Casablanca or Ronda?

Casablanca has a beach right in the city, and Ronda does not. The Corniche at Ain Diab has a long stretch of sand lined with beach clubs and their pools. The wider sands at Dar Bouazza and Bouznika are a short drive away. The catch is the Atlantic itself: the swell is strong and the currents can be dangerous, and water quality along the city front varies, so many people swim in the club pools instead.

Ronda sits about 50km inland. The long sandy beaches near Estepona and San Pedro de Alcántara are about an hour away down a road of hairpin bends, so a trip to the sea fills the whole day and is hard without a car. The Mediterranean there is calmer than Casablanca's surf, but the shore is heavily built up. For most visitors to Ronda, a summer swim means a hotel or rural-house pool.

Casablanca is the better place to eat, mainly because of the sea. You can choose your fish at the Marché Central and have it grilled next door, eat simply at the fishing harbour or snack on msemen and fried fish in the Old Medina. Maarif and Gauthier add French-influenced brasseries and pâtisseries for a smarter meal.

Ronda's cooking is hearty mountain food: oxtail stew, lamb, game, cured ham and autumn chestnuts, with local Sierras de Málaga wine to go with it. It is satisfying but narrow. Eat in the Mercadillo tapas bars rather than on the gorge-view terraces, and a few days will cover it.

Ronda edges ahead because the whole town is the sight. The Puente Nuevo spans the Tajo gorge between the Moorish old town and the Mercadillo, and close by stand the Real Maestranza bullring, some of Spain's best-preserved Arab baths and the rock-cut stairway at the Casa del Rey Moro.

Casablanca has one great monument, the Hassan II Mosque, which non-Muslims can enter on a guided tour. Beyond it, its interest is twentieth-century: Art Deco and neo-Moorish boulevards, the 1930s Habous quarter and a few small museums. Both reward two days or so, but Ronda's sights are older and packed into a smaller space.

Casablanca is the only one of the two with a real night out, though it is a smart, discreet one. Lounges and clubs along the Corniche at Ain Diab play house and Arabic pop late into weekend nights, and Maarif and Gauthier have hotel bars and cocktail lounges. You will need a taxi between them.

Ronda's evening is a late dinner and tapas around the Plaza del Socorro. The town is lively in summer but quiet by the early hours, and only the September fair changes that.

This is Ronda's strongest suit and Casablanca's weakest. From Ronda you can hike the Sierra de Grazalema, with the Garganta Verde ravine and griffon vultures overhead, or walk among the Spanish firs of the Sierra de las Nieves. You can also climb the gorge cliffs, walk the Caminito del Rey or follow the Genal valley's chestnut woods as they turn copper in autumn.

Casablanca sits on a flat coastal plain. Its outdoor life is a run along the Corniche to the El Hank lighthouse, a surf lesson at Ain Diab or a ride on the Bouskoura forest trails. The mountains are too far away for a day out.

Ronda has the richer choice of outings. Setenil de las Bodegas is twenty minutes away, Grazalema and Zahara de la Sierra are within the hour, and the Roman site of Acinipo and the painted Cueva de la Pileta are close by. Seville, Málaga and Gibraltar are possible in a long day, though the villages really need a car.

Casablanca's best outing is Rabat, an hour away by train, with the Kasbah des Oudayas and the Chellah ruins. El Jadida's Portuguese sea walls and the riverside medina of Azemmour lie down the coast. Marrakech and Fes are too far for a comfortable return trip.

Neither is an easy family choice, but Casablanca has a little more made for children. It has a large aquarium and indoor rides in the Corniche mall, an amusement park and zoo at Ain Diab, and beach-club pools that are far safer than the sea. The heavy traffic and broken pavements wear everyone out, though.

Ronda is calmer and safe, and older children enjoy the gorge walk, the rock-cut stairway and the caves. There are no attractions aimed at children, and the steep cobbles defeat pushchairs. A country house with a pool makes the best base.

Ronda is easier on foot. The old town, the bridge, the bullring and the Mercadillo are minutes apart, though some lanes are steep. Getting out of town is another matter: buses and trains are slow and infrequent, so the villages and parks need a car.

Casablanca is too spread out to walk. You get around by tram and red petits taxis, and crossing the big roundabouts on foot takes nerve. In return, fast trains make Rabat and the rest of Morocco simple to reach without driving.

Casablanca is far ahead. It has a huge mall on the Corniche with international brands, the fashion streets and local designers of Maarif, low-pressure craft shops in the Habous quarter and the Derb Ghallef flea market for curiosities. Carpet hunters will find better choice in the older medinas.

Ronda offers little more than Carrera Espinel's ordinary shops and souvenir ceramics near the bridge. Its best buys are edible: local wine, cured meats, olive oil and convent sweets.

Both are good value, but they save you money in different ways. In Casablanca the daily costs are low, with cheap taxis, the tram and market fish, while rooms are the expense: the hotels are geared to business travellers and good guesthouses are scarce.

In Ronda it is the other way round. The countryside houses and small hotels are fairly priced and the town costs nothing to walk, but a hire car adds the biggest extra, and prices rise at Easter, during the September fair and at hotels overlooking the gorge.

Casablanca offers more to see, though even there it pays to check the calendar. It has a large modern theatre on Place Mohammed V, programmes at the cultural institutes, a long-running jazz festival and an urban music festival rooted in its own chaabi and rap scene.

In Ronda, performance means small flamenco shows for visitors, an occasional programme at the municipal theatre and the Corrida Goyesca at the September fair. On most evenings there is little else on.

Casablanca has a living bathing culture that Ronda lacks. You can have a black-soap scrub in a neighbourhood hammam, a more polished version with massage in Maarif, or seawater treatments at the Corniche thalassotherapy centres. The noisy city around them makes it hard to switch off, though.

Ronda's Arab baths are a monument rather than a place to bathe, and spa options are limited to a few hotels. What it offers instead is quiet: evenings after the day-trippers leave, and farmhouses with pools and olive groves in the hills.