Sarajevo or Skopje?

You can't do a beach trip from either city, and both are about three hours by road from the nearest proper swimming. The difference is the water you end up in. From Sarajevo you would go on to the salt water of the Croatian or Montenegrin Adriatic. From Skopje you would go to the freshwater shores of Lake Ohrid.

Closer to home, Sarajevo has cold mountain rivers and the lake at Jablanica on the road south. Skopje's Matka reservoir is for kayaking, not swimming, so in summer it is the city pools.

Sarajevo eats a little better. Its ćevapi in soft somun with kajmak are a dish to travel for, the pita bakeries sell burek by weight, and slow dishes such as begova čorba keep the Ottoman kitchen alive. Bosnian coffee from a copper džezva, with a cube of sugar and rahat lokum, is a ritual worth fitting into your days.

Skopje's cooking is homelier: tavche gravche in clay dishes, ajvar, and pastrmajlija in the bazaar grills. Its strength is the wine, and long tavern dinners in Debar Maalo with live music. In both cities you will have worked through the local dishes within a few days.

Sarajevo has the deeper set of sights. In a few streets the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque gives way to the Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals and the Old Synagogue. The Latin Bridge marks where the First World War began, and the Tunnel of Hope and the War Childhood Museum tell the story of the siege honestly. The Sarajevo Haggadah adds a medieval treasure.

Skopje's Old Bazaar is larger as a market quarter, with caravanserais and Kale Fortress above it, and the carved iconostasis in the Church of the Holy Saviour is a real find. Across the river, the bronze statues of Skopje 2014 divide opinion, and the stopped clock of the old station tells the story of the 1963 earthquake.

Evenings in both cities follow the same pattern: café-bars that move from coffee to rakija and stay sociable rather than wild. In Sarajevo the student crowd keeps cellar bars and a few small clubs going around Ferhadija late at weekends. In Skopje the terraces of Debar Maalo are the centre, with summer open-air parties near the City Park and quiet weeknights.

Sarajevo has the bigger mountains, and they are closer. The cable car rises from the Old Town to Trebević and the overgrown Olympic bobsleigh track. Jahorina and Bjelašnica, under an hour away, offer reliable skiing in winter and open ridges for hiking in summer. Lukomir's stone village above the Rakitnica canyon and rafting on the Neretva add real wild country.

Skopje has Vodno rising straight from its suburbs and the limestone walls of Matka Canyon, half an hour away, for kayaking and cliffside monasteries. The high Sar ridges and Mavrovo are further out and really need a car, and the valley's summer heat pushes walking into spring and autumn.

Sarajevo has the better day out in Mostar, reached by a scenic train through the Neretva gorge. Konjic's bunker, Blagaj's dervish house and Počitelj can be added along the way, and Višegrad's UNESCO bridge and Ottoman Travnik lie in other directions, though the roads are slow.

Skopje's best-known town, Ohrid, is too far for a day, so its trips are quieter: the painted Sarena Mosque at Tetovo, the mosaics at Stobi with the wineries beyond, and Kratovo built inside a volcanic crater. Crossing into Kosovo for Prizren's old town is something Sarajevo has no equivalent for, and buses reach most places.

Neither city is built around children, though both make families welcome. Sarajevo's flat Old Town, the carriage ride to Vrelo Bosne and gentle skiing in winter work well, but its sights are heavy with war and winter smog is hard on small lungs. Skopje offers the City Park with its funfair and a boat in Matka Canyon, while summer heat and busy roads wear children out quickly.

Sarajevo is easier to move around. Its long, narrow valley gives the city a simple shape, and the tram line, which dates from the nineteenth century, runs from Baščaršija out to Ilidža and covers most of what a visitor needs. Away from that corridor, steep steps and a confusing network of buses take over.

Skopje's sights are also within a flat walk along the Vardar, but there is no tram, and the red double-decker buses are hard for a newcomer to work out. In practice that means cheap taxis for Vodno, Matka and the bus station.

Shopping in both cities centres on the old bazaar, and neither has much design or luxury beyond it. Sarajevo is better for crafts, with coppersmiths still hammering on Kazandžiluk and kilims and slippers around the Bezistan. Skopje has silver filigree and the everyday Bit Pazar, with its spices, cheese and peppers, and Ohrid pearls and local wine are the usual things to carry home.

These are two of the cheapest capitals in Europe, and money goes just as far in either. Sarajevo's bargains are its grills, pita bakeries and trams, though prices rise a little in the Old Town during the summer film festival. In Skopje a tavern dinner with wine costs very little, and most of the main sights are free.

Both have the opera, ballet and philharmonic of a small capital, and plays mostly in the local language. Each also has a respected autumn jazz festival. Sarajevo adds MESS for international theatre and the melancholy sevdah heard in traditional restaurants. Skopje puts on a summer festival in the Old Bazaar and at the fortress, and starogradska songs play in the Debar Maalo taverns.

Sarajevo is the better place to unwind. Ilidža's sulphurous springs, in use since Roman times, have a proper spa complex at the end of the tram line, and the streams of Vrelo Bosne are a short walk on. The one drawback is the winter smog in the valley.

Skopje's Ottoman hamams have become galleries, and Katlanovska Banja, half an hour out, has mineral pools in an old sanatorium rather than a polished spa. Its gentlest pleasure is free: long hours over coffee on the shaded terraces of Debar Maalo.