Bacalar or Puebla?

These two are at opposite ends. Bacalar has no sandy beach strip, but its freshwater lagoon is superb for swimming: shallow, warm, calm and shaded in every blue, entered from wooden docks and balnearios, with Cenote Azul for deep water and Los Rápidos for a lazy drift.

Puebla has nothing comparable. The Gulf coast is several hours' drive away, so a swim means a hotel pool or the spring-fed balnearios on the city's edge. Anyone who wants water at the centre of the trip should go to Bacalar.

Puebla is one of the great eating cities of Mexico, and Bacalar is not. Mole poblano was born in Puebla's convent kitchens. Add cemitas, chalupas, tacos árabes, chiles en nogada in late summer and the sweet shops of the Calle de los Dulces, and you could plan a trip around the food alone.

Bacalar eats well but simply: cochinita pibil and salbutes in the taquerías, juice stands round the square, grilled fish and ceviche by the lagoon. After a few days you will be going back to the same handful of places.

Puebla has far more to see. Its UNESCO-listed grid of brick and Talavera house fronts holds the cathedral, the gilded Capilla del Rosario, the Biblioteca Palafoxiana and museums such as the Amparo and the Barroco, enough for two or three unhurried days.

Bacalar has the eighteenth-century Fuerte de San Felipe, with its small museum on pirate raids and its views over the lagoon, and a plain church on the square. You can see it all in an hour, and anyone keen on history heads out to the Maya ruins instead.

Neither is a party town, but Puebla has an evening scene where Bacalar mostly has bedtime. In Puebla there are mezcal bars, cantinas and rooftop terraces around the Callejón de los Sapos, and the student bars and small clubs of Cholula fill up from Thursday to Saturday.

In Bacalar, a drink in a bar on the square or by the lake, or with the hostel crowd, is about it, and the town is asleep early so people can paddle at sunrise.

There is about as much nature in each, but it is very different. Bacalar's is all water: more than 40km of lagoon fringed with mangroves, best explored by kayak or paddleboard, with ancient stromatolites in the shallows and boat trips to Bird Island. Away from the water the country is flat and hot, with few trails.

Puebla's is mountains. Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl stand on the skyline, and La Malinche and the Izta-Popo park offer real high-altitude hiking through pine forest. Most of it needs a car or an early start, and summer storms cut into the afternoons.

Puebla is the better base for day trips. Cholula's Great Pyramid is half an hour away, close to the painted village churches of Tonantzintla and Acatepec and the Franciscan convent at Huejotzingo. Tlaxcala and the murals of Cacaxtla make a good combined day, and Mexico City is within reach.

From Bacalar, the outings are mostly Maya ruins in the forest: Chacchoben is close and peaceful, and Kohunlich and Dzibanché make a long day out together. Chetumal's museum and the Caribbean village of Mahahual round it off, but these are worthwhile second-tier sites, and most need a car.

Puebla has more for children to do, Bacalar a better place for them to play. Puebla's Africam Safari, where animals walk around the cars, is a real highlight, with the Angelópolis wheel, the pyramid tunnels and endless sweets as backup. Traffic, altitude and adult-oriented churches limit it, though.

Bacalar comes down to one thing done well: shallow, warm, waveless water for long days of paddling and jumping off docks. There is little else, so it works best for older children and a lodge with its own jetty.

Puebla is the easier of the two to get around, because its sights sit close together and cheap rides fill the gaps. In Bacalar, the centre is only a few walkable blocks around the square and the fort. The lodges, balnearios and Cenote Azul, though, are strung out for kilometres along a lakeshore road with little room for pedestrians, so a bicycle, a taxi or a hire car does much of the work.

In Puebla, nearly every sight lies within twenty minutes' walk of the zócalo on a flat grid with logical street numbering. There is no metro and the local buses are hard for visitors to follow, but inexpensive taxis and ride-hailing apps reach Cholula, Angelópolis and Africam without fuss.

Puebla is a proper place to shop, at least for crafts. Talavera pottery comes from workshops where you can watch the painting, and there are onyx and textiles at El Parián, weekend antiques stalls on the Callejón de los Sapos and the Angelópolis malls for brands. In Bacalar there are a few stalls of hammocks, embroidery and beachwear near the square, and that is all.

Puebla is the cheaper of the two, and evenly so. Market lunches, street food, taxis and museums all cost little, and a comfortable room in a restored colonial house is good value.

Bacalar can be cheap too if you stay in a guesthouse in town and eat in the taquerías. But the lakeside lodges with private docks, which are much of the point of coming, cost about the same as elsewhere on the Caribbean coast, as do the restaurants that serve their guests.

Neither is a reason to travel for performance, but only Puebla has a stage. The historic Teatro Principal and the university's cultural complex put on plays, dance and orchestral evenings, and the 5 de Mayo festivities bring folk dance into the streets. In Bacalar, the most you will find is the odd band in a bar or on the square at weekends.

Bacalar is the better place to unwind. Its days follow the light, from a dawn paddle to a hammock to a sunset swim. The lodges are free of road noise, and yoga, massage and temazcal are easy to arrange, even if there is no real spa culture.

Puebla offers temazcal sweat lodges around Cholula and the sulphur-water pools of Agua Azul, but relaxing there mostly means quiet courtyards and long lunches in a city where the traffic is never far away.