Niagara Falls or Quebec City?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Niagara Falls has more to offer. Lake Erie, half an hour south, has soft sand and shallow water at Crystal Beach and around Port Colborne, warm enough by late summer for a proper family afternoon.

Quebec City's St Lawrence is cold, tidal and fast. The Baie de Beauport beach is for sunbathing and volleyball, and swimming means driving to Lac Saint-Joseph or Lac-Beauport, where the season is shorter.

Quebec City eats far better. Niagara's town is mostly chains, diners and steakhouses with gorge views at a premium, and its good food is out among the wineries, with their seasonal menus, peaches and icewine.

Quebec has a cuisine of its own: tourtière, pea soup, sugar pie and maple-season meals at the sugar shacks. Its best tables are in the bistros of Saint-Roch and Saint-Jean-Baptiste, which cook with cheese, duck and cider from the Île d'Orléans and Charlevoix. Avoid the set-menu places inside the walls and the city is a real pleasure to eat in.

There is no real contest. In Niagara Falls almost everything is the falls themselves. The heritage that exists, the early hydro stations, Brock's Monument at Queenston Heights and the Lundy's Lane battlefield, makes a few hours, and Clifton Hill's wax museums are entertainment rather than history.

Quebec City's UNESCO-listed old town is the only walled city north of Mexico. The Château Frontenac, the Citadelle, Petit-Champlain's stone houses, the basilica and the Ursuline convent fill days, and the Plains of Abraham and the Musée de la civilisation explain the history of New France.

Quebec City makes the better night out, though neither is a clubbing city. Niagara's evenings are the illuminated falls, summer fireworks, two casinos and the sports bars of Clifton Hill, a resort crowd of families and groups that thins out in winter.

Quebec has distinct quarters to choose from: party terraces on the Grande Allée, taprooms and student pubs along Rue Saint-Jean, and the cocktail and wine bars of Saint-Roch where locals drink. The university keeps it younger and later, even if dancing is rare.

Both cities have a great waterfall, and Quebec City has more around it. The Horseshoe Falls carry far more water than Montmorency and are the more overwhelming sight, with boats into the mist, tunnels behind the curtain and the Niagara Glen and Whirlpool below. Beyond the gorge, though, Niagara's country turns to gentle orchards and vineyards.

Quebec has Montmorency Falls, taller than Niagara, just 15 minutes away, and within an hour the boreal valley of Jacques-Cartier national park and the ski slopes of Mont-Sainte-Anne and Le Massif. A long winter of cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and skating gives it a second season Niagara lacks.

The two are evenly matched, but the outings differ. From Niagara Falls the choice is wide: the clapboard streets and wineries of Niagara-on-the-Lake, a full day of museums in Toronto by train, or Buffalo's early skyscrapers and Frank Lloyd Wright houses across the border with a passport.

Quebec's trips are rural and cultural: the parishes, cideries and farm stands of the Île d'Orléans, the pilgrimage basilica at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, the Huron-Wendat community at Wendake, and the galleries of Baie-Saint-Paul. Almost all of them need a car.

Children do equally well in both, in different seasons. Niagara Falls is a summer family town: the boats and tunnels at the falls, the arcades and observation wheel on Clifton Hill, and a compact, pushchair-friendly area that a few days covers, though the paid attractions add up.

Quebec City shines in winter, with the toboggan slide on the Dufferin Terrace, skating rinks and the carnival snowman. It also has the aquarium with its polar bears and walruses, which Niagara cannot match, but its stairways and steep streets are hard work with a pushchair.

Both have walkable centres joined by a funicular, and the difference is the terrain. Niagara's promenade, hotels and Clifton Hill sit close together on fairly easy ground, with visitor buses along the parkway, but the town sprawls into motel strips beyond.

Quebec's sights also lie within walking distance, but the cliff between upper and lower town means stairs and steep streets that turn icy in winter. In both, the countryside, whether wineries or ski hills, is far easier with a car.

Quebec City is the more rewarding place to shop. Niagara's tourist area sells ponchos, magnets and maple syrup, and its real draw is the outlet centres on the edge of town, where brands sell at discount, plus icewine to take home.

Quebec has craft workshops, milliners and galleries in Petit-Champlain, antiques on Rue Saint-Paul and independent design shops on Rue Saint-Joseph. Its souvenirs are better too: cheeses, ice cider, woollens and Inuit and First Nations art.

Costs are similar, and in both the main sight is free: the falls from the promenade, or the walls and the Dufferin Terrace. Niagara's costs swing sharply, with expensive view hotels in summer, cheap outer motels and bargains in winter, while the boats and attractions add up for families.

In Quebec the expensive rooms are inside the walls, and Saint-Roch or Sainte-Foy are cheaper. Tax and tip on restaurant bills push up the cost of eating out.

Quebec City has more live culture of its own. Niagara's town offers casino comedians and tribute acts, but the Shaw Festival's repertory theatre, twenty minutes away in Niagara-on-the-Lake, is a serious draw for English-speaking theatre lovers over a long season.

Quebec has Canada's oldest symphony orchestra and an opera company at the Grand Théâtre, experimental work at Robert Lepage's Le Diamant, and the Festival d'été's outdoor stages on the Plains of Abraham in July. Most of its theatre is in French.

Neither city has historic baths or thermal springs, so the difference is in how spa time fits into the trip. In Niagara Falls it is an extra rather than a reason to come: a massage in one of the hotels above the falls, or at a wine-country inn after a day of tastings. Niagara-on-the-Lake's slower streets make the calmer base.

Quebec City has a bathing habit of its own, and that puts it well ahead. Several Nordic spas lie within half an hour, around Lac-Beauport and along the river, and there is one in the old port. They are best in deep winter, when steam rises off the pools into the snow. Long café afternoons in Saint-Jean-Baptiste fill the rest of a slow day.