Ankara or Goreme?

Neither place is for swimming. Both sit on the Anatolian plateau, hours from the sea, and the water nearby, Lake Eymir at Ankara or the Kizilirmak at Avanos, is for looking at or rowing on. Ankara at least has hotel and municipal pools across the city. In Goreme a swim depends on booking one of the cave hotels with its own pool, and either way the coast is a separate trip.

Ankara is the better place to eat. It has no famous cuisine, but its kebab and pide houses, steam-tray canteens and its own baked lamb and rice dish give honest everyday cooking. Kızılay, Tunalı Hilmi and Çankaya add meyhanes and a few upmarket restaurants for diplomats and students.

Goreme's menus are written for visitors and repeat each other after a night or two. The highlights are testi kebab cracked open at the table, gozleme rolled out at roadside stalls and wine from Cappadocia's volcanic soils, so meals are pleasant, but nobody goes there for the food.

Ankara has the stronger and wider set of sights. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations runs from Çatalhöyük through the Hittites and Phrygians. Anıtkabir shows the young Republic's monumental style, and the citadel, Roman baths and the Temple of Augustus add a further two thousand years.

Goreme has one theme, but it is a remarkable one. The Open Air Museum's rock-cut Byzantine churches, the deep colours of the Dark Church and the painting in Tokali Church are all within walking distance, and the village houses and dovecotes cut into the tuff are part of the visit. You can cover it in a day or two.

Only Ankara has a nightlife to speak of. University students fill the multi-storey buildings off Kızılay with beer bars, rock bars and meyhanes, and Tunalı Hilmi has a smarter, older crowd. It is quieter in the summer break, and there are few clubs.

Goreme is the reverse. Balloon flights start before dawn, so the evening ends with a glass of local wine on a terrace, looking at the lit-up rocks, and nothing stays open late.

Goreme is built for the outdoors. Rose, Red, Love, Pigeon and Zemi valleys start where the village ends, with trails among pink and pale cones, orchards and abandoned chapels, and the dawn balloons are the region's signature sight. The range stops there: no forest, no water, and Ihlara and Erciyes are more than an hour's drive away.

Around Ankara the steppe is open and bare. Green space means the Atatürk Forest Farm, the lakes and the ridge parks. The pine woods of Soğuksu and the salt flats of Tuz Gölü make good outings but take time to reach.

Goreme puts the whole Cappadocian circuit within an hour: the underground cities of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, Uchisar's citadel, the abandoned cave villages of Zelve and Cavusin, and the potters of Avanos. Much of it is rock-cut heritage, so the variety is narrower than the list suggests.

Ankara's excursions cover more ground in kind. Fast trains reach Konya's Seljuk monuments and Eskişehir's Ottoman quarter, and King Midas's mound at Gordion is about an hour by road. The catch is that Cappadocia itself is a night away from Ankara, not an easy day.

Ankara is slightly easier with children of all ages. They get Gençlik Parkı and the lakes to run around, dinosaur skeletons at the MTA museum, vintage trains and boats to climb into at the Rahmi M. Koç Museum, and malls for days of bad weather, though the busy, hilly streets wear small legs out.

Goreme thrills older children, with a night in a cave room, crawling through an underground city and riding horses through the valleys. Toddlers fit in less well: paths are steep with unfenced drops, buggies struggle on the lanes, and balloon flights have minimum ages.

Ankara has real public transport. Metro lines and the Ankaray meet at Kızılay and run along the Ulus to Çankaya spine on a single card, and taxis fill the gaps the boulevards leave.

Goreme is a short walk from end to end, and the Open Air Museum and valley trailheads are on foot from the centre. Beyond the village, sparse buses mean most people rely on tours, taxis or a hired car or scooter to reach the underground cities and outlying villages.

Ankara gives more choice. Big malls and Tunalı Hilmi's boutiques and bookshops cover practical needs, and the lanes of Samanpazarı below the citadel sell copperware, carpets, spices and angora wool, named after the city's old name.

Goreme's main street is mostly souvenirs: evil-eye charms, fairy-chimney ornaments and scarves. Its real crafts are kilims from the big showrooms and red-clay pottery from Avanos, which you can watch being thrown.

Ankara is the cheaper stay. It is a government and business city, so hotels, canteen meals, metro rides and taxis are priced for locals. Alcohol and museum entry are the main extras.

Goreme's costs depend on how you travel. A hostel in an old cave house, gozleme and walking the valleys keep a stay modest, but the things that draw most visitors, a boutique cave hotel, a balloon flight and guided tours, are priced well above the Turkish norm.

As the capital, Ankara has the national companies. The State Opera and Ballet performs near Ulus, the Presidential Symphony and Bilkent orchestras give full seasons, and Turkish rock and folk fill the bars of Kızılay. Theatre is in Turkish, but music and dance need no translation.

Goreme offers dinner-show Turkish nights in a large cave venue and the dervish Sema ceremony in a caravanserai near Avanos, which is the better of the two. Beyond those there is no stage at all.

The two are fairly close, but they relax you in different ways. Ankara keeps working neighbourhood hammams in Ulus and Hamamönü, and real thermal water at Kızılcahamam and Haymana, each about an hour away, which Goreme lacks without a longer drive.

Goreme's calm is the setting itself: quiet evenings, slow breakfasts above the rocks and small spas in the better cave hotels, though pre-dawn balloon starts and full tour days can work against rest.