Cascais or Salamanca?

Cascais is a real beach town, and Salamanca is not one at all. In Cascais the coves of Conceição, Duquesa and Rainha are a short walk from the old streets, and Carcavelos, a broader beach with surf, is a few stops up the line. The Atlantic stays cool, so expect short, bracing swims rather than long lazy ones, and keep Guincho for watching the waves.

Salamanca is a long drive from any coast. In high summer the locals cool off in the city's open-air pools or at river beaches on the Tormes, which is fine for an afternoon but no reason to go.

Salamanca gives you more to eat your way through. You can spend an evening moving between bars around the Plaza Mayor and Calle Van Dyck, eating Guijuelo ham, hornazo and farinato, with Toro and Ribera del Duero wines and roast suckling pig for a proper meal. The student crowd keeps all of it informal and generous.

Cascais is the place for fish. Expect sardines and sea bream from the harbour, clams with coriander and long seafood lunches on the Guincho road, which is exactly what Salamanca lacks. Beyond the sea, though, the choice in Cascais thins out quickly, and serious eaters take the train into Lisbon for dinner.

Salamanca is the clear choice for sightseeing. Its whole centre is a heritage site, and the Plateresque university façade, the Old and New Cathedrals, the Casa de las Conchas and the Roman bridge all sit within a few minutes of one another. Come back after dark, when the floodlit sandstone glows. Its museums are modest, apart from the Art Nouveau collection at Casa Lis.

Cascais offers a pleasant afternoon rather than a programme. You can see the royal-era seafront villas, the Citadel, the red towers of the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego and a turreted museum by a cove, and then the town sends you on to Lisbon or Sintra for anything grander.

Cascais keeps its evenings low-key. In July and August the pubs, wine bars and cocktail terraces in the narrow streets of the old centre fill with locals and visitors, and the Estoril casino offers a dressier night. Even in summer, though, the town is mostly quiet by midnight, and the rest of the year it winds down earlier still. For a proper night out you go into Lisbon and plan around the last train back, or take a taxi.

Salamanca is by far the livelier place after dark. From Thursday to Saturday, university and language-school students pack the bars around the Plaza Mayor, Calle Bordadores and Gran Vía, and the night carries on in dance bars and small clubs until the small hours. It is cheap and easy to join, but it is aimed at a young crowd and has little serious clubbing or polished cocktail bars. The two run on opposite calendars: Cascais is at its liveliest in high summer, and that is exactly when Salamanca empties out between terms.

Cascais wins on landscape you can reach straight from town. A cycle path runs past Boca do Inferno and the dunes to Guincho's kitesurfing beach, cliff walks lead on to Cabo da Roca, and the misty forests of the Serra de Sintra rise just inland. The summer nortada suits sailors more than cyclists.

Salamanca's own surroundings are flat Meseta with riverside paths. The impressive country starts about an hour away: chestnut forests in the Sierra de Francia, peaks above 2,000m in Béjar and Gredos, and the granite gorge of the Arribes del Duero. You will need a car for all of it.

Both towns make good bases, but Cascais has the easier and grander excursions. Lisbon is about 40 minutes away by coastal train, passing Belém on the way, and the palaces of Sintra are about half an hour over the ridge, so the two best outings need no car. Mafra, Ericeira and Óbidos fill further days.

From Salamanca, the trips are to quieter historic towns: walled Ávila, Romanesque Zamora, fortified Ciudad Rodrigo and Toro's wine country. Valladolid is an easy train ride. The hill villages such as La Alberca and Mogarraz are lovely, but they are hard to reach without your own wheels.

Cascais is the easier place for young children. It has shallow coves on a calm bay, a flat promenade for scooters and pushchairs, and peacocks and a playground in the Marechal Carmona park. Neither town has a zoo or theme park, but from Cascais the Lisbon Oceanarium is a train ride away.

Salamanca works best as a stop of a day or two. Children enjoy hunting for the university frog and the cathedral astronaut and climbing the towers, and Spanish terraces welcome them late into the evening. Its hot summer afternoons and cold winters are harder on small travellers than the Cascais seafront.

Cascais is pleasant on foot. The harbour, the coves and the old centre lie close together, and the seafront path carries on to Estoril. Its real asset is the coastal train, which runs along the shore straight into Lisbon. Beyond that, things slow down: buses to Guincho and over the Serra de Sintra are infrequent, and the hill roads fill up in summer.

Salamanca has the edge for getting around the place itself. Nearly everything you will want to see sits in one compact, largely pedestrian old town that you can cross in about 20 minutes, from the Plaza Mayor down to the Roman bridge, so you will rarely need a bus. Trains run to Madrid and Valladolid, but the hill villages and the Arribes del Duero are really car country. A few cobbled slopes in the centre call for care with a pushchair.

Neither town is a shopping destination, and each points serious shoppers elsewhere, Lisbon in one case and anywhere bigger in the other. Cascais is good for surf brands, azulejo tiles, cork and tins of fish in handsome packaging.

Salamanca's best buys are edible, ibérico ham and cheese from the Mercado Central, along with charro silver filigree. High-street chains line Calle Toro and Calle Zamora.

Salamanca is much kinder to the budget. Student demand keeps tapas and drinks cheap, often with a free tapa alongside, and there are plenty of simple guesthouses near the old town. The main extra costs are admission charges at the cathedrals and university, plus higher room prices at Easter and on festival weekends.

Cascais is an upmarket resort, and its seafront hotels and harbour restaurants are priced to match, especially in July and August. You can save by eating set lunches in the back streets and coming outside high summer.

Salamanca has a little more going on. The Teatro Liceo and the municipal arts centre host touring theatre, dance and flamenco, and the university puts on choral concerts in its historic halls. The city's signature sound is the caped tunas singing under the Plaza Mayor arcades.

Cascais relies on the Teatro Experimental's Portuguese-language plays, cabaret at the Estoril casino and a summer jazz tradition. For opera or fado, both towns send you to a bigger city, Lisbon in the case of Cascais.

Both towns are restful rather than spa destinations, and Cascais has a slight edge. Estoril grew up as a thermal resort, and its thalassotherapy and hotel spas sit beside slow mornings on the seafront and yoga by the sea in summer.

Salamanca offers a different kind of calm: long lunches, a proper siesta and the quiet cloisters of San Esteban and Las Dueñas. For bathing there are Arab-style bath houses in town, the old balneario at Ledesma or a drive to the Roman-era springs at Baños de Montemayor.