Nagoya or Nara?

Neither city is a beach destination, but only Nagoya gives you the option. Beaches on the Chita Peninsula such as Utsumi are about an hour away by train, and ferries run on to small islands like Shinojima. In high summer they make a pleasant but ordinary day out, with sheltered water that is not very clear.

Nara is inland and ringed by hills, so a swim means a hotel or public pool. The Osaka Bay shore is industrial, and the clear water of the Kii Peninsula takes most of a day to reach.

Nagoya eats far better. Its regional cooking includes grilled eel hitsumabushi finished with broth, miso katsu, peppery tebasaki wings and misonikomi udon, and each dish has its own specialist restaurants. Morning-service breakfasts, the department-store food halls and Osu's street snacks fill the gaps between meals.

Nara's food is small in range and worth tasting rather than travelling for: persimmon-leaf sushi, narazuke pickles, Miwa somen and local sake at brewery counters in Naramachi. Kitchens near the park mostly serve quick lunches and close early, so many visitors go to Osaka or Kyoto for a serious dinner.

Nagoya's heritage is largely reconstruction. Little of the feudal city survived the war, so its castle and palace are careful rebuilds, set apart from one another across wide modern streets, with Atsuta Shrine and the Tokugawa samurai collection as the older threads. Where it beats Nara is the twentieth century. Its car and railway museums tell the story of Japanese industry, a subject Nara does not touch.

Nara has the real thing, and in depth. Its temples and shrines go back to the age when it was the capital and have stayed in use ever since, and its Buddhist sculpture is among the oldest and finest in Japan. Most of it lies close together around the park, not scattered across town. Nagoya rewards a selective half-day of sights, but Nara repays slow days on foot, moving from one temple precinct to the next.

Nagoya has a real night scene and Nara barely has one. In Sakae and Nishiki, narrow buildings are stacked with izakaya, tiny bars, karaoke and a few dance clubs that fill at weekends, and some places stay open until morning. Midweek, though, it is mostly office workers eating and drinking after work.

Nara goes quiet once the day visitors leave. An evening out means an izakaya near Kintetsu Nara station, a sake counter or a small bar in the arcades, and there are no clubs. For more than that you take the train to Osaka and keep an eye on the last train back.

There is little to choose between them, but the green spaces are of a different kind. Nara's are on the doorstep: the deer lawns and ponds of Nara Park, the ancient Kasugayama Primeval Forest and an easy climb up Mount Wakakusa. Further out are the Yamanobe-no-michi path along the foothills and Yoshino's blossom hills.

Nagoya sits on a built-up plain, so in town nature means parks and the gardens of Tokugawaen and Shirotori. Its landscapes begin an hour or more away: the ropeway on Mount Gozaisho, Korankei's autumn maples, the Nakasendo through the Kiso Valley and the pearl-farming inlets of the Ise-Shima coast.

Both are superb bases, and Nara has the edge. Kyoto and Osaka are each well under an hour away, and Horyu-ji's ancient wooden buildings are a short ride from the centre. Asuka's burial mounds, Uji's tea and the Byodo-in, the mountain temples of Hase-dera and Muro-ji, and Himeji's castle on a longer day give it a remarkably deep list of easy outings.

Nagoya gives up some closeness for range. Kyoto is a quick shinkansen ride and Ise Jingu about an hour and a half by train. Nearer home are the original castle keeps at Inuyama and Hikone, the pottery towns of Seto and Tokoname, and the post towns of Tsumago and Magome.

Nagoya is much the stronger choice with children. The port aquarium with its orcas and belugas, the vast Higashiyama Zoo, the Science Museum planetarium, the railway museum's bullet trains, Legoland and Ghibli Park could fill a week, and Nagashima Spa Land's roller coasters are under an hour away. The catch is the long train rides between them.

Nara gives children one unforgettable experience: feeding the bowing deer in the park. They also enjoy the Great Buddha and squeezing through the hole in Todai-ji's pillar. Beyond that there is little made for them, and families usually head to Osaka for an aquarium or theme park.

Both are easy to get around without a car, but in different ways. Nara's main sights lie within walking distance of Kintetsu Nara station, and local trains, buses and rental bicycles on the flat basin cover the western temples and Horyu-ji.

Nagoya's wide postwar avenues are easy to navigate but tiring to walk. Beyond the walkable area of Sakae, the castle and Osu, you rely on the subway, a sightseeing loop bus and a single IC card that also works on the railways.

Nagoya is the place to shop. It has department stores around Sakae and in the towers above the station, luxury brands on the avenues between them, and covered arcades in Osu full of secondhand clothing, anime and electronics, with a flea market at the temple.

Nara's shopping is about traditional crafts: sumi ink and calligraphy brushes, Nara-zarashi linen, Akahada pottery and carved Ittobori dolls in Naramachi's specialist shops, and sweets and deer souvenirs in the arcades near the station. For anything more, people go to Osaka.

Day to day, the two cost much the same, and both keep costs down the same way: plenty of business hotels, set lunches, noodle counters and convenience stores. In Nara the park and the deer are free and the temples charge modestly hall by hall, so sightseeing stays cheap. The money goes on ryokan with dinner and rail fares for day trips.

In Nagoya, the extra costs come from the things that draw people there: eel dinners, shinkansen outings and theme park tickets. Its morning-service breakfasts are a small saving you only find there.

Nagoya has a regular programme. There are opera, ballet and orchestras at the Aichi Arts Center, a season from the Nagoya Philharmonic, kabuki at the Misono-za, Noh at the theatre near the castle and jazz in small live houses, though little of it is aimed at visitors who don't speak Japanese.

In Nara, performance is part of ritual. Gagaku and bugaku at Kasuga Taisha, the centuries-old On-matsuri in winter and the Omizutori fire rites at Todai-ji are remarkable if your dates line up, but on an ordinary evening there is little to see.

For bathing, Nagoya is the better choice. It has sento and large super sento with saunas and open-air pools all over the city, the Nagashima hot-spring complex under an hour away, and the classic spa town of Gero Onsen close enough for a night at a ryokan.

Nara has no hot springs of note, only a few bathhouses and some ryokan baths. Its calm comes from its pace instead: the park at dawn before the crowds, a tea house by a temple, and an old town that empties in the evening, which Nagoya's office streets cannot match.