Calgary or Canmore?

Neither place is for a beach trip, and the swimming they offer differs in kind. Calgary has city lakes such as Sikome in Fish Creek Park and Chestermere on its eastern edge, and on a hot day you can drift down the Bow on a raft or tube. Canmore has Quarry Lake on the edge of town, with a grassy shore and clear, cold mountain water that suits a quick plunge more than an afternoon in the water.

Calgary has much more choice. It has Alberta beef in steakhouses old and modern, ginger beef in Chinatown, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian and Lebanese cooking in the suburbs, and craft breweries around Manchester and Ramsay, enough variety for a week.

Canmore does breakfast, bakeries and après-hike plates well, and a few kitchens cook bison, game and Pacific fish. The range is thin, though, and evenings outside the busy seasons are quiet. For a serious meal, you drive to Calgary.

Neither is a great sightseeing destination, but Calgary has two days' worth. The Glenbow covers western Canadian art and history, Studio Bell holds the instruments and archives of Canadian music, Heritage Park is a living-history village, and Stephen Avenue keeps its sandstone buildings from the 1880s.

Canmore's history is coal mining, told in a small museum, a few miners' cottages and the old police barracks. An hour covers it, and the museums in Banff are the closest step up.

Calgary offers a real night out. There are the pubs, cocktail bars and patios of 17th Avenue SW, more bars in the East Village, a few clubs, and country bars with line dancing and a mechanical bull. It goes out mostly at weekends, except during the Stampede, when it stays up for ten days.

In Canmore an evening out is a pint in a brewpub with climbers and weekenders, sometimes with a band, and most places quieten well before midnight. Anyone who wants later hours goes to Banff.

Both are superb bases for the Rockies, and the difference is how close you are. From Calgary, Kananaskis is about an hour away and Banff about ninety minutes. The city also has its own outdoors: the Bow and Elbow river pathways, Fish Creek Park and the open grassland of Nose Hill.

In Canmore the Three Sisters, Ha Ling Peak and Mount Rundle rise above the streets, climbing and scrambling start at the edge of town, and elk wander through it. Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and the Icefields Parkway are all within easy reach, so you spend more of each day on the trail and less on the highway.

Calgary has outings in more directions. Banff and Canmore lie to the west, Drumheller's badlands and the dinosaur fossils of the Royal Tyrrell Museum to the north-east, and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump two hours south, with ranching history at the Bar U Ranch.

From Canmore there are fewer options. Banff is twenty minutes up the valley, Lake Louise village and Field make smaller stops, and Calgary is a little over an hour east for its museums and Heritage Park. Beyond those, the country around is scenery rather than places to visit.

Calgary has far more built for children. There is the zoo with its park of life-size dinosaurs, the hands-on TELUS Spark science centre, steam trains at Heritage Park, Calaway Park, and zip lines at Canada Olympic Park, plus the Stampede midway in July.

Canmore suits families who like being outside. The river paths take pushchairs, short walks lead to Grassi Lakes, and you see elk most days. On a wet day, though, there is only the recreation centre's pool and climbing wall, and bears mean keeping children close on the trails.

Getting around is much the same in both: a walkable centre, good river paths for cycling, and a hire car for almost anything in the mountains. Calgary adds two CTrain lines and the enclosed Plus 15 skywalks downtown, but beyond the core it sprawls and the buses are slow.

Canmore is small enough to cross on foot. A regional bus to Banff and Parks Canada's seasonal shuttles to the busiest lakes allow some days without a car, though Kananaskis and most trailheads still need one.

For shopping, Calgary is clearly ahead. It has malls such as CORE and Chinook Centre for the chains, independent boutiques and record shops in Kensington, Inglewood and along 17th Avenue, and long-established western outfitters selling hand-made boots, felt hats and saddlery.

Canmore's Main Street is the place for a new waterproof or hiking boots, galleries of mountain landscapes and Indigenous work, and gift shops. It makes a pleasant hour of browsing, not a reason to visit.

For most of the year Calgary is the cheaper place to sleep. Its city hotels cost less than Canmore's rooms, which are priced like a resort's beside a famous national park and fill quickly in July, August and the ski season. The exception is Stampede week, when Calgary's rooms become scarce and dear as well. Calgary's food courts and suburban family restaurants also offer cheaper meals than Canmore, where eating out mostly means brewpubs and restaurants at normal Canadian prices.

The mountains narrow the gap. A city stay in Calgary can manage on the CTrain, but anyone heading for the Rockies from either town needs a hire car and park passes, and from Calgary every mountain day adds a long drive. In Canmore the free hiking starts at the door, and a self-catering condo in spring or late autumn closes much of the difference.

Calgary has a full regional programme. The Calgary Philharmonic plays in the Jack Singer Concert Hall at the Werklund Centre, Theatre Calgary and the opera company stage seasons, and July brings the Folk Music Festival on Prince's Island and the Stampede grandstand show.

Canmore's highlight is its long-running folk festival on the August long weekend. The rest of the year there is a small arts centre and bands in the pubs, with the Banff Centre twenty minutes away for classical concerts and the Mountain Film Festival. On most evenings, little is on.

Both rely on mountain spas and hot pools rather than any bathing culture of their own, and Canmore is much closer to them. Banff's Upper Hot Springs is about half an hour from Canmore against ninety minutes from Calgary. In the city itself you get hotel spas and yoga studios in a practical, working place.

Canmore also offers calm itself: quiet streets, mountain views and evenings that slow down with the tired hikers. That makes it the better place to rest after a day outdoors.