Mostar or Split?

For beaches the difference is total. Mostar is inland, and the emerald Neretva is too cold for more than a quick plunge off the rocks. The real swim is a trip to the pool beneath the Kravica waterfalls, or more than an hour's drive to the sea at Neum.

In Split the Adriatic is part of daily life. Bačvice has shallow sand and locals playing picigin, and the pine-shaded coves around Marjan are quieter. Most of the shore is pebble or concrete, and the city beaches fill up in high summer, but the islands are a ferry ride away.

Both cities serve burek for breakfast and like a coffee that lasts an hour, but Split has more range. Mostar's cooking is Bosnian with an Ottoman accent: charcoal-grilled ćevapi in somun bread, stuffed peppers and slow stews, with Herzegovina's Žilavka and Blatina wines to drink. It is satisfying, but the choice soon runs out.

Split adds the sea: grilled fish, black risotto, pašticada, octopus under the peka bell, and the fish market and Pazar to show what is in season. The best tables are in the konobas of Varoš rather than inside the palace walls.

Each city has one great monument and a small set of sights around it, and in both you can see the main sights in a day or two. Mostar's is the Old Bridge, a sixteenth-century Ottoman arch destroyed in the war and rebuilt, with divers jumping from it. Around it are the bazaar, the minaret of Koski Mehmed Pasha and the war-scarred front line, so the city tells a story of conflict and repair.

Split's Diocletian's Palace has a greater depth of history. It is a Roman complex people still live in, with the cathedral set inside the emperor's mausoleum and the substructures underneath. The Meštrović Gallery and the Archaeological Museum give Split a real museum side that Mostar lacks.

Split has a real summer night scene. Bars fill the palace stairways until late, and the Bačvice clubs run into the early hours. In Mostar the evening is a long dinner facing the lit bridge, and the old town goes quiet once the day visitors leave, with only a few student clubs on weekends. Out of season the gap narrows, because Split also shrinks to a glass of wine with locals.

Both cities sit among bare limestone mountains, but Split puts the outdoors within easier reach and adds the sea. Marjan's forest trails start on foot from the old town, Mosor and Kozjak give ridge hikes above the coast, and sea kayaking, sailing, the Cetina canyon and Krka's waterfalls are all close.

Mostar's landscape is wilder and harder to get into. The Prenj massif, rafting on the upper Neretva, the Blidinje plateau and the birdlife of Hutovo Blato mostly need a car and some planning, and the valley's summer heat limits walking to spring and autumn.

Split is the easier and broader base. Trogir and Šibenik, both with UNESCO-listed old cores, are an easy run up the coast, Salona and Klis are on the city's edge, and ferries reach Hvar, Brač and Vis without a car.

Mostar's outings are smaller and more intimate: the dervish tekke at Blagaj, walled Počitelj, Stolac's stećci tombstones and the bridges of Konjic and Jablanica. Most need a car or a tour, and Sarajevo makes a long day by train through the gorge.

Neither city has much built for children, but Split is easier with them. The shallow water at Bačvice, room to run on Marjan and a ferry to an island make simple, reliable days. Mostar holds young children for an afternoon of bridge divers and a minaret climb, and Kravica makes a good swimming day. Its slippery, steep lanes and fierce valley heat are harder going, though families get a warm welcome at the table.

You walk everywhere in both centres, on stone worn smooth enough to need good shoes. The difference is what happens when you leave the centre. Split's ferry port, bus station and railway station sit together on the harbour, and local buses reach Solin and Trogir, so you can manage without a car.

In Mostar the buses serve residents, and Blagaj, Počitelj and Kravica really need a car, taxi or tour. Only the train and the long-distance buses link it easily to the wider region.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but what you can buy differs. Mostar's Kujundžiluk is a single bazaar street where a few coppersmiths still hammer coffee sets by hand among imported souvenir stock. Split has the mainstream chains on Marmontova, and the Pazar market, where dried figs, honey, olive oil and Dalmatian wine make better things to take home than anything sold inside the palace.

Mostar is much cheaper. Guesthouses, grilled meat, local wine and coffee all cost little, and only the bridge-view terraces and old-town rooms in midsummer charge more. Split in July and August costs about as much as a large Western European city, especially for rooms near the palace, fish sold by weight and island ferries for a family. Bakeries, the market and May, June or late September bring it closer to reasonable.

Split gives more to an evening out at a performance. Its 19th-century Croatian National Theatre stages opera and ballet that need no translation, the Summer Festival uses the Peristyle as an open-air stage, and klapa singers fill the palace vestibule with unaccompanied harmony. Mostar's national and youth theatres mostly play in local languages, and outside summer concerts its live music is mostly the odd café band.

Neither city has a living bath culture, so rest in both comes mostly from the pace of the day. Mostar's version is narrower but real. The old hammam by the bridge is a monument rather than somewhere to bathe, and there is little to book beyond a treatment in one of a few hotels. Its reward is the quiet at either end of the day, when the day-trippers have moved on and you can sit above the Neretva with nothing louder than the water.

Split gives you more ways to switch off when the old town gets noisy. The larger resort hotels along the coast east of the centre have spas and massage rooms, Marjan's pine woods are a short walk from the palace but feel far from its crowds, and a morning ferry takes you to an island where everything slows further. The Dalmatian idea of fjaka, a deliberate unhurried idleness, comes most easily outside July and August, when the city has room to breathe.