Alicante or Zaragoza?

These two are as far apart as Spanish cities get on this. In Alicante the beach is part of daily life: Postiguet is a short walk from the old town, the tram reaches the 7km of pale sand at San Juan, and Tabarca and the Costa Blanca coves add clearer water further out. The one drawback is the crowding in high summer.

Zaragoza sits inland on the Ebro plain, nobody swims in the river, and summer cooling off means municipal or hotel pools. Anyone who needs the sea should add a few days on the coast.

Both cities are built around tapas and a modernist Mercado Central, but Alicante eats a little better and with more range. Its rice dishes, arroz a banda, black rice and the egg-crusted arroz con costra, are a reason to plan lunch, and the market's red prawns and salted fish give it a seafood depth that the inland city lacks.

Zaragoza's strength is the bar-to-bar crawl through El Tubo, where each counter has its single speciality, followed by hearty Aragonese plates such as ternasco lamb and borage with clams. Its Cariñena and Somontano reds are generous, but variety and fine dining are limited.

Zaragoza has much the deeper layers of history. It runs from Roman Caesaraugusta, whose forum, port and baths you visit underground, through the Islamic Aljafería palace to the vast Pilar basilica and the Mudéjar wall of La Seo. The Goya Museum adds a painter with roots just down the road.

Alicante is a shorter visit. It has the Santa Bárbara castle above the bay, the flower-potted lanes of Santa Cruz and the well-presented MARQ, and its tiled Explanada is a sight in its own right, but two days covers it comfortably.

The two are roughly level, and both run late in the Spanish way, but the settings differ. Alicante's nights spill out of El Barrio's small bars onto the castle steps, move to dressier bars and clubs at the marina, and in summer carry on at the beach terraces of San Juan.

Zaragoza is a student city whose evenings start in El Tubo and end around Plaza San Felipe and Santa Marta, busiest from Thursday to the weekend. Each city has one great festival: the Hogueras in late June in Alicante, and the Fiestas del Pilar in October in Zaragoza.

Alicante comes out a little ahead, mostly because it has the sea as well as mountains. The Tabarca marine reserve is good for snorkelling and diving, the bay suits paddleboarding and sailing, and the peaks of Puig Campana and Aitana and the crags at Sella lie within an hour inland.

Zaragoza's surroundings are starker steppe swept by the cierzo, with the Ebro paths and Parque del Agua for in-town walks. A car opens up Moncayo's beech forests, the Mallos de Riglos, the Bardenas badlands and the Pyrenees valleys about two hours north.

The two are about level here, but the outings are different. Alicante's are mostly short, and many follow the coast. Elche's UNESCO palm grove is half an hour away, the tram runs to painted Villajoyosa and white Altea, and the boat to Tabarca makes an easy half day. Inland, the castle village of Guadalest stands on its rock above a turquoise reservoir, and Valencia is about two hours away by train.

Zaragoza's trump card is the high-speed line, which puts Madrid or Barcelona about an hour and a half away. Closer in are castles and Mudéjar towns such as Loarre and Tarazona, and the ruined old town of Belchite, all much easier with a hired car. Albarracín and Teruel are the longer trip, about two hours each way.

Alicante is the easier place to bring children, and the beaches are the reason. Shallow, calm water at San Juan, a promenade made for scooters and the boat to Tabarca give the days a simple shape, and Benidorm's theme, water and marine parks are within driving distance.

Zaragoza is calm, flat and welcoming, with the river aquarium, the Parque del Agua playgrounds and the funfairs and giants' parades of the Pilar fiestas. Without a beach, the summer heat is harder to escape.

Both centres are compact and easy to walk, but their trams do different jobs. Alicante's tram network runs out of the centre along the coast to San Juan and on to Villajoyosa, Benidorm and Dénia, slowly but with sea views. On foot, the only steep part is the climb to the castle, and the lift in the rock takes care of that.

Zaragoza has a single tram line running north to south through a centre that is flat all the way, with bike-share stations as well. Its Delicias station puts the rest of Spain within easy reach by fast train.

Neither is a shopping destination, and both offer the usual Spanish chains and a department store. The best souvenirs are edible in each case: Jijona turrón and saffron from Alicante's market, candied frutas de Aragón and Muel ceramics in Zaragoza. Alicante's one extra is the shoe outlets of nearby Elche.

Zaragoza stretches a budget further. Central hotels stay good value for most of the year, and the local wines and generous tapas cost little, with the October fiestas as the one expensive time.

Alicante is moderate for the coast, and its set lunches and lunchtime rice are fair, but rooms near the beaches climb steeply in July, August and during the Hogueras. Coming between October and May evens things out.

Zaragoza offers somewhat more. Its large Auditorio brings touring orchestras and jazz, small old-town venues host local bands, and the jota, Aragon's leaping folk dance, gives it a tradition worth seeing, especially at the Pilar fiestas.

Alicante's Teatro Principal and ADDA hall cover drama and classical concerts, but the programme is thinner, mostly in Spanish, and has no local form that visitors seek out.

Neither has a bathing culture of its own, and the thermal springs nearest to each, Archena and Fortuna for Alicante and Alhama de Aragón for Zaragoza, are excursions of about an hour. The difference is the setting for doing nothing: Alicante's seafront walks and palm-shaded Explanada against Zaragoza's Ebro strolls and shady Parque Grande, with the cierzo as an added discomfort there in summer.