Recife or Rio de Janeiro?

If you actually want to swim, Rio's beaches are much better. Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon lie on the hotels' doorstep, with lifeguard posts along the sand. Further west, the wilder coves of Prainha and Grumari have surf and cleaner water. The cautions are strong waves on the open ocean and polluted water inside the bay.

Recife's Boa Viagem is pleasant for sitting and walking, but because of the sharks bathers stay inside the reef, so a real swim means going an hour or more south to the natural pools of Porto de Galinhas or the lagoon at Muro Alto. Recife's sea is warmer than Rio's, which matters most in the southern winter.

The two eat about equally well, but in different styles. Recife has a regional kitchen of its own: carne de sol with macaxeira, sururu broths, crab cracked open at beach kiosks, and sweets such as bolo de rolo. Rio's eating centres on the boteco, Saturday feijoada, rodízio grills and juice bars on every Zona Sul corner, and Leblon and Botafogo have more modern restaurants than anything in Recife.

Each city fills a few good days, and Rio has the edge in famous landmarks. Its best-known sights are part of the scenery, Corcovado and Sugarloaf above all. The old centre adds the gilded São Bento monastery and the Real Gabinete reading room, and the port has its museums on Praça Mauá.

Recife's sights are more about history, and more unusual. There is the rebuilt Kahal Zur Israel synagogue from the Dutch period, the Capela Dourada, and the Brennand castle and ceramic sculpture garden, which have no equivalent in Rio. The centre is run-down in places between these highlights, but the colonial streets of Olinda are just over the city line.

Rio's nights are bigger and go on later. On weekends, crowds fill the streets under the Lapa Arches and clubs stay open until dawn. Pavement bars spread through Botafogo and Humaitá, Leblon has smarter cocktail bars, and baile funk parties are louder and rougher.

Recife's evenings mean plastic tables, cold beer and live forró around Rua da Moeda. They are relaxed and local, but on a smaller scale. At Carnival both cities turn into one long party, Rio with its street blocos and Recife with the Galo da Madrugada and the streets of Olinda.

Rio has one of the most dramatic settings of any city. The Tijuca forest sits in the middle of town, there are steep hikes up the Dois Irmãos peak and Pedra da Gávea, hang-gliders land on São Conrado beach, and the surf is good at Arpoador. The Serra dos Órgãos, about two hours inland, offers serious hiking.

Recife is flat delta country. Nature there means boat trips on the Capibaribe, a patch of forest in its own Dois Irmãos park (no relation to Rio's peak) and, above all, the coast to the south: snorkelling over the Porto de Galinhas reefs, kitesurfing and mangrove kayaking near Carneiros. Hikers will find little.

Recife has the better nearby outing in Olinda, a colonial hill town a short taxi ride away that fits into an afternoon and evening, with Igarassu and Itamaracá as quieter extras. Rio's classic day out, imperial Petrópolis, is an hour and a half up into the hills, and the ferry to Niterói is easy. But Rio's best neighbours, Paraty, Búzios and Ilha Grande, are three hours or more away and work better as overnight stays.

Rio has a bit more to keep children busy: the cable car to Sugarloaf, the Corcovado train, AquaRio, the BioParque zoo and the cycle path round the lagoon. Small swimmers will find calmer water at Leme and Praia Vermelha.

In Recife, the highlight for children is standing in the warm reef pools at Porto de Galinhas and watching the fish, along with the zoo in the forest at Dois Irmãos park. The city itself has little for children, which is why many families stay at a resort down the coast. In both cities, parents need to cope with heat and traffic and keep an eye on belongings.

Neither city is easy to get around, but Rio is easier. Its metro runs straight along the route visitors need, from the centre through Botafogo and Copacabana to Ipanema and Leblon, and the beach districts are flat and easy to walk.

Recife's metro serves the suburbs and the airport rather than the sights. If you stay in Boa Viagem, nearly every trip to Recife Antigo or Olinda is by taxi or ride-hailing, and reaching the coast further south takes a transfer or a hire car.

Recife is the better place for handmade crafts to take home. Clay figurines, lace, hammocks and cordel woodcuts are sold from the old prison cells of the Casa da Cultura, Olinda's studios make Carnival puppets, and the best ceramics come from the potters of Alto do Moura in Caruaru.

Rio is better for clothes to wear on the beach. The boutiques of Ipanema and Leblon do Brazilian swimwear, linen and resort fashion well, and the Sunday hippie fair and the Saara market streets downtown are good for cheaper finds and Carnival costumes. Both cities have big air-conditioned malls, and neither has much in the way of luxury shopping.

Recife is the cheaper trip, mainly because seafront hotels in Boa Viagem are fairly priced, while rooms near the sand in Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon are expensive for what you get. Day-to-day costs are closer: kilo lunches, beer and ride-hailing are cheap in both, and Rio's beaches and forest trails cost nothing. Both get expensive at Carnival, and Rio at New Year as well.

Both are great music cities, each with its own sound. Recife has frevo with its umbrella dancers, the heavy drums of maracatu, the manguebeat movement it gave rise to, and forró everywhere during the June festivals. Rio has samba most nights in Lapa and at neighbourhood rodas, samba school rehearsals before Carnival and small bossa nova venues. It also has more formal performance, with opera and ballet at the Theatro Municipal.

In Recife, calm is found outside the city: a few slow days at a resort spa around Porto de Galinhas or Muro Alto, beside the still water behind the reef. Rio has more within reach in town, with yoga on the sand, an evening walk round the lagoon or the cooler streets of Santa Teresa, but there are no thermal baths in either city and both are hot and loud.