Napa or San Jose?

Neither city is a beach destination, but San Jose gets you to a proper beach day more easily. Santa Cruz, Capitola and the sheltered coves of northern Monterey Bay are about 45 minutes over the mountains and have a real surf-town feel, even if the water is too cold for most people to swim.

From Napa, the coast at Bodega Bay is over an hour away and rougher, a shore for looking at rather than lying on. Summer swimming there means Lake Berryessa or a resort pool.

Napa is the stronger food trip by a wide margin, because eating and drinking are the reason to go. There are Cabernet estates and family cellars along Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail, and Carneros Pinot and sparkling wine. Yountville and St Helena have some of the most celebrated restaurants in the country, and the Oxbow Public Market gives the town a central place to graze.

San Jose's strengths are different: the pho and banh mi of Little Saigon, serious taquerias, and Indian and Korean cooking towards Santa Clara. It does cheap, varied food from many cuisines far better than Napa, but you drive from one suburban plaza to the next rather than strolling a dining street.

San Jose gives you more to see, though it is a city of curiosities rather than grand landmarks. The Winchester Mystery House with its staircases to nowhere, the temple-style Egyptian museum and Mission Santa Clara will keep you busy for a couple of days.

Napa runs out sooner. The 1880 Opera House, the period buildings of First Street, the di Rosa art estate and the old stone wineries up the valley add up to about a day.

San Jose has a real, if low-key, night out. There are pubs and beer halls around San Pedro Square, and SoFA on South First Street has cocktail bars, dive bars and a few dance clubs that fill on Friday and Saturday.

In Napa, an evening means a long dinner and a glass at a riverside wine bar, and the town is quiet by late evening. For a bigger night, both send you to San Francisco, which is an easy Caltrain ride from San Jose but a drive from Napa.

San Jose has more varied country within reach. There are old-growth redwoods at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, ridge trails at Castle Rock and the road up Mount Hamilton. Further out are Monterey Bay's sea otters and whales, the headlands of Point Lobos and the rock spires of Pinnacles.

Napa's outdoors are gentler and more about the view. You get the vineyard floor between the Mayacamas and Vaca ranges, balloon flights at dawn and a flat cycling trail down the valley, with walks in Skyline Wilderness Park, among Bothe-Napa's redwoods or up Mount St Helena.

Both are well placed, and the difference is direction. From Napa, most day trips lead to more wine country: Sonoma's plaza and mission, Healdsburg and the Russian River valley. San Francisco is reachable by car or by ferry from Vallejo, and Sacramento's old town lies to the east.

San Jose looks towards the coast and the Peninsula, with Santa Cruz, Monterey and Carmel with Cannery Row, Stanford and Palo Alto, and San Francisco by train. Napa is the more natural base for touring wineries. San Jose suits a mix of coast, campus and city.

San Jose is much the better family base. It has a theme park next door in Santa Clara, a small zoo for younger children, two hands-on museums downtown and a mild climate that keeps most days outdoors. Suburban hotels with pools and parking make the logistics simple.

Napa is made for adults. There is an animal and theme park in Vallejo and a geyser near Calistoga, but children get little out of tasting rooms, and long winery drives in the summer heat are hard on young ones.

You need a car in both, but San Jose copes better without one. Light rail runs north and south, Caltrain is a reliable link to Palo Alto and San Francisco, and you can walk downtown between the museums, the arena and the bars. The hazard is rush-hour traffic on the freeways.

Napa's walkable centre is small. The wineries are spread over some 50km of valley, and the buses run too rarely to be of use. Since tasting and driving do not mix, many visitors hire a driver or join a tour.

San Jose is the place for clothes and brands. On the west side, a very large mall and an open-air boutique street cover most international and luxury labels in one place.

Shopping in Napa is mostly about wine, often shipped home by the case. It adds food gifts at the Oxbow market, St Helena's cookware and design shops and an outlet mall. Neither city has a historic shopping street, so come to Napa to stock the kitchen and cellar and to San Jose to fill the wardrobe.

Neither is cheap, but Napa hits harder. Resort rooms are priced for luxury travel, tastings at the big estates are costly, the famous restaurants are aimed at special occasions and a driver for tasting days adds a lot more.

San Jose is expensive too, but the Vietnamese and Mexican eateries in suburban plazas and the free parks and trails help a tight budget. The two run on opposite rhythms: Napa is dearest at weekends, while San Jose's business hotels often cost less then.

San Jose has the fuller calendar. Opera San José plays in the 1920s California Theatre, the symphony and touring Broadway shows share the Center for the Performing Arts, the arena draws big touring concerts and a long-running jazz festival fills downtown each summer.

Napa has the 1880 Opera House and an Art Deco theatre for touring acts. Its two seasonal events are a summer classical festival at wineries and a large late-spring rock festival, with little in between.

Napa is made for rest. Calistoga has drawn people to its hot springs since the nineteenth century, the resort spas work vineyard products into their treatments, and the pace of late breakfasts and long lunches does the rest. Weekdays outside summer are the calmest time.

San Jose is a working city, and unwinding there means a hotel or day spa or a Korean-style bathhouse. For quiet, there is an hour in the Japanese Friendship Garden or at Hakone, or an afternoon in leafy Los Gatos or Saratoga.