Albufeira or Chefchaouen?

There is no contest here. Albufeira was built around its beaches. Peneco and Pescadores lie right below the old town, long stretches of sand run east through Oura to Falésia, and coves such as São Rafael sit to the west. The Atlantic is calm and clear from June to early October.

Chefchaouen has no beach of its own. The grey sand at Oued Laou is more than an hour away down a winding gorge road. Its sea is a touch warmer in late summer, but the trip is a day out rather than a beach vacation, and the cold pools at Akchour are only good for a quick dip.

Neither is a place for serious food lovers, but Albufeira has more to offer once you look past the multilingual menus of the Strip. Head to the simple places by the fishermen's beach for charcoal-grilled sardines, clam and pork cataplana and octopus, with local wine on the table.

In Chefchaouen most restaurants serve the same tagine, couscous and kefta. The best tastes are local ones: Rif goat cheese wrapped in palm leaf, and bissara soup at breakfast. Alcohol is scarce, and a few days is enough to try it all.

Albufeira's whitewashed old town fills a morning. It has fragments of Moorish wall, a clock tower with an iron bell cage and two small museums. Anyone keen on history spends their days in other Algarve towns.

Chefchaouen has more to see. Its blue-washed medina, founded in 1471 and settled by refugees from Andalusia, is the sight in itself. Add the red-walled kasbah on Outa el-Hammam square and the sunset walk up to the Spanish Mosque. There are no major monuments, though, and a day or two covers it.

Albufeira is the Algarve's party town. In high summer the neon bars, karaoke and clubs on the Strip stay open until dawn, and Oura and the old town square have calmer terrace bars. It is loud and unsubtle, and much of it closes from November to March.

Chefchaouen has nothing like it. There are a couple of hotel bars, and an evening means mint tea in the square and a stroll through the lit lanes before the medina falls silent.

Both are strong for the outdoors, but the landscapes could hardly be more different. Albufeira's is the eroded limestone coast, with the Seven Hanging Valleys cliff walk, boat and kayak trips into the sea caves at Benagil, and dolphin watching offshore.

Chefchaouen looks to the mountains instead. Trails climb straight from the medina into the Rif, the gorge walk from Akchour leads to God's Bridge in Talassemtane National Park, and the cedar forests hold Barbary macaques. Trails there are poorly marked, so many walkers hire a local guide, which is rarely needed on the Algarve cliffs.

Albufeira has the wider choice. Silves and its red sandstone castle, Loulé's domed market hall, walled Faro, Lagos and Tavira are all within easy reach, and they are best reached by car. None is a major heritage site, but there are enough of them to fill a week of outings.

From Chefchaouen there is really one good trip: Tetouan, with its UNESCO-listed medina. Martil and Ouezzane are lesser options. Tangier and Fes are too far to go and come back in a day.

Albufeira is built for a family beach vacation. Zoomarine has dolphin shows, water parks are a short drive away, beaches such as Galé and Falésia have lifeguards, and resort hotels come with kids' clubs and shallow pools. Families do best staying away from the Strip and the steep old town.

Chefchaouen is calm and welcoming to children, but nothing there is made for them, and pushchairs are useless on its stepped lanes. It works as a short stop with older children who can walk, ideally with a day at the Akchour river pools.

You can walk Albufeira's old town and central beaches, with a public lift and an escalator helping on the climb up from the sand. Beyond that, the resort stretches for kilometres through Montechoro, Oura and Galé, and local buses link these areas only patchily. The station is 6km inland, so most visitors rely on taxis and a hire car.

Chefchaouen is easier because everything you came for is in one place. You can cross the medina on foot in fifteen minutes, though almost every route means steep, polished steps. Petit taxis run to the medina gates and shared grand taxis handle outings, but there is no railway.

Albufeira's lanes sell mostly beachwear, football shirts and souvenirs. Painted pottery, cork goods and medronho are the better things to take home, and the mall at Guia covers everyday fashion.

Chefchaouen has the more genuine crafts for a town its size. Look for woollen blankets and striped Rif weavings, often made on looms in the shopfronts, along with djellabas, leather slippers and the blue pigment used on the walls. Bargaining is gentle, but the range repeats after a few streets and there are no boutiques at all.

For a Western European resort, Albufeira is fair value, with cheap set menus, beer and local wine. July and August push up the cost of rooms, beachfront meals, taxis and car hire, and the real bargains are from October to May.

Chefchaouen is much cheaper on almost every count. Guesthouses cost a fraction of European rates, a tagine with mint tea is inexpensive and shared grand taxis cost little. The town itself is free to explore.

Neither is a place to plan a trip around live performance, but Albufeira at least has some. There are tribute acts and cover bands in bars, hotel cabaret, fado dinner shows and free summer concerts on the square by the fishermen's beach. In Chefchaouen, traditional Andalusian music appears only now and then, mostly around festivals, and the call to prayer over the rooftops is the music most visitors hear.

For a restful trip Chefchaouen is the better choice, even though Albufeira has the more polished spas. Albufeira has no bathing tradition of its own, so unwinding there means booking a resort hotel with treatment rooms and a heated pool. In summer the area around the Strip is anything but calm, so peace is easier to find in the cliff-top resorts west of town, around Galé, or in the mild, sunny winter. The nearest real thermal waters are at Caldas de Monchique, an hour inland.

Chefchaouen slows you down without any effort on your part. There are few cars inside the walls and nothing to stay out late for, so the days go by on roof terraces and beside the spring at Ras el-Maa, and the mountain air is cooler than in the lowlands. A scrub in a neighbourhood hammam costs little and is the genuine article, which Albufeira's hotel spas cannot offer. What Chefchaouen lacks is pampering: only a handful of riads offer massage, and there are no thermal baths.