Quito or Santiago?

Neither city has any beach life, and anyone after sand should plan a separate stay elsewhere. Quito is the more cut off: the Pacific is a long day's drive or a flight away, so swimming means a hotel pool or the warm municipal pools in the valleys below town.

Santiago at least puts the coast within a day out, with Viña del Mar and the small central-coast towns under two hours away. The cold Humboldt Current keeps the water chilly even in summer, though, so most people paddle, and in the city the big pools in the Parque Metropolitano do the job on hot days.

Both cities serve hearty home cooking, but Santiago has a little more to explore. Quito's highland food is potato and corn soups, roast pork and sugared empanadas, best eaten as a set lunch or in the Mercado Central, with excellent cacao and coffee as its strongest suit and a fairly narrow range beyond them.

Santiago adds two things Quito cannot match: Pacific seafood such as sea urchins and machas clams, and wine from the valleys on its doorstep. Lastarria, Barrio Italia and Bellavista also hold more modern restaurants, though the choice thins quickly elsewhere.

This is where Quito clearly leads. Its historic centre was among the first places listed by UNESCO and survives largely intact, from the gold-covered La Compañía and the San Francisco monastery to the streets of convents around the Plaza Grande, backed by Casa del Alabado and the Guayasamín collection.

Santiago lost much of its colonial fabric to earthquakes, so its sights cluster around the Plaza de Armas and La Moneda. The pre-Columbian museum and the Museum of Memory are excellent, but most visitors finish the essentials in a few days, while Quito's old town rewards much longer wandering.

Santiago is the better city to go out in. Dinner is late, bars fill after eleven and clubs run until morning at weekends, with Bellavista loud and student-heavy and Lastarria and Barrio Italia offering calmer wine bars.

Quito's night centres on Plaza Foch in La Mariscal, with salsa clubs and backpacker bars busy from Thursday to Saturday and quiet midweek. La Ronda suits a canelazo and a stroll rather than a late night, and moving between areas after dark means a taxi.

Both cities sit right under big mountains, and the difference is in what you do there. Quito offers volcanoes and altitude: the TelefériQo to around 4,000m and the hike up Rucu Pichincha, Cotopaxi's glacier two hours south, and the cloud forest at Mindo with its extraordinary birdlife.

Santiago's Andes are about rafting, glacier trails in the Cajón del Maipo and, in winter, skiing at Valle Nevado and its neighbours within a day's reach. Its drawbacks are the sprawl you cross to reach them, winter smog and few buses to trailheads.

Santiago has the stronger choice of days out. Valparaíso, a UNESCO-listed port of hills, funiculars and street art, is easy to pair with Viña del Mar, and the Maipo and Casablanca wine estates are close enough for an afternoon.

Quito's best outing is the Saturday market at Otavalo with the weaving villages around it, and the equator at Mitad del Mundo is close by. After that, the trips worth making are mostly into the mountains and cloud forest rather than to other towns.

With children, the difference shows in how many days a family can fill comfortably. Quito has a handful of good outings: the hands-on Yaku water museum above the old town, and Parque La Carolina in the north, where pedal boats, a vivarium and playgrounds take care of an afternoon. Ecuadorians make a fuss of children, but most families use the city as a short stop on the way to the coast, the cloud forest or the Galápagos.

Santiago keeps a family busy for longer. There is a traditional amusement park in Parque O'Higgins, Buin Zoo on the southern edge of the city, and the lawns, lagoons and playgrounds of Parque Bicentenario in Vitacura, and children are welcome at restaurant tables late into the evening. Hot summer afternoons and winter smog are the things to plan around, and the eastern districts make the easiest base.

Santiago is noticeably simpler to move around. Its modern metro reaches the districts visitors use, with one card for trains and buses, and the Centro, Lastarria and Providencia are linked by pleasant walks.

Quito is a long, narrow city with one metro line and crowded bus corridors where pickpockets work at rush hour. Its old town is walkable but steep and breathless at altitude, so most visitors rely on taxis and ride-hailing.

Santiago has more range, from the big eastern malls and luxury streets of Vitacura to the independent design and vintage shops of Barrio Italia, and Pueblito Los Dominicos sells copper, lapis lazuli and Mapuche silver.

Quito's appeal is narrower but very much its own: genuine toquilla-straw Panama hats, bean-to-bar chocolate, alpaca and tagua carvings from the La Mariscal artisan market. Serious buyers save themselves for Otavalo.

Quito is the cheaper city by a clear margin. Set lunches, market juices, buses and taxis cost very little, and guesthouses in old colonial houses are good value, with costs climbing only for upmarket northern hotels, volcano tours and anything involving the Galápagos.

Santiago is closer to a mid-range southern European city. Lunch menus, empanadas and local wine are fair value and museums are cheap, but the hotels in Providencia and Las Condes, skiing and private day tours push a trip's budget up.

Santiago offers the fuller programme. The Teatro Municipal has its own opera season, ballet and philharmonic, GAM and the university theatres add contemporary work, and the Santiago a Mil festival in January fills the city with companies, though most spoken theatre is in Spanish.

Quito's stage centres on the Teatro Nacional Sucre and the national symphony, and its most distinctive offer is folk ballet in Andean costume. Add baroque concerts in old-town churches and it makes a good evening rather than a reason to visit.

Quito has the edge, though in both cities the calm lies outside town. The misty thermal pools of Papallacta, across the Andes, are a real weekend spa culture, and simpler pools like El Tingo sit in the valleys below, although the altitude makes the first days tiring rather than restful.

Santiago's springs are more rustic, from the basic pools at Baños Morales in the Cajón del Maipo to Termas de Colina on the city's edge. In town, Parque Forestal and the gardens of Cerro San Cristóbal are the quiet places.