Alanya or Goreme?

This is where the two differ most. Alanya has Cleopatra Beach's fine sand west of the castle and Keykubat stretching east past the harbour. The water is warm and shelves gently, and boat trips around the headland stop at small coves.

Goreme sits on the Anatolian plateau, a long day's drive from any coast, so swimming means a cave-hotel pool. Many travellers solve this by combining the two, with the valleys first and then a few days on the coast.

Neither is a place to travel to for the food, but Alanya gives you more to work with. Past the resort menus there are back-street pide and kebab houses, grilled fish, the small sweet local bananas and a large weekly market of olives, cheeses and spices.

Goreme's terraces mostly serve the same short list, led by testi kebab cracked open at the table and manti dumplings. Its real advantage is a glass of Cappadocian wine from the volcanic soils, but the menus start to repeat after a couple of nights.

These two are evenly matched, and each takes a day or two, but the history is of a different kind. Alanya's is Seljuk and maritime: castle walls climbing the headland, the octagonal Red Tower and the arched docks of the Tersane shipyard.

Goreme's is Byzantine and religious. The Open Air Museum is a valley of rock-cut churches, where the Dark Church and the Tokali Church keep some of the finest frescoes in the region. The village itself has houses and dovecotes carved into the tuff.

In summer, Alanya's nights run into the small hours around the harbour bar street, with open-air clubs, karaoke and party boats aimed at a young crowd, though most of it closes from late autumn. Goreme has nothing like this. With the balloons launching before dawn, an evening there means wine or raki on a terrace and the lights over the rocks.

Goreme comes out ahead because its landscape starts at the door. The Rose, Red, Love and Pigeon valleys can be walked for hours straight from the village, and the dawn balloons drifting over them are the defining sight of the region. Horse riding and mountain biking use the same tuff ridges.

Alanya's outdoors is more varied but needs a drive or a boat: the pine-covered Taurus behind the town, Sapadere Canyon and the Dim valley, sea caves on the headland, paragliding and diving. In both places, spring and autumn are the seasons for walking.

Alanya's best excursions are classical, and most of them sit to the west. Side, with its Roman theatre and the Temple of Apollo on the shore, is a little over an hour away. Aspendos, Perge and Antalya's walled Kaleiçi with its archaeological museum are about two hours along the coast road, which is why most people book a tour.

Goreme is better placed as a base. The Kaymakli and Derinkuyu underground cities, Uchisar's rock citadel, the abandoned cave village at Zelve and the potters of Avanos are all under an hour away, and Kayseri's Seljuk mosques are not much further. The catch is that much of it is variations on rock-cut heritage.

Alanya is the easier choice for families. It has gently shelving beaches, hotels with kids' clubs and slides, water parks and the cable car to the castle, and you only need to plan around the midday heat and the noise near the harbour.

Goreme appeals to older children, who will love a cave bedroom, the tunnels of an underground city and the dawn balloons. Steep, unfenced valley paths and lanes that are hard going with a buggy make it a poor fit for toddlers, and it works best as a short stay.

Both have a centre you can walk, but Alanya's reaches further. A seafront promenade links the town centre, the harbour and both main beaches, and frequent buses and dolmuş minibuses run the length of the resort strip.

Goreme's village and the Open Air Museum are an easy stroll, but beyond them the buses are slow and sparse. That leaves you depending on tours, taxis or a hired car or scooter to reach the underground cities and Ihlara.

Alanya is the better place to shop, although neither town is worth the journey for it. Its bazaar streets behind the harbour give you far more to browse, from leather jackets and textiles to gold and spices, and haggling is part of the fun. The large weekly market adds clothes and household goods, and the modern malls cover anything you forgot to pack. What Alanya lacks is quality and style, because it has no designer streets and no independent boutiques.

Goreme has much less on offer: one main street of ceramics, scarves and evil-eye charms, a small village market and no malls at all. Where it does better is craft. Cappadocia's hand-knotted carpets and kilims, and the red-clay pots thrown at the wheel in nearby Avanos, are made in the region itself. They are worth carrying home in a way that Alanya's imitation brands are not.

For most trips Alanya is the cheaper of the two. Package and all-inclusive stays bundle room, meals and drinks together, local eateries and buses cost little, and prices drop further out of season.

Goreme can be done on a modest budget, staying in cave hostels, eating at gozleme stalls and walking the valleys. The experiences most people come for are what cost money: boutique cave hotels, the dawn balloon flight and a run of guided tours and entry fees.

Neither has a stage worth travelling for, and both rely on folk-dance dinner shows put on for visitors. The difference lies in their one standout. Alanya has a long-running jazz festival in early autumn, with concerts in settings such as the old shipyard. Goreme has the Sema ceremony of the whirling dervishes in a caravanserai near Avanos, a far more rewarding evening than its Turkish nights.

Alanya makes resting easier. Nearly every large hotel has a hammam and spa, bathhouses in town offer the full steam, scrub and foam sequence, and the humid air of the Damlataş cave has long drawn people with breathing complaints.

Goreme's calm is real, with long terrace breakfasts and quiet evenings once the tours return. But hammams are few, real thermal water means a drive across the province, and pre-dawn balloon starts and full tour days eat into the rest.