Cartagena or Leon, Nicaragua?

Neither city has good swimming right on its doorstep, but Cartagena has the better water within reach. Bocagrande's sand is dark and the sea there is cloudy. Still, boats reach the Rosario Islands and Playa Blanca on Barú in about an hour or less, and there you find pale sand and calm, clear turquoise water, with the option of a night on an island.

León's coast at Poneloya and Las Peñitas, about 20km away, is a different kind of shore. The sand is grey volcanic, the waves are heavy and the rip currents strong. It is good for surfers and for a few lazy nights in a beach village, but for swimming you have to stay in the shallows or go to the quieter end of Las Peñitas.

Cartagena has much more range. Seafood is at the heart of it, from ceviche bought off street carts to whole fried fish, and above the street food there is a proper restaurant tier, with modern Colombian cooking in restored colonial houses inside the walls and cheaper, casual places in Getsemaní. The thing to watch is the old-town menus written for passing tourists.

León has nothing like that. You eat at markets and on the pavement: evening fritangas, lunch counters at the Mercado Central, quesillo and a handful of student cafés. Fine dining barely exists, though what you get is filling and local.

Both are colonial cities you get to know by wandering for two or three days, and neither has big museums. Cartagena is the grander and more complete of the two. Its walled city survives almost whole, with about 11km of ramparts to walk, the Castillo San Felipe dominates the hill beside Getsemaní, and the Palace of the Inquisition shows the harsher side of Spanish rule.

León is lower and whitewashed, a city of churches. Its best moment is walking on the cathedral roof among the domes, and after that come the baroque front of La Recolección and the old church in indigenous Subtiava. Two things belong only to León: the family home of the poet Rubén Darío, and the revolutionary murals that record the city's political past on its streets.

Cartagena has a real night out. Getsemaní's Plaza de la Trinidad fills with drummers and people drinking on the steps, salsa bars keep couples dancing into the small hours, and there are rooftop cocktail bars and reggaetón clubs inside the walls. The party boats and chivas are local specialities. The price is touts and a crowd that is mostly tourists.

León's scene is a university town's. It means hostel bars, beer at plastic tables and a few clubs near the cathedral, busy from Thursday to Saturday and quiet the rest of the week, and it is best to take a taxi home late.

This is where León clearly comes out ahead. The Maribios volcano chain rises just outside the city. You can climb Cerro Negro and sandboard down its black gravel, look into Telica's crater at night, or make a hard dawn ascent of San Cristóbal or Momotombo. On the coast, the Juan Venado reserve has mangroves to explore by kayak and turtles nesting on the beach in season.

Cartagena's outdoors is mostly at sea level and under water. There is snorkelling and diving over the Corales del Rosario reefs, canoeing through the mangroves at La Boquilla and kitesurfing in the dry-season winds. Inland, the country is flat farmland, and the Totumo mud volcano is the only real outing.

Both cities are thin on day trips, and in both cases the best-known places nearby, Mompox and Santa Marta from Cartagena or Granada and Masaya from León, work better as overnight stops.

What is within a day differs. From Cartagena it is San Basilio de Palenque, a village founded by escaped enslaved Africans with its own language, plus the fishing villages on the islands. From León it is the UNESCO ruins of León Viejo by Lake Managua, a rum distillery tour in the cane country around Chichigalpa and the pilgrimage basilica at El Viejo.

Neither city is built for children, and in both the heat and broken pavements mean days planned around a hotel pool. Cartagena gives you more to fill them with: calm, warm water at the island beaches, the National Aviary on the way to Playa Blanca, and horse carriages around the shaded plazas.

León has no such fallbacks, and its surf beaches are too rough for small swimmers. Its strength is for adventurous teenagers, who may well rate volcano boarding and a mangrove boat trip as the best part of the trip.

In both cities the sights are within a short walk of each other, and cheap taxis handle everything else. Midday heat and uneven pavements are the real obstacle in both.

The difference is in the layout. In Cartagena the walled city, San Diego and Getsemaní run into one another, Bocagrande is a quick taxi ride away and the islands are reached by boat. León is a single low grid where everything is within about fifteen minutes on foot. Tricycle taxis cover short hops there, crowded old school buses go to the coast, and tour shuttles take you to the volcanoes.

Cartagena is much better for shopping. The vaulted Las Bóvedas in the city walls sell Wayuu bags, sombreros vueltiaos and hammocks. There are emerald jewellers around the Plaza de Bolívar and boutiques of Colombian designers selling linen resortwear and swimwear, and the Bocagrande malls cover the rest.

León's shopping is practical market trade, with a few shops near the cathedral selling hammocks, leatherwork, coffee and rum. For proper crafts you need Masaya, which is a long way off.

León is far cheaper. It is among the least expensive places to travel in the Americas: guesthouses, fritanga suppers, local rum and buses to the coast cost next to nothing. Guided volcano trips and boutique colonial hotels are the main expenses, and even those are modest.

Cartagena is Colombia's most expensive city. Mansion hotels inside the walls charge close to European rates, especially over Christmas, New Year and Easter. Getsemaní's hostels, street food and set lunches bring it back down to good value, as long as you agree boat and hawker prices before you go.

Neither city has much seated performance, but Cartagena has more. The ornate Teatro Adolfo Mejía hosts concerts and dance, the January classical festival fills churches and courtyards with international performers, and every evening brings cumbia dancers to the plazas and salsa bands in Getsemaní.

León's performance life follows its festival calendar more than any stage. The Gigantona dances through the streets to drums, and there are Holy Week processions over sawdust carpets in Subtiava and the altars and fireworks of the Gritería in December. Outside those dates, there is little beyond the occasional show at the Teatro Municipal.

Cartagena is the more restful of the two, mainly thanks to its colonial-house hotels, whose plunge pools, courtyards and small spas give you some quiet in the old town. A few nights on the islands, swinging in a hammock, are the calmest option of all, and the Totumo mud bath is a fun extra.

León has little beyond cheap massage rooms and the odd yoga class, in a hot, noisy student centre. Rest there means a shaded courtyard pool or a few slow days in the beach villages.