Colombo or Ella?

Colombo is not a beach resort, but it does have the sea. Mount Lavinia's broad sand is at the southern edge of the city and Negombo's longer hotel beach is about an hour north. Both face open surf with strong currents, and they are best from December to April.

Ella sits at about 1,000m in the hills and has no beach at all. Arugam Bay and the south coast are each around three hours by road. The pools below the waterfalls are a cautious paddle in dry weather, not a swim.

Colombo is a real eating city. Rice and curry comes as a spread of dhal, jackfruit and sambols, hoppers come with an egg cooked inside, and lamprais is a dish you will hardly find anywhere else. Crab and cuttlefish come in from the lagoon, the Muslim and Tamil quarters add biryani and dosa, and the bakeries are full of short eats.

Ella has one main road of guesthouse kitchens and cafés, where smoothie bowls and pizza sit beside local dishes. The best meal is usually a homestay rice and curry. Family-run cooking classes using spices from their own gardens are the one thing it does that Colombo does not.

Colombo gives you a day or two of proper sightseeing. The National Museum has the country's royal regalia and ancient sculpture. Gangaramaya and Bawa's Seema Malaka pavilion stand by Beira Lake, and in Fort and Pettah you can walk past the striped Jami Ul-Alfar mosque, Hindu kovils and Wolvendaal Church.

Ella has a single landmark, the colonial-era Nine Arches Bridge, plus the Ravana cave with its Ramayana legend and the working tea factories. It has no museums and no old quarter. Neither place gets you to the ancient cities of the interior.

Colombo can give you a late night, at least at the weekend. Rooftop lounges look over the ocean, a small cluster of clubs in Colombo 3 and around Galle Face fills with a local crowd on Friday and Saturday, and the casinos stay open into the small hours. Weeknights are quieter, and the bars go dry on Poya full-moon days.

Ella has no clubs at all. A few backpacker bars on the main road serve cocktails around fire pits and stay sociable for a couple of hours in high season. After that the village is quiet well before midnight, because most people are up early for the sunrise walks.

This is Ella's great strength. Almost every guesthouse looks over the Ella Gap, and the walking starts at the door: an easy climb up Little Adam's Peak, a half-day hike to Ella Rock, and paths through the plantations to the bridge. Further out are World's End on Horton Plains and leopard safaris in Yala.

Colombo is flat, hot and built up. The shade of Viharamahadevi Park and the birds in the Diyasaru and Beddagana wetlands are pleasant enough, and you can take a boat into the Muthurajawela marsh, but none of it compares with the hills.

Colombo has the better day out. Galle's walled Dutch fort, a UNESCO site, is about two hours away along the coastal railway. On the way you pass the Bawa gardens at Lunuganga and Brief near Bentota and the mask carvers of Ambalangoda, and Negombo's canal and fish markets are an hour north.

From Ella the outings are quieter and smaller. You can visit the tea towns of Haputale and Bandarawela, take the slow train to colonial Nuwara Eliya, or see the thousand-year-old carvings at Buduruwagala and the painted cave at Dowa. They are pleasant additions, but none is a reason to come on its own.

Both places are about equally manageable with children and neither is built for them, but they suit different ages. Colombo has the zoo at Dehiwala and evening kites on Galle Face Green. Against that, the heat, the traffic and the missing pavements make pushchairs hard work, and the city beaches are too rough for toddlers.

Ella suits children who can walk. The hill train, the short climb up Little Adam's Peak, watching trains cross the bridge and ziplining make good days. The longer trails are steep and slippery, though, and serious medical care is a drive away.

You get around Colombo by riding, not walking. There is no metro, so app-booked tuk-tuks and cars do the work, and they crawl along Galle Road at peak hours. Walking only makes sense along Galle Face, around Beira Lake and in parts of Fort, and the coastal railway south to Mount Lavinia is the pleasant exception.

Ella is the opposite. The guesthouses, cafés and station all sit on one road, and you can walk to the Nine Arches Bridge and Little Adam's Peak along the tracks or through the tea. Tuk-tuks and drivers hired for the day cover anything further. The verges are narrow, so carry a torch after dark.

Colombo is far ahead. The Pettah bazaar gives each street to one trade, such as spices, fabric or jewellery, and it is worth walking even if you buy nothing. In Colombo 3 and 7, design-led stores sell handloom cotton and batik, some of them in old villas, and this is where to buy gems from a reputable dealer.

Ella has a few shops on the main road selling tea, sarongs and masks. Loose-leaf tea bought at an estate factory is the one thing worth taking home.

Both are cheap, and the costs land in different places. Colombo is the priciest stop on the island, but the extra is mostly at the seafront hotels, seafood restaurants and rooftop bars. Eat where local people eat, ride the train and use app tuk-tuks, and you spend very little.

In Ella homestays are plentiful and the walks and views cost nothing. The things that cost more are the cafés aimed at foreigners and the hillside hotels with infinity pools. Agree tuk-tuk fares and guide fees before you set off.

Colombo's programme is modest, but it exists. The lotus-shaped Nelum Pokuna hosts concerts and dance, the Lionel Wendt stages local drama, and the symphony orchestra plays a few times a year. Kandyan and low-country dance with drumming is the performance most worth catching.

Ella has almost nothing on stage: perhaps a guitarist in a café or a dance show put on by a hotel. If you want traditional dance, plan to see it in Kandy or Colombo.

In Colombo, Ayurveda happens inside a hot, noisy city. Clinics around town offer warm-oil massage, shirodhara and herbal steam, the big hotels add spas and pools, and the calm moments are a sunset on Galle Face or a quiet temple courtyard. For a residential course lasting a week or more, people head down the coast to Beruwala or Bentota.

Ella offers the same treatments, but with cool air, birdsong and the view over the gap. A massage after a long hike is the usual routine there, and the hillside resorts add yoga and fuller programmes. Stay on the slopes rather than the main road, which fills with tuk-tuks in high season.