Rotterdam or Utrecht?

Rotterdam has a real beach within its reach: the broad sandy strand at Hoek van Holland, with dunes behind and container ships gliding past, reached by metro. The water stays cold and the wind rarely drops, so it is a place for a bracing walk more than a swim.

Utrecht is inland, and the coast at Zandvoort or Scheveningen is an hour or more away by train. On a hot day locals cool off in lakes such as the Maarsseveense Plassen instead, which are pleasant but no substitute for the sea.

Rotterdam eats more broadly. Its port history shows on the plate, with Surinamese roti shops, Turkish bakeries and Moroccan, Indonesian and Cape Verdean kitchens, and the Markthal's food hall and the Witte de Withstraat make easy starting points. Waterfront terraces in Katendrecht add a harbour view.

Utrecht's appeal is more the setting than the cooking: dining on the old Oudegracht wharves, right at the water below street level, is a fine way to spend an evening. Beyond that, the student city keeps everyday eating casual, with bistros around the Twijnstraat and Lombok, and fine dining is thin in both.

These two are evenly matched, but they offer almost opposite things. Rotterdam is a city to look up at: the Erasmus Bridge, the tilted Cube Houses, the mirrored Depot Boijmans van Beuningen and the towers of the Kop van Zuid, with old Rotterdam surviving mainly in Delfshaven.

Utrecht gives you the medieval Netherlands, with the Dom Tower to climb, its cloister and the unique double-level canal. Modern design appears here too, but at a domestic scale, in the Rietveld Schröder House and the De Stijl rooms of the Centraal Museum.

Rotterdam has the bigger night out, mainly because of its clubs. As the home of gabber, it runs techno and house nights in warehouses and harbour venues that pull crowds from across the country, while bars along the Witte de Withstraat and the Oude Haven cover the earlier hours.

Utrecht is a bar town run by students, which means the centre is busy even midweek, with drinks on the Neude, the Janskerkhof and the canal wharves. For anything bigger, people take the train to Amsterdam.

Both sit in flat, cycling country, and the difference is water against woodland. Around Rotterdam the outdoors is the Kralingse Bos lake, the tidal creeks of the Biesbosch for canoeing and birdwatching, and the dunes at Hoek van Holland for coastal walks and kitesurfing.

Utrecht has a little more variety for walkers. The wooded ridges and heath of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug offer forest trails, the Vecht leads cyclists past country estates, and the Loosdrecht lakes are good for sailing. Neither has true hiking.

Both are superb rail bases, so the difference lies in which way you lean. Rotterdam has Delft a quarter of an hour away, Kinderdijk by water bus, and Belgium within reach, with Antwerp about an hour off and Bruges and Ghent possible on a long day.

Utrecht puts Amsterdam under half an hour away and opens up the east, with Kasteel de Haar, fortified Naarden, the Kröller-Müller Museum and the open-air museum near Arnhem.

Both are easy and relaxed with children, though the outings differ. Rotterdam has the bigger set pieces: Blijdorp zoo with its ocean hall, the hands-on harbour at the Maritime Museum, and water taxis and boat tours that most ages enjoy.

Utrecht suits younger children well, with the Railway Museum in its old station, the Miffy museum for toddlers and a fairy-tale day at Kasteel de Haar. The stream of bikes in its narrow streets needs watching.

Utrecht is the easier city to get around. The station opens straight onto the old town, and the Dom, the canals and nearly every museum are a short, flat walk away, so many visitors never use local transport at all.

Rotterdam has an excellent network of metro, trams and water taxis across the Maas, but it needs it: the postwar centre is spread out, and the walks between sights can be long and windy.

Equal in range, different in feel. Rotterdam is the place for big-name high-street shopping, concentrated along the pioneering pedestrian Lijnbaan, the Beurstraverse and the Bijenkorf, with independents on the Meent and Nieuwe Binnenweg.

Utrecht is better for browsing small shops on the wharves, the Twijnstraat and the Elisabethstraat, with the chains tucked into the Hoog Catharijne mall by the station and a flower market on the Janskerkhof. Neither does luxury labels.

Both are costly, with restaurant meals and drinks at full Dutch prices, but the savings fall in different places. Rotterdam's hotels are plentiful and quieter at weekends, which makes beds easier to find.

In Utrecht the scarce rooms in the historic centre are the main expense, but you spend almost nothing on getting around, and student cafés keep lunch cheap.

Jazz in Rotterdam, early music in Utrecht: the two cities give equal weight to live music but draw quite different audiences. Each July the North Sea Jazz Festival fills Rotterdam with hundreds of acts over a long weekend. Through the rest of the year the Rotterdam Philharmonic plays its season at De Doelen, which also books jazz and world music.

Utrecht's Festival Oude Muziek is one of Europe's leading gatherings for early music. Its TivoliVredenburg stacks several halls on top of one another, so a classical concert, a pop gig and an experimental set can all run on the same evening. Neither city has an opera house, and most theatre in both is in Dutch.

Neither is a place to slow down for its own sake, and both rely on the large Dutch sauna complexes on their outskirts, usually textile-free in the sauna areas. Rotterdam's brisk port pace means locals unwind in the Kralingse Bos or along the water.

Utrecht's calm comes more easily once the day visitors leave, in evenings on the canal wharves or in the quiet Pandhof cloister garden beside the Dom.