Antalya or Goreme?

Beaches are one of the main reasons to choose Antalya. Konyaaltı's long pebble beach runs under the mountains west of the centre, and Lara's sand lies to the east. Within an hour you can also reach pine-fringed coves near Kemer and the long resort shores of Belek.

Goreme has no beach at all. It sits on a dry inland plateau, the river near Avanos is not for swimming, and the only water is in cave-hotel pools. If you want both, add a few days on the coast to a Cappadocia trip.

Antalya gives you more to eat. Look for piyaz in a tahini dressing served with grilled köfte, slow-cooked tandır lamb, fish from the Gulf, and weekly markets full of citrus and pomegranates from the plain. The best meals are in plain köfte houses in the modern city, not in Kaleiçi.

Goreme's eating is narrower and mostly aimed at visitors. The usual meals are testi kebab cracked open at the table, manti and roadside gozleme. Local Cappadocian wine helps, but in such a small village the menus start to look alike after a couple of nights.

Antalya has more to see. Kaleiçi's Ottoman lanes start at Hadrian's Gate and pass below the Yivli Minare. The Antalya Museum, with its marble statues from Perge and its sarcophagi, ranks among the better archaeological collections in Turkey.

Goreme's culture is narrower but very strong in one area: Byzantine rock-cut churches. The Open Air Museum, the deep colours of the Dark Church and the painting in the Tokali Church can all be seen well in a day or two, along with the fairy-chimney houses and dovecotes of the village.

Antalya has a real night out, at least in summer. You will find courtyard bars and terraces in Kaleiçi and around the harbour, plus beach clubs along Konyaaltı and Lara, though you need taxis between them. Goreme has almost no nightlife: the balloons launch before dawn, so the village is quiet soon after dinner, with a glass of wine or raki on a terrace as the most there is.

Antalya has the wider outdoor range because mountains and sea meet there. You can walk the Lycian Way past Phaselis and Olympos, take the cable car up Tahtalı Dağı, raft in Köprülü Canyon, dive and sail along the coast, and ski at Saklıkent in winter. The Düden falls even drop straight into the sea within the city.

Goreme has one landscape, but a remarkable one. Its valleys of pink and pale tuff start at the edge of the village and are ideal for long walks, horse rides and bike trips. There is no water to paddle on and little forest, so the variety is far narrower than on the coast.

Both towns are good bases for exploring, and Antalya's day trips cover more ground. You can see the theatre at Aspendos, the colonnaded street at Perge, Termessos high on its peak, Side by the sea, and on a longer day Myra and the sunken city at Kekova. They run along the coast and up into the mountains.

Goreme's outings are closer together, and most are under an hour away. They include the underground cities of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, Uchisar's citadel, the abandoned cave villages of Zelve, and the potters of Avanos. Most of them are rock-cut heritage, so a few days covers the circuit. In both places a car or a tour makes things much easier.

Antalya is far easier with children. The resorts in Lara, Belek and Kemer are built for families, with pools, water slides and kids' clubs, and there is a theme park at Belek. Lara's shallow sandy water suits small children, and the city aquarium is a good outing in the heat.

Goreme works for older children on a short stay. They can sleep in a cave room, crawl through underground tunnels and ride horses in the valleys. Toddlers fare badly, with steep paths, unfenced drops, hard going for pushchairs and minimum ages on balloon flights.

Inside the city, Antalya is the easier of the two to move around. Trams run from the airport and the bus station to Kaleiçi and the Konyaaltı side, buses use the same card and taxis are plentiful. The resort strips of Lara, Belek and Kemer stretch for tens of kilometres, though, so most guests there rely on hotel transfers.

Goreme is a village you can cross on foot in minutes, and the Open Air Museum and several valley trailheads are a short walk from the centre. Beyond it, the buses to Uchisar, Avanos and Urgup are slow and infrequent. The airports at Nevsehir and Kayseri are both about an hour away, so you arrive by a transfer timed to your flight.

Antalya is the better place to shop, though it is practical rather than stylish. Kaleiçi's lanes sell carpets, ceramics, Turkish delight and leather, with plenty of haggling. The malls of the modern city are a cool escape in summer, and the weekly neighbourhood markets are the place for spices, olives and dried fruit to take home.

In Goreme the main street sells mostly souvenirs, from fairy-chimney ornaments to evil-eye charms. The crafts worth buying are hand-knotted carpets, woven kilims and the red-clay pottery of Avanos, where you can watch it being thrown on the wheel. There are no malls or boutiques, only a small weekly village market.

The two cost about the same overall, but the money goes in different places. In Antalya, köfte houses, markets and city transport are cheap, and all-inclusive packages can work well for families. Kaleiçi restaurants, beach clubs and summer rooms by the sea cost much more, and spring and autumn bring lower room rates.

In Goreme the basics are cheap: hostels in cave houses, gozleme stalls and free walks in the valleys. What pushes up the bill is the reason most people come, the boutique cave hotels and the dawn balloon flight, with tours and entry fees on top.

Only Antalya has resident companies of its own. A state opera and ballet company and a state theatre perform through the winter, mostly in Turkish, but ballet and opera are easy to follow without the language. In summer the opera and ballet festival moves into the Roman theatre at Aspendos.

Goreme's performances are put on for visitors. There is a Turkish night of folk and belly dancing in a large cave venue, and the more rewarding Sema ceremony of the whirling dervishes in an old caravanserai near Avanos. There is no theatre and no regular live music.

For hammams and spa days, Antalya is well ahead. The old hammams of Kaleiçi offer the full scrub and foam massage on warm marble, and almost every large resort in Lara, Belek and Kemer has its own spa and sauna, some of them very extensive. The summer crowds in the centre are not restful, so spring and autumn are the calmest seasons.

Goreme offers quiet rather than treatments. Once the tour groups are back, the evenings are still. There are a few village hammams and small spas in the better cave hotels, but the pre-dawn balloon starts cut into sleep, and for thermal water you have to drive to spa towns elsewhere in Nevsehir province.