Tainan or Taipei?

Neither city is worth choosing for a beach trip, but Taipei gives swimmers more. Tainan's own shore at the Golden Coast and Yuguang Island is grey sand and lagoons for sunset walks, and strong currents often keep people out of the water.

From Taipei, Fulong's golden spit is about an hour away by train and Baishawan lies beyond Tamsui, with a swimming season from about June to September. Lifeguarded stretches are short and rip currents are common, but you can actually swim there, which in Tainan you mostly can't.

Both are among Taiwan's great places to eat, and the difference is in kind. Tainan is a grazing city: beef soup at dawn, milkfish porridge, danzai noodles and coffin bread from single-dish stalls around the temples and along Guohua Road, all cooked sweeter than in the north.

Taipei adds range. Raohe and Ningxia cover the night-market classics, and the city also has xiaolongbao houses, beef noodle shops, serious restaurants with tasting menus, oolong grown in its own hills and a strong speciality coffee culture in Da'an. Go to Tainan for snack heritage and to Taipei for variety and a sit-down dinner.

The two are level here, but they show their history in different ways. Tainan was the island's capital for more than two centuries, and the past is the streetscape. The Confucius Temple, Chihkan Tower, the Anping forts and hundreds of incense-filled temples sit around the old centre, with the Chimei Museum's European paintings and violins to the south.

Taipei has the single greatest collection, the imperial art of the National Palace Museum, along with Longshan Temple, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and the restored shophouses of Dihua Street. Outside these patches it is a modern city, so it is better for museum days than for wandering.

Taipei is the place for a night out. Cocktail bars in Da'an and Zhongshan use local tea and fruit in their drinks, Xinyi has the big clubs around Taipei 101, and Ximending suits a cheaper, younger crowd, with karaoke rooms and stir-fry beer halls in between.

Tainan's evenings revolve around eating. A handful of whisky and craft-beer bars in old townhouses near Shennong Street are good for a quiet drink, but the city winds down by midnight, and anyone wanting clubs takes the train to Kaohsiung.

Taipei has far more on its doorstep. Yangmingshan's fumaroles and silvergrass slopes are inside the city limits, Elephant Mountain rises straight behind Xinyi and a gondola climbs to the tea terraces of Maokong. The gorges at Wulai and the Caoling trail on the northeast coast are a bus or train ride away.

Tainan sits on a flat, hot plain, and its outdoors is quieter: boat rides through the Sicao mangrove tunnel, the salt pans of Taijiang National Park and the black-faced spoonbills that winter at Qigu. It suits birdwatchers more than hikers, because Alishan is too far for a day.

Both make good bases, but Taipei's surroundings are richer and closer. Jiufen's lantern-hung stairways, the sky-lantern towns on the Pingxi line, Tamsui's fort and the potteries of Yingge are all short outings, and high-speed rail reaches Taichung in under an hour.

From Tainan, Kaohsiung is under an hour by train, with the Foguangshan Buddha Museum and Meinong's umbrella makers beyond it, and Chiayi is the gateway to the Alishan forest railway. Closer in are the old streets of Xinhua and Yanshui. Tainan itself is a classic outing from Taipei, about two hours by high-speed rail.

Taipei is the easier city with children. The metro has lifts, Taipei Zoo has pandas and sits beside the Maokong gondola, and the Astronomical Museum and the science centre save a rainy day. There are also riverside playgrounds and cycle paths.

Tainan is welcoming and safe, and children enjoy clambering around the Anping forts and the Tree House or taking the Sicao boat ride. Still, little is built for them, the heat is draining and most sights need a taxi. The nearest zoo and theme park are in Kaohsiung.

This is the widest gap between the two. Taipei's MRT is clean, signed in English and reaches almost everything, from Beitou to Tamsui. A single stored-value card also covers buses and the bike-share, and covered arcades shade the central pavements.

Tainan has no metro, its buses are slow and its high-speed rail station is well outside town. You can walk the old core if you weave around scooters and steps, but Anping and the Chimei Museum mean a taxi or ride-hailing, and most visitors rely on those plus the bike-share.

The difference is in scale and character. Tainan's shopping is small and personal. Independent shops in old townhouses around Shennong and Zhengxing streets sell indigo-dyed cloth, ceramics, tea and stationery, and the 1930s Hayashi Department Store, with a Shinto shrine on its roof, is worth a visit for the building alone. There is no luxury street.

In Taipei the range is far wider: the linked malls of Xinyi for international brands, Ximending for streetwear, makers' markets in the Huashan and Songshan cultural parks, Guanghua for electronics and Dihua Street for herbs and dried goods. Anyone shopping for fashion or wanting plenty of choice should do it there.

Both are cheap places to eat well, but Tainan stretches a budget further, mainly because its hotels and guesthouses cost clearly less than Taipei's. Snack-based meals and free temples keep daily spending low, although taxis add up without a metro.

In Taipei, food and transport are inexpensive, but rooms take the money and are small for what they cost, especially in Xinyi and at weekends. Staying around Zhongshan or Ximending helps.

Taipei has the formal stage. The National Theater and Concert Hall at Liberty Square host the National Symphony Orchestra, opera and dance, the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Shilin stages contemporary work, and live houses around Gongguan put on indie and rock.

Tainan's best performances are unscheduled: Taiwanese opera and glove puppetry on stages outside temples on gods' birthdays, and processions with drum troupes and the Eight Generals. For a concert hall, people in Tainan go to Kaohsiung.

Hot springs are the heart of the difference. Tainan has an unusual kind, the grey mud springs of Guanziling, but they sit in the hills about an hour out of town. In the centre there is reflexology and an unhurried rhythm of long breakfasts and tea rooms, though scooter noise and summer heat make it less restful than it sounds.

In Taipei the springs are inside the city. Beitou's hot-spring hotels, sulphur pools and open-air public bath are at the end of a short metro branch line, with more springs among the Yangmingshan hills and beside the river at Wulai, and Maokong's hillside teahouses for a slow afternoon.