Warsaw or Zakopane?

Neither city has sea swimming. Warsaw is inland and Zakopane is in the mountains, so the difference is in what you get instead.

Warsaw has sandy banks along the Vistula for sunbathing and drinks, and for a proper swim locals go to the Zegrze reservoir or the outdoor pools. In Zakopane, bathing in the Tatra lakes is banned, and visitors swim in warm outdoor thermal pools that work in any season.

Warsaw offers far more variety. You can eat in milk bars, in old-fashioned dining rooms serving pierogi and żurek, and at food courts in old market halls. There is good coffee and cake, and chefs who build tasting menus around forest mushrooms and game, so each meal can be different.

Zakopane's cooking has a narrower range but a strong character of its own: grilled oscypek with cranberry jam, and kwaśnica or lamb in timber inns with open fires. After a few days the menus on Krupówki start to repeat. The family inns on the side streets are the place to look.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Warsaw has the rebuilt Old Town and Royal Castle, and the Royal Route out to Łazienki and Wilanów. Add museums with the weight of POLIN and the Warsaw Rising Museum and you can spend several days on sights without running short.

Zakopane's heritage is distinctive but small. It covers the wooden Zakopane style at Villa Koliba and the Jaszczurówka chapel, the Tatra Museum, and the carved grave markers at Pęksowy Brzyzek. You can see all of it in a day, and few people travel there for it alone.

Warsaw stays out later and has more kinds of night out. There are tiny pavilion bars behind Nowy Świat, clubs on Mazowiecka, a younger crowd in Powiśle and techno in Praga's old factories. In summer the nights move to the Vistula boulevards.

In Zakopane, evenings centre on Krupówki, with pubs, a few clubs and inns that get loud during the ski season and at New Year. Outside those times the town is quiet, and most visitors go to bed early to be on the trails at dawn.

Zakopane wins easily. The Tatras rise straight from the town, with granite peaks, glacial lakes like Morskie Oko, a cable car up Kasprowy Wierch and Rysy for fit walkers. There is skiing in winter, and rafting through the Dunajec gorge is about an hour away.

Warsaw's outdoors are flat and gentler: pine forest, dunes and elk in Kampinos, the wild eastern bank of the Vistula and long cycle paths. They make a pleasant day out but are not a reason to choose the city.

Zakopane has the better outings. Kraków is about two hours away, with the Wieliczka salt mine on the way. The painted wooden church at Dębno and the log houses of Chochołów are close by, and across the Slovak border Spiš Castle and Levoča make a strong day. The catch is weekend traffic on the roads out of town.

From Warsaw, Łódź and Lublin are easy by train and Chopin's birthplace at Żelazowa Wola is close. The famous names, Kraków and Toruń, are really overnight trips.

Both cities work well with children, in different ways. Warsaw is a city of indoor days and parks: the Copernicus Science Centre and its planetarium, a large zoo, playgrounds in Łazienki and the Saxon Gardens, and water parks for winter.

Zakopane is about being outside. Families can take the funicular to the toboggan run on Gubałówka, push buggies along flat valley paths, go sledging or to ski school in winter, and spend wet days in the thermal water parks. Crowds and traffic in the school breaks are the main drawback.

Warsaw is easier to get around. It is spread out, but trams, two metro lines and buses on a single ticket reach almost everywhere, and a direct train runs from the airport.

Zakopane's centre is small enough to walk, and minibuses go to the trailheads, so you do not need a car once you arrive. Getting there is the hard part: the road jams at busy times and the train from Kraków is slow.

Warsaw has much more choice: large modern malls, Polish designer boutiques on Mokotowska Street, the Hala Mirowska market hall and weekend flea markets selling communist-era posters.

Zakopane is mostly a souvenir town. Still, the market at the foot of Gubałówka sells real highland crafts, including wool sweaters, sheepskins, carved boxes and wheels of oscypek, and Krupówki has outdoor gear shops.

Costs are much the same, and both are cheap by Western European standards. What differs is when prices rise.

In Warsaw, hotels cost more on weekdays, when business travellers fill them, and are often cheaper at weekends. Transport is cheap and many museums have a free day. In Zakopane, prices follow the seasons: they climb at Christmas, New Year, the winter school breaks and long summer weekends, and drop in spring and autumn.

Warsaw has a serious music calendar. There is opera and ballet at the Grand Theatre, a full season at the National Philharmonic, Chopin recitals all year and free summer concerts in Łazienki, as well as a long-established jazz scene.

Zakopane's offer is smaller and rooted in folk music: highland string bands in the inns, the Witkacy Theatre and the mountain folklore festival every August. Classical concerts are only occasional.

Zakopane is the place to unwind. It grew up as a health resort, and the thermal complexes at Chochołów, Białka Tatrzańska, Bukowina and Szaflary have outdoor pools that steam in the snow.

Warsaw has no bathing tradition of its own, so relaxing there means a hotel spa, the saunas at a water park or the graduation tower at Konstancin-Jeziorna. Day to day, the city moves at a brisk pace.