Chefchaouen or Lagos, Portugal?

Chefchaouen has no beach of its own. The grey-sand Mediterranean shore at Oued Laou is more than an hour away down a winding gorge road. The river pools at Akchour are cold and shallow, good for cooling off but not for a proper swim.

In Lagos the beach is the point of the stay. Golden coves such as Dona Ana and Camilo lie beneath sculpted cliffs within walking distance of the walls, and Meia Praia has about 4km of open sand. The Atlantic is cooler than the Mediterranean, but the sheltered coves are clear and usually calm.

Neither town is a food destination, but you will eat better in Lagos. Its strength is the sea: grilled sardines and octopus, cataplana, the riverside market and inexpensive local wine. The best of it is in the family places a street or two back from the tourist lanes.

In Chefchaouen the same tagines, couscous and kefta turn up in one restaurant after another, and alcohol is hard to find. The rewards are small and local, such as Rif goat cheese wrapped in palm leaf and bissara soup at breakfast.

Both are short on major sights and each can be seen in a day or less, but what they offer is different. In Chefchaouen the attraction is the medina as a whole: blue-washed stairways, Andalusian heritage and the red-walled kasbah on Outa el-Hammam. It is a place to wander and photograph rather than a list of sights.

Lagos has a handful of specific visits tied to the age of Portuguese voyages. There are the old walls, the harbour fort, the gilded baroque interior of the Church of Santo António, and the museum on the site of the 1444 slave market.

Lagos has a real night out in summer. Young travellers, surfers and backpackers fill the old town's small bars and pubs until well after midnight, and a few small clubs keep going towards dawn. In winter it calms right down.

Chefchaouen has nothing like this. Apart from a couple of hotel bars, the evening ends with mint tea in the square and a walk through the lit lanes.

Both are good bases for the outdoors, and Lagos has more variety. From Chefchaouen you can walk into the mountains straight from the medina, or follow the gorge to God's Bridge at Akchour in Talassemtane National Park, where cedar forests shelter Barbary macaques. Trails are poorly marked, though, and a guide often helps.

Lagos combines sea and land. You can kayak among the grottoes of Ponta da Piedade, walk the clifftop Fishermen's Trail on the Costa Vicentina, surf all year, take a boat out to look for dolphins, or head inland to the Monchique hills. Being out on the water is something the Rif cannot match.

Chefchaouen has one excellent outing: Tetouan's UNESCO-listed medina, larger and quieter than its own, with the coast at Martil beyond. Tangier and Fes are better as the next stop than as return trips. Lagos has more choice within easy reach, from the fortress at Sagres and Cape St Vincent to Moorish Silves and the spa village of Caldas de Monchique, with Tavira and Faro for longer days, all much easier with a hired car.

Lagos is far easier with children. Meia Praia's gently shelving shore, boat trips to the grottoes, and the water parks and marine park a drive away give a beach-loving family plenty to do. Portuguese restaurants welcome children late into the evening.

Chefchaouen is calm and friendly but has nothing aimed at children. Its stepped lanes defeat a pushchair, and adults face persistent offers of hashish. It suits a short stop with older children who can manage the stairs and would enjoy the river at Akchour.

You get around both centres on foot, and both are hard work in places. Chefchaouen's medina is small but almost all steps and polished stone. Lagos spreads further over cobbles, with a footbridge across the river to Meia Praia.

The real difference comes when you leave town. Chefchaouen has no railway and relies on long-distance buses and shared grand taxis. Lagos sits at the end of the Algarve line and has infrequent regional buses, but most visitors hire a car.

Chefchaouen's crafts give you more to bring home. Its lanes sell thick woollen blankets, striped Rif weavings, djellabas, leather and baskets, many made in the region, and some weavers work at looms in their shopfronts. The bargaining is gentler than in the big souks, though the range repeats after a few streets.

Lagos has Algarve ceramics, cork goods, linens, sardine tins and surf shops, and its market is good for honey, figs and medronho. It is a place to browse on the way to dinner rather than to shop seriously, and fashion is absent from both.

Chefchaouen is much the cheaper of the two. Rooms, meals and shared taxis cost little, and even the restored riads and the restaurants on the square stay modest. Lagos has Western European prices, with a steep summer premium on beach rooms and main-street restaurants, and becomes good value from October to May.

Neither town is somewhere to plan evenings around a performance, but Lagos at least gives you a chance of hearing something live. Chefchaouen has no stage of any kind. Its Andalusian musical heritage comes out mainly when a festival brings it out, so on an ordinary visit the only music is the call to prayer over the blue rooftops, and now and then a sufi chant.

On a summer night in Lagos you can usually find a fado or guitar evening put on for visitors, or a band playing familiar songs in an old-town bar, and the town's cultural centre adds the odd concert or play. That makes it the better of the two, but only just, and for an orchestra or opera you would have to go to Lisbon.

Chefchaouen is the more restful of the two. The mountain air, roof terraces and slow pace of the medina invite you to do very little, and the neighbourhood hammams give a traditional scrub, though polished spa treatments are rare.

Lagos is most relaxing outside summer, when cliff walks and long lunches take over, and its quieter edges towards Luz attract yoga and surf retreats. Spa treatments are mostly in resort hotels, and the thermal springs of Caldas de Monchique are an hour inland.