Cordoba or Granada?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Granada has the sea closer. The Costa Tropical is about an hour away by road, with pebble and dark-sand coves at Salobreña, Almuñécar and La Herradura that are calm and clear enough for snorkelling.

From Cordoba, the Costa del Sol is about 160km away. You can manage it in a day using the fast train to Malaga and the city beaches, but it is a long day for one swim. In summer most people in Cordoba stay in the pools or head to the reservoirs in the Sierra Morena.

The two eat equally well but differently. Cordoba's tabernas, often old houses with tiled patios, serve the city's own dishes: salmorejo, which began here, flamenquin and rabo de toro, with chilled Montilla-Moriles wine from just south of town. The Mercado Victoria adds grazing counters.

Granada's strength is the custom of a free tapa with each drink, which makes an evening around the Realejo and the lower Albaicín easy to eat your way through. Alpujarras ham and the Moroccan tea houses of Calderería Nueva add a flavour Cordoba lacks. Neither city has much fine dining or international food.

These are two of Spain's great Moorish monuments, and the cities are evenly matched. Cordoba centres on the Mezquita, with its forest of striped arches and a cathedral built into the middle. Around it are the Juderia, the Roman bridge, the Alcazar gardens, the patios of San Basilio and the Palacio de Viana, with the ruins of Medina Azahara just outside the city.

Granada's Alhambra is a palace rather than a place of worship: carved stucco courts and the Generalife gardens, set against the Sierra Nevada. Below it lie the Royal Chapel, the Carthusian monastery and the Sacromonte caves, with the Albaicín viewpoints facing the palace across the valley. In both cities two or three unhurried days cover the essentials.

Granada goes out later and more often, because a large student population fills Calle Elvira, the Plaza Nueva area and the pubs around Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. On weekends the clubs run towards dawn. The scene is informal, with few big clubs, and it quietens in summer when the students leave.

Cordoba's nights are mostly late tapas on the terraces of the Corredera, Las Tendillas and the riverside. Its busiest time is the opposite of Granada's: summer terrace bars and the May fair, when the casetas dance until dawn. At other times there is little beyond a few late bars.

Granada has real mountains on its doorstep. The Sierra Nevada is snow-capped for much of the year, with skiing above Pradollano, summer routes towards Mulhacén and Veleta, and the chestnut woods and mule paths of the Alpujarras. In high summer you can escape the heat by going up into the mountains.

Cordoba's landscape is gentler: the wooded holm oak hills of the Sierra Morena, birds of prey in Hornachuelos, and the limestone gorges of the Subbeticas about an hour's drive away. Most of it needs a car, and in summer, when it passes 40°C, you can only walk at dawn.

Cordoba is the better base for touring Andalusia. Seville is under an hour away by fast train, Malaga about an hour, and Granada around an hour and a half. With a car you can add Carmona, Ecija, Priego de Cordoba and the Montilla wine towns.

Granada reaches Cordoba and Malaga easily too, but Seville is too far for a comfortable return trip. Its own day trips lean towards mountains and villages: Pampaneira and Capileira in the Alpujarras, the cave quarter of Guadix, Antequera with El Torcal, and Nerja on the coast. Both cities can reach Úbeda and Baeza.

Granada has more for children. The Parque de las Ciencias, with its planetarium and butterfly house, can fill most of a day, and in winter a snow day in the Sierra Nevada is easy to add. The drawback is the steep, stepped lanes of the Albaicín and the Alhambra hill, which are hard going with a pushchair.

Cordoba is flatter and largely free of traffic, which makes it easy with small children. Beyond the Alcazar fountains, the horse show at the royal stables, Almodovar castle and a modest zoo, though, its sights are made for adults, and its summer is hotter still.

Both centres are compact enough to explore on foot. The difference is the ground. Cordoba's sights lie on the flat around the Mezquita, the station is within walking distance, and only the narrow cobbles make wheeling a suitcase awkward.

In Granada, small red minibuses climb to the Alhambra, the Albaicín and Sacromonte, and they save real effort on those hills, while the lower town is easy walking. In both cities you need a car for the countryside.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and in both the best buys are crafts rather than fashion. In Cordoba that means silver filigree jewellery and the embossed, painted guadameci leather, best bought from the workshops rather than the souvenir stalls in the Juderia lanes.

Granada's crafts are taracea inlaid woodwork and the blue and green Fajalauza ceramics. The Alcaicería beside the cathedral is a more atmospheric place to browse, though much of what it sells is souvenirs. Both cities have guitar workshops and a high street of Spanish chains, around Cruz Conde in Cordoba and Calle Recogidas in Granada.

Both are good value by Spanish standards, and what costs more is where they differ. Granada's free tapa makes evening eating especially cheap, but the city gets dearer close to the Alhambra, with boutique stays in the Albaicín, terrace restaurants with views and busy spring weekends.

In Cordoba, small glasses of Montilla, generous lunch menus and a walkable centre keep daily costs low. Rooms cost more beside the Mezquita and become much more expensive in May, during the patio festival and the fair.

Flamenco is at the heart of both, but Granada has more to offer. Its cave houses in Sacromonte stage the zambra, and since 1952 the International Festival of Music and Dance has held concerts and ballet in the Alhambra's palaces and the Generalife's open-air theatre. The legacy of Lorca and Falla, an orchestra and an autumn jazz festival fill out the rest of the year.

Cordoba's flamenco is serious, with peñas for aficionados, a respected guitar festival and the Noche Blanca del Flamenco, a summer night of free performances in its squares. Beyond that, the Gran Teatro carries a modest programme of concerts and theatre.

Both cities have revived the Moorish bathing tradition in Arab-style bath houses with warm and hot pools and massage. Granada goes further, with real thermal waters within an hour at Lanjarón in the Alpujarras and Alhama de Granada.

In Cordoba, relaxing mostly means the quiet courtyards with fountains and orange trees, the spas of the better hotels, and the long summer siesta that the heat imposes.