Alicante or Santiago de Compostela?

The gap here is wide. Alicante lives on its shore. Postiguet is a few steps from the old town, the tram runs out to the 7km of pale sand and shallow water at San Juan, and the clear, rocky coves of Tabarca are a boat ride away. The one drawback is the crowding on the city beaches in midsummer.

Santiago has no beach of its own. The sheltered white-sand inlets of the Ría de Muros e Noia and the Ría de Arousa are lovely, but you need a bus or a car to reach them, the Atlantic stays cold and the summer is short. They make a day out rather than a daily routine.

Both eat very well, but from opposite ends of the Spanish coast. Alicante is rice country: arroz a banda, black rice and arroz con costra with its egg crust, shared over long lunches, with red prawns and mojama at the modernist Mercado Central.

Santiago serves Galician seafood at its plainest and best: pulpo á feira, scallops and percebes at the granite Mercado de Abastos, with Albariño in the taverns of Rúa do Franco. Its range is narrower, while Alicante adds sweet things such as Jijona turrón and summer horchata.

Santiago is clearly the stronger city for sights. Its cathedral, a Romanesque pilgrimage church with the Pórtico da Gloria and the shrine of Saint James, stands on one of Spain's great squares, and the whole UNESCO-listed old town of arcades and monasteries is an attraction in its own right.

Alicante's highlights are the Castillo de Santa Bárbara with its views over the bay, the flowerpot-lined lanes of Santa Cruz and the well-presented MARQ. They are enjoyable, but Alicante is more a seaside base with a castle than a city you travel to for its monuments.

Alicante goes out harder and stays out longer. El Barrio's small bars fill the stepped lanes under the castle until the early hours, the port adds bigger bars and clubs, and summer brings beach terraces at San Juan and the Hogueras festival in late June.

Santiago's evenings are smaller and cosier: wine along Rúa do Franco, pub-like bars around the Praza de Cervantes, folk sessions and the student night on Thursday. Out of term, when pilgrims replace the students, the city goes quiet early. That is the reverse of Alicante, which is at its liveliest in summer.

Both have good outdoor options within reach, but the scenery could hardly be more different. Alicante is dry and bright, with real mountain hiking on Puig Campana and in the Sierra de Aitana, climbing at Sella, snorkelling in the Tabarca marine reserve and flamingos on the Santa Pola salt lagoons.

Santiago is green and fed by rain. Camino paths lead straight out of town, and the cliffs of the Costa da Morte and the ancient woodland of the Fragas do Eume are within a couple of hours. There are no high peaks, and where Alicante calls for an early start to beat the heat, here you pack a waterproof.

Both make good bases, and either could fill a week of outings. Alicante's mix the coast with older Spain. Elche's UNESCO palm grove and the medieval Misteri in its basilica are half an hour away, Orihuela has its cluster of baroque churches, and Murcia's cathedral and Cartagena's Roman theatre are about an hour or a little more. The coastal tram adds the painted houses of Villajoyosa and the white hilltop town of Altea, and Valencia is about two hours by train.

Santiago's outings lead into green Galicia rather than along a beach coast. A Coruña and its Roman lighthouse are half an hour by train, Lugo's complete Roman walls make a full day, and Ourense's old bridge is a short fast-train ride. The Albariño country of the Rías Baixas and the Camino's end at Fisterra and Muxía are best done by car or on a tour, whereas many of Alicante's coastal towns are simply a tram ride.

Away from the sand, Alicante has more to keep children busy. The lift cut into the rock up to the castle and the boat out to Tabarca both feel like small adventures. The MARQ has hands-on displays, and the animal park outside Elche, with its little train round the grounds, makes an easy half day. Summer afternoons are hot, so plan outings for the morning and evening, when Spanish children are out late anyway.

Santiago gives children far less to do between the sights. Alicante can usually count on a dry day and a swim to break up the sightseeing. Here the cathedral and museums are the main fare, and a wet spell leaves few other options. The Alameda and Bonaval parks are the nearest thing to Alicante's promenade, and the best rainy-day standby is the aquarium and science museums in A Coruña, half an hour away by train. Alicante can keep a family busy for a whole week, but Santiago works better as a short stop on a wider tour of Galicia.

Both centres are walkable, so neither needs a car for the main part of a visit. In Alicante the old quarter, market, port and beach are all a short walk apart, a lift takes you up to the castle, and the coastal tram is a slow but scenic link to San Juan and Benidorm.

Santiago's pedestrian old town holds almost everything, though the granite gets slippery in the rain. Trains along the Galician coast serve the other cities well, but its beaches and wine villages, like Alicante's inland crags, are far easier to reach by car.

Neither is a shopping destination, but Alicante offers a little more. The streets around Avenida Maisonnave have Spanish chains and department stores, the Mercado Central is good for edible souvenirs, and the shoe outlets of Elche are half an hour away.

Santiago's appeal is narrower and more traditional: black jet from the Azabachería, silver near the Praza das Praterías and Sargadelos ceramics. Against that, the old-town streets are full of pilgrim trinkets and the high street is ordinary.

Both are fair value by Spanish standards, but the costs fall in different places. In Alicante, set lunches and rice dishes are good value, the tram is cheap and the castle grounds cost little, but rooms near the beaches get much dearer in July and August. Its mild months from October to May are the time to stay cheaply.

Santiago keeps a stay lean with free tapas alongside a drink, generous set menus, and pensiones and pilgrim hostels. Its expensive time is July, around the feast of Saint James, when rooms book out.

Neither has a full cultural calendar, and in both most of the programme is in Spanish. Alicante has the Teatro Principal for drama and musicals and the ADDA auditorium for the provincial orchestra and visiting jazz.

Santiago also has a resident orchestra, the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, but its distinctive sound is Galician folk: bagpipes in old-town bars and student tunas singing in black capes. Alicante has nothing like it.

Neither has a bathing culture of its own, so rest takes different forms. In Alicante it means the slow Mediterranean round of a seafront walk, a long lunch and a siesta, with the Roman-era springs of Archena and Fortuna in Murcia about an hour away by car.

Santiago's hot springs are nearer and easier to reach. Caldas de Reis and Cuntis are about half an hour away, and Ourense's riverside thermal pools, some of them free, are a short train ride. For walkers resting tired legs, that makes Santiago the better fit.