the beaches feel like an afternoon extra.

Both are very good places to eat. Montreal is slightly ahead because it has a food culture of its own: wood-fired bagels, smoked meat, poutine, sugar-shack maple meals in spring, and bistros with French roots serving game and Quebec cheeses. The bring-your-own-wine restaurants of the Plateau and Little Italy make dinner more relaxed.

Vancouver's strength comes from across the Pacific. Cantonese dim sum and seafood in the city and in Richmond, Korean barbecue, ramen and cheap sushi counters, along with spot prawns, oysters and Dungeness crab, make it the pick for Asian food and fish. Granville Island's market is its answer to Jean-Talon.

Montreal has far more history to walk through. Old Montreal's 18th- and 19th-century stone warehouses, the gilded blue interior of Notre-Dame Basilica, Pointe-à-Callière on the founding site and Saint Joseph's Oratory fill a couple of days. The Museum of Fine Arts has the stronger collection.

Vancouver is younger and offers less, but it has one thing Montreal cannot match: the Museum of Anthropology, whose glass hall of Northwest Coast totem poles and canoes is the best way into First Nations art in either city. Gastown's Victorian brick and the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Garden take only a few hours more.

This is where the two cities differ most. Montreal's bars serve until 3am and students fill them every night. Boulevard Saint-Laurent runs from cocktail bars to clubs, with after-hours electronic parties and summer terraces on pedestrian streets.

Vancouver goes to bed earlier. A night out means cocktails in Gastown, brewery taprooms around Main Street or a summer patio, and clubbing is confined to the Granville strip at weekends. Both have a long-established gay quarter: the Village in Montreal and Davie Village in Vancouver's West End.

Vancouver has wild country on its doorstep in a way few cities do. Grouse, Cypress and Seymour rise across the harbour, with forest trails in summer and night skiing in winter. Stanley Park's cedars and seawall are minutes from downtown, and the Sea-to-Sky Highway leads to the climbing walls at Squamish and on to Whistler. Kayaking, whale watching and the autumn salmon runs add the water.

Montreal's outdoors is gentler and more seasonal: walks up Mount Royal, cycling along the Lachine Canal, river surfing below the Lachine Rapids, and the Laurentians and Eastern Townships about an hour and a half away. Its best moment is the autumn colour in early October, while deep winter can stop outdoor plans altogether.

Montreal has a better choice of places to visit within reach. Ottawa, with its Parliament buildings, the Rideau Canal and national museums, is an easy train ride away. The Eastern Townships add Loyalist villages, covered bridges and cider routes, and Quebec City is close enough for an overnight stay.

Vancouver's outings are mostly about scenery. Victoria is the big prize, but the ferry makes it a long day, and the others, Steveston, Fort Langley and Bowen Island, are small. Each city has a mountain resort village for a day out, Mont-Tremblant to the north of Montreal and Whistler up the coast from Vancouver.

Both are safe, relaxed cities where children are welcome, so the choice comes down to the kind of day out. Montreal groups its attractions around the Olympic Park: the Biodome with its rainforest and polar habitats, the Insectarium and the Botanical Garden. It also has the Expo 67 amusement park, and Granby Zoo is about an hour away.

Vancouver's family days happen more outdoors: the aquarium, miniature train and seawall in Stanley Park, the suspension bridges over the North Shore canyons and the gondola up Grouse. Montreal's drawback is the winter cold and Vancouver's is the rain, so summer is the easiest season in both.

Montreal moves underground and Vancouver moves above it. Montreal's metro runs on rubber tyres along four colour-coded lines, is easy to learn and reaches the Olympic Park and the islands of Parc Jean-Drapeau. In winter the underground walkways link the metro to the downtown malls and keep you out of the cold, though icy streets are still a nuisance outside them.

Vancouver relies on the driverless SkyTrain, which comes straight in from the airport, and the SeaBus across the harbour, and the seawall makes cycling the most pleasant way round. The downtown districts are as easy to walk as Old Montreal and the Plateau. Kitsilano, the university and the North Shore trails need buses or seasonal shuttles, though, so the outdoors takes more effort to reach than the sights in the centre.

Montreal is the better city for department stores and independent design. Vancouver is better for outdoor gear and Indigenous art. Montreal has a little more range overall: the big stores along Rue Sainte-Catherine, the luxury end around Ogilvy in the Golden Square Mile, and the Quebec designers, vintage clothing and record shops of the Plateau, Mile End and Saint-Henri. Maple products and ice cider make easy gifts to carry home.

Vancouver's chains and flagships gather on Robson Street, but its strengths lie elsewhere. It has technical outdoor clothing from the brands that started there, glassblowers and artists' studios on Granville Island, and Northwest Coast prints, carvings and jewellery, which are the most distinctive things to take home. Richmond's Asian malls have no equivalent in Montreal.

Neither city is cheap, but your money goes noticeably further in Montreal. Its hotels cost about what you would pay in other North American cities. Much of the best eating is casual, from bagels to market food, and bring-your-own-wine restaurants keep drink costs down. Free festival concerts help in summer, and winter is the cheapest time to stay.

Vancouver is expensive to stay in, with few inexpensive beds near the centre and paid North Shore attractions that add up for a family. On the plus side, its best assets, Stanley Park, the seawall and the beaches, cost nothing, and dim sum and noodle shops are good value.

Montreal has much the stronger stage. Place des Arts is home to the symphony, the opera and Les Grands Ballets, and a large French-language theatre scene plays at houses such as the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. The National Circus School and TOHU make contemporary circus a local speciality, and in summer the International Jazz Festival fills the Quartier des Spectacles with free open-air concerts.

Vancouver's performing arts are solid but mainly local: the symphony in the ornate Orpheum, opera and Ballet BC at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and in summer Bard on the Beach in Vanier Park and the folk festival on Jericho Beach. Its indie venues do not have the reputation of those in Mile End.

Montreal has the more distinct bathing culture: the Nordic spa circuit of hot pools, saunas and cold plunges, used all year round. In the city you can do it on Nuns' Island or aboard a converted ferry in the Old Port, and bigger forest spas are an hour north. Summer terraces and picnics in Parc La Fontaine set an easy pace.

Vancouver relaxes through its setting instead, with yoga studios, hotel day spas, reflexology in Chinatown and Richmond, and slow walks along the seawall. Its Nordic-style spas are a drive away, near Whistler.