Cadiz or Ronda?

This is where the two differ most. Cadiz has the Atlantic on almost every side. You can swim in La Caleta, a sheltered cove in the old town, or take the bus to the long golden sand of Playa Victoria. The empty beaches at Conil, Zahara and Bolonia are within an hour, and the only real drawback is the levante wind.

Ronda has no beach of its own. The built-up Costa del Sol near Estepona is about 50km away down a road full of hairpin bends, so a swim in the sea takes a whole day. Most visitors use a hotel pool instead.

Cadiz eats better, and its strength is the sea. Think fried fish from the freidurías, crisp shrimp fritters and almadraba tuna in the bars of La Viña, with chilled manzanilla and fino from the sherry towns next door.

Ronda's cooking comes from the mountains: oxtail stew, lamb, game, cured hams, and chestnuts and wild mushrooms in autumn, with local Sierras de Málaga wine. It is filling but offers less choice, and you will eat better in the Mercadillo's tapas bars than on the terraces overlooking the gorge. Neither town has much beyond Spanish cooking.

Both fill two rewarding days rather than a week of museums, but in different ways. Cadiz has layers of history spread across the city: Phoenician sarcophagi in the Museo de Cádiz, a Roman theatre in the Barrio del Pópulo, the gold-domed cathedral, merchants' watchtowers from the Americas trade and the oratory where the 1812 constitution was signed.

Ronda's heritage gathers around one remarkable sight, the Puente Nuevo across El Tajo. The old Maestranza bullring, the well-preserved Arab baths and the stairway cut through the rock at the Casa del Rey Moro are made memorable mostly by their setting on the edge of the gorge.

Cadiz has the livelier evenings, although neither is a place for serious clubbing. In summer the bars along the Playa Victoria promenade stay open into the early hours and the squares of La Viña fill late. In February, Carnival turns the whole city into a street party for ten days.

Ronda winds down after dinner. Plaza del Socorro stays busy on summer evenings and a few bars carry on afterwards, but the town is quiet by the small hours except during the September fair.

Ronda wins here because the mountains start at the edge of town. A path runs from town down into the Tajo, and climbers use its cliffs. The green crags of Grazalema, where griffon vultures circle, and the Spanish fir forests of the Sierra de las Nieves are close by, and the Caminito del Rey is about an hour away.

Cadiz's outdoors is flat and watery. You can go birdwatching and kayaking among the salt pans of the bay's natural park, walk the clifftop pines at La Breña, or kitesurf and go whale-watching from Tarifa. Grazalema can be reached from Cadiz too, but at about two hours away it is a day out rather than on your doorstep.

Both are good bases for the same corner of Andalusia, and white towns such as Arcos are within reach of either. Cadiz has a slight edge, mainly because more trips work without a car. Jerez's bodegas and riding school are half an hour by train, Seville is under two hours, and a ferry crosses to El Puerto de Santa María. The Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia sit beside the beach at Bolonia.

Ronda's outings head inland and mostly need a car. Setenil, with its houses built under overhanging rock, is twenty minutes away, and Zahara and Grazalema are within the hour. The cave paintings of La Pileta and the ruins of Acinipo are also close. Seville and Málaga are a longer journey from here.

Cadiz is clearly the easier place with children. It has a wide beach with lifeguards, a sheltered cove, flat streets with few cars and shady parks such as the Alameda and the Genovés. There is no zoo or theme park, but the days are simple to plan.

In Ronda, older children will enjoy the bridge, the walk into the gorge and the caves nearby. But the steep cobbled lanes are hard going with a pushchair, and the high viewpoints mean keeping a close eye on young ones. Families usually do better staying in a country house with a pool.

You get around both centres on foot, but the old town in Cadiz is flat, while Ronda's lanes drop steeply into La Ciudad and towards the gorge. Cadiz also connects better to the places beyond, with buses down the isthmus, trains straight from the old town and the catamaran across the bay.

Ronda's trains and buses are fine for arriving but too slow and infrequent for exploring, so the villages, the natural parks and El Chorro really need a car. Even from Cadiz, the Costa de la Luz and the white towns are best reached by hire car or on a tour.

Neither is a place to go shopping, but Cadiz has a little more. Calle Ancha and Columela have chain stores, family-run shops and a few boutiques, and the hand-painted fans, ceramics and flamenco fashion make good things to take home. For anything bigger, people from Cadiz go to Seville.

Ronda's Carrera Espinel is smaller still, and the best buys are things to eat and drink: wine from nearby wineries, cured meats, olive oil and convent sweets.

Day to day the two cost about the same, with cheap tapas and modest entry fees in both, and Ronda works out a little cheaper overall. The real difference is where your money goes. In Cadiz it is the room: the old town has few hotels, and they cost more in July, August and Carnival week. Staying near Playa Victoria or coming in spring helps.

In Ronda, rural houses are fairly priced, while the hotels with gorge views and dates around Easter and the September fair cost more. For most visitors the biggest extra is the hire car.

Cadiz has far more to see on stage. It is one of the places where flamenco began, and members' clubs called peñas in the Santa María quarter perform for audiences who know the art well. The Gran Teatro Falla runs plays and concerts all year, hosts the Carnival contest of satirical choirs and holds an Ibero-American theatre festival every autumn.

Ronda's flamenco is mostly shows for visitors in small venues, and its municipal theatre puts on only occasional events. Its one big event is the Corrida Goyesca, a bullfight in eighteenth-century costume held in the old bullring during the September fair.

Neither town has its own bathing tradition, but treatments are easier to find from Cadiz. There are resort spas with sea-water treatments at Novo Sancti Petri, and Arab-style baths in Jerez half an hour away. Ronda's Arab baths are a monument to visit, not somewhere to bathe.

Ronda's strength is a different kind of rest. A country hotel among olive groves, quiet once the coach parties leave, is ideal for doing nothing in the hills. Cadiz's slow pace belongs to the seaside: walks along the sea walls, siestas, and sunset over La Caleta.