Cadiz or Salamanca?

This is the widest gap between the two. Cadiz is surrounded by the Atlantic. You can swim at La Caleta between its two castles or spread out on the fine sand of Playa Victoria, and El Palmar, Zahara de los Atunes and Bolonia are an easy drive away. The levante wind is the one thing that can spoil a beach day.

Salamanca is on the high plain, far from any coast. In high summer the most it offers is a dip in the Tormes, a reservoir or a public pool.

Cadiz eats better, as long as you want fish. Freidurías serve paper cones of cazón en adobo and shrimp fritters, tapas bars in La Viña serve almadraba bluefin tuna, and chilled fino comes from the sherry towns over the bay.

Salamanca's table is meat from the dry interior: Guijuelo ibérico ham, hornazo pastry, roast suckling pig and red wine from Toro and Ribera del Duero. Neither city has much international cooking, so choose by whether you would rather eat seafood or charcuterie.

Salamanca has more to see. The baroque Plaza Mayor, the carved Plateresque front of the university, two cathedrals side by side and the Casa de las Conchas fill a compact UNESCO old town. Its warm sandstone is at its best floodlit at night.

Cadiz has the deeper history but fewer showpieces. You can climb the cathedral's bell tower, watch the rooftops through the Torre Tavira camera obscura, see the Phoenician sarcophagi in the Museo de Cádiz and find the Roman theatre in the Barrio del Pópulo. Neither city is strong on museums.

Salamanca goes out harder and more often. Its huge student population packs the bars around Calle Bordadores and Gran Vía from Thursday to Saturday, and dance bars stay open well past 3am. The crowd is young and much of it is foreign, and the city goes quiet outside term.

In Cadiz, evenings mean late tapas in La Viña and summer terraces along Playa Victoria rather than clubs. The big exception is Carnival in February, when the whole city parties in the streets all night for ten days.

Cadiz has more variety close by. There are flamingos and spoonbills in the salt marshes of the bay, cliff-top pine forest at La Breña, and kitesurfing and whale-watching from Tarifa. The limestone gorges of Grazalema and the Doñana wetlands are also within reach.

Salamanca's countryside starts about an hour out: the chestnut woods of the Sierra de Francia, mountain peaks above 2,000m and the granite canyon of the Arribes del Duero. You need a car for nearly all of it.

Both are good bases, but Cadiz has the easier and more famous trips. You can take the train to Jerez's bodegas or to Seville, the ferry to El Puerto de Santa María, or drive to hilltop Vejer, Arcos and the Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia.

From Salamanca the trips are quieter: Ávila's walls, Zamora's Romanesque churches, the ramparts of Ciudad Rodrigo and the half-timbered villages of La Alberca and Mogarraz. Many of them are hard to reach without a car.

Cadiz works better with children because of the sea. Playa Victoria has lifeguards and plenty of space, La Caleta is calm for small swimmers, and the shady Genovés park and a ferry ride across the bay fill the afternoons.

Salamanca keeps children busy for a day or two with the frog and the astronaut to spot in the carvings, the cathedral towers and the riverside parks. After that it is churches and colleges, and the summer heat and winter cold on the plain are harder to plan around.

Both are easy on foot. Cadiz's flat old town is on a peninsula you can cross from shore to shore, with buses down the long isthmus to the beach. Trains to Jerez and Seville and a catamaran over the bay leave right from the centre.

Salamanca's sights are even closer together, about 20 minutes' walk from the Plaza Mayor to the Roman bridge, though some streets are cobbled and gently sloping. In both, the countryside really needs a hire car.

Neither is a shopping city, and both have a few high-street chains and little else. What you take home differs. From Cadiz it is hand-painted fans, ceramics, flamenco dresses and sherry. From Salamanca it is ibérico ham, cheese and the silver filigree of charro jewellery.

Salamanca is the cheaper stay overall. Student demand keeps bar prices low, a drink often comes with a free tapa, and there are plenty of simple guesthouses near the old town. The one thing that adds up is admission to the cathedrals and towers.

In Cadiz the eating is just as cheap and most sights cost little or nothing. Rooms are the problem: the old town has few of them, and they get expensive in July, August and Carnival week.

Cadiz has the stronger stage, and much of it is its own. It is one of the homes of flamenco, and the peñas of the Santa María quarter perform for audiences who know the forms well. The Gran Teatro Falla puts on the satirical Carnival choirs and an autumn festival of Ibero-American theatre.

Salamanca relies on touring shows at the Teatro Liceo, university choral concerts and the caped student tunas playing under the arcades of the Plaza Mayor. Neither city has opera or a major orchestra.

Neither city has a bathing tradition of its own, so in both a treatment means a hotel spa or Arab-style baths. The difference lies just outside. Near Cadiz there are resort spas with sea-water treatments at Novo Sancti Petri. Salamanca has real mineral springs at the old balneario in Ledesma and at Baños de Montemayor, used since Roman times.

For simply slowing down, Cadiz has walks on the sea walls and sunsets over La Caleta. Salamanca has quiet cloisters at San Esteban and Las Dueñas.