Mostar or Sarajevo?

Neither city is built for a beach vacation, but Mostar is much closer to the water. The wide pool below the Kravica waterfalls is about 40km away, and the Adriatic at Neum is a little over an hour's drive, so a swim in the sea fits into a day.

In Sarajevo the coast is around three hours away by road, so in summer you swim in cold mountain rivers, Jablanica lake or a pool. If the sea matters, add a few nights on the coast after you leave.

Both cities cook the same Ottoman-Balkan food: ćevapi in somun bread, burek, stuffed vegetables and coffee from a copper džezva. Mostar's terraces by the bridge are aimed at visitors, and the better cooking is a few streets back. Its real strength is the local wine, Žilavka and Blatina from the hot valleys around the town.

Sarajevo does this cooking with more care and more variety. Baščaršija has grills that make little but ćevapi, served with kajmak, and pita bakeries sell their pies by weight. There is begova čorba soup, lamb cooked under a metal lid, and tufahija and baklava for dessert. Neither city has much in the way of international or fine dining.

Mostar is about one great monument and the area around it. Stari Most, rebuilt stone by stone after 1993, stands over the Kujundžiluk bazaar, the Koski Mehmed Pasha minaret and a few carpeted Ottoman houses, and the scarred former front line tells the harder story. You can see it well in a day or two.

Sarajevo has more layers and more to see. The mosques and madrasa of Baščaršija give way within minutes to Austro-Hungarian avenues, the Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals and the Old Synagogue. The Latin Bridge marks where the First World War began. The siege is remembered at the Tunnel of Hope and the War Childhood Museum, and the National Museum holds the Sarajevo Haggadah.

A night out in Mostar mostly means a long dinner on a terrace facing the lit bridge. Once the day visitors leave, the old town is quiet, and only a few bars and student clubs stay open later at weekends.

Sarajevo has more going on in the evening. Café-bars fill from the afternoon and get louder towards night, the streets around Ferhadija are lively on warm evenings, and cellar bars and small clubs stay open past midnight at weekends. Neither city has much of a club scene, but in Sarajevo an evening can carry on.

Mostar's countryside is dry karst: bare limestone, the jagged Prenj range, rafting in the Neretva canyons and the Buna gushing from the cliff at Blagaj. Birdwatchers have Hutovo Blato. The catch is the summer heat, which often goes above 35°C in the valley and makes walking in high summer hard work.

Sarajevo's mountains are closer and greener. A cable car from the Old Town climbs Trebević, past the overgrown Olympic bobsleigh track. Jahorina and Bjelašnica offer winter skiing and grassy summer ridges for hiking and biking, and they lead out to the shepherds' village of Lukomir above the Rakitnica canyon. Here you can be in the mountains in any season.

Both cities have a good range of day trips, and the best one from each is the other city, two hours apart by the train through the Neretva gorge. Konjic's bunker and Jablanica's wrecked bridge lie on the line between them. From Mostar, the other trips are short and close: Blagaj's tekke, Počitelj on its hillside, Stolac's stećci tombstones and pilgrim Međugorje, all short drives.

From Sarajevo the trips go further. Travnik has a fortress and Ivo Andrić's birthplace, and the UNESCO bridge at Višegrad is about two hours east on slow, winding roads. From either city most trips need a car or a tour.

Neither city has much made for children, and both are fine for a few days. The difference is in what you can do. In Mostar, children enjoy the bridge divers, the climb up the minaret and, above all, swimming at Kravica, but the steep, polished cobbles are hard with a pushchair and summer is very hot.

Sarajevo's Old Town is flat and easy to walk with children. The cable car, the carriage ride to Vrelo Bosne, the small zoo and gentle winter skiing give you more outings. On the other hand, the main sights are about war, and grill smoke and winter smog are hard on small lungs.

You can walk everything in Mostar's centre, from the bridge along the river to the Austro-Hungarian streets. Beyond that you need a car, a taxi or a tour, because the city buses are not much use to visitors.

Sarajevo has real public transport. The tram runs along the valley floor from Baščaršija to Ilidža, trolleybuses and minibuses climb the slopes, and taxis are cheap and easy to find. Off the tram line the network is harder to work out, and the Tunnel of Hope and the ski mountains are still easiest by taxi or car.

Both cities have an old coppersmiths' street where craftsmen still hammer coffee sets by hand. Mostar's Kujundžiluk is a single lane up to the bridge, and much of what it sells is imported souvenir stock, so look for someone actually working in a doorway.

Sarajevo's Kazandžiluk is part of a larger bazaar, with the old Bezistan covered market and lanes selling kilims, leather slippers and filigree jewellery. That gives you more to look through, though you still need to check what is handmade. Away from the bazaars, neither city offers much beyond ordinary malls.

Both are among the cheapest places to visit in Europe, and the costs are much the same: ćevapi, pastries and coffee cost little in either, and so do family guesthouses. Where prices rise is different. In Mostar it is the terraces with bridge views and old-town rooms in midsummer. In Sarajevo it is the Old Town and the summer film festival, while trams and museum tickets stay cheap all year.

Mostar has little in the way of stage life for visitors. Its national and youth theatres perform mostly in local languages, and apart from open-air concerts in summer, live music usually means a band in a café bar.

Sarajevo has a proper season. The National Theatre stages opera and ballet as well as drama, the Philharmonic plays regularly, and the MESS theatre festival in autumn and the jazz festival in November are worth planning around. You may also hear sevdah, the slow Bosnian love songs, in traditional restaurants.

Sarajevo has the one real spa of the two. At Ilidža, at the end of the tram line, thermal springs used since Roman times feed warm pools and treatments, and the shaded avenue at Vrelo Bosne makes a calm walk afterwards.

Mostar's old hammam is a historic building rather than a working bath, and spa treatments are limited to a few hotels. What relaxes you here is the pace of the place: long coffees in the shade and the quiet early mornings by the river before the day visitors arrive.