Cuenca, Ecuador or Sucre?

Swimming is not a reason to visit either city. Cuenca is at least a long drive over the Andes from the Pacific, while Sucre lies in a landlocked country with no coast to reach. In Cuenca the warm thermal pools at Baños are a pleasant substitute. In Sucre you are limited to a hotel or municipal pool.

Both cities serve hearty, inexpensive highland food with little fine dining, and the market halls are the best place to eat in each. In Cuenca that means hornado carved to order in the Mercado 10 de Agosto, mote pillo for breakfast, and weekend trips to Ricaurte for spit-roast cuy, with a cup of canelazo against the cold.

Sucre's day starts with salteñas eaten standing up. Spicy chorizos chuquisaqueños and the juice counters of the Mercado Central fill the rest of it. Its particular pleasure is chocolate from the old makers around the plaza, and singani takes the place of canelazo in the glass.

These are two whitewashed colonial grids, both on the UNESCO list, and each fills two or three unhurried days. Cuenca's landmark is the New Cathedral's blue-tiled domes over Parque Calderón. Its best museum, Pumapungo, sits on the excavated Inca city of Tomebamba, and much of the pleasure is walking El Barranco above the river.

Sucre puts national history at the centre. The Casa de la Libertad holds the documents of Bolivian independence. The Museo de Arte Indígena shows Jalq'a and Tarabuco weaving, and at the edge of town a quarry wall carries thousands of dinosaur footprints, which has no equivalent in Cuenca.

Neither city is somewhere to plan a vacation around nights out. Cuenca's evenings centre on Calle Larga and the streets running down to the river, with craft beer and salsa or reggaeton from Thursday on. The cold sends most people home early. Sucre's students fill a couple of clubs near the plaza on Fridays and Saturdays until after midnight, though most visitors stop at a singani after dinner.

Cuenca has the better access to the outdoors. Cajas National Park starts less than an hour west of town. Its páramo of glacial lakes and granite ridges climbs past 4,000m, and its marked trails let you walk alone for an hour or all day. Back in the city, the tree-lined Tomebamba and three other rivers give long paths for walking and cycling.

Sucre's country is dry, red and ochre. The Cordillera de los Frailes, with the striped Maragua crater and the Jalq'a villages, is striking, but it is usually done as a guided trek of one to three days, sleeping in community lodges. Closer to town there is less: the Siete Cascadas and short climbs above the Recoleta.

Cuenca gives you more good outings. Ingapirca, Ecuador's largest Inca site, is about two hours north. A loop east takes in the Gualaceo market, the silversmiths of Chordeleg and the hat weavers of Sígsig, with adobe villages such as Susudel to the south.

Sucre's best outing is the Sunday market at Tarabuco, where Yampara people come in traditional dress. Add the eclectic Castillo de La Glorieta and the village of Yotala, and the list is nearly done. Potosí is far enough away that it works better as the next stop than as a day out.

Both cities are calm and friendly with children, though neither has much made for them, and the altitude tires young children for the first few days. That effect is stronger in Sucre, which is higher. Cuenca has Bioparque Amaru with its condors and spectacled bears, plus the warm pools at Baños.

Sucre's highlight is the Parque Cretácico, where life-size dinosaur models stand in front of a cliff covered in real footprints. Medical care there is basic, so Sucre suits families with older children better.

You will see both on foot, since almost everything is within a compact colonial grid. In Cuenca, the hard part is the steep steps down to the river, and its tram runs from the airport side through the centre. In Sucre, the effort is the climb to the Recoleta. Beyond walking distance you rely on taxis and on micros that come without maps. In both cities, getting into the countryside means a bus from the terminal or a hired driver.

Cuenca has more worth buying. The toquilla straw Panama hat is finished in workshops all over town and sold in every grade up to superfine. There are also ceramics and embroidery, the flower market beside the New Cathedral, and filigree silver from Chordeleg nearby.

Sucre's shopping comes down to two things: textiles and chocolate. The dark Jalq'a weavings and bright Tarabuco designs in the fair-trade shops are beautiful, and fashion and design shopping is absent in both cities.

Both are very cheap by any standard, and Sucre is the cheaper of the two. Its market lunches, salteñas and taxi rides cost almost nothing, and even its boutique hotels in restored colonial houses stay modest, which is why language students settle there for weeks.

Cuenca comes close if you eat in the market halls and from set lunches. Wine, foreign spirits and the international restaurants around the old centre push a day's spending up faster than anything in Sucre.

Cuenca has slightly more on stage. The Cuenca Symphony Orchestra gives regular concerts, many of them free, in old churches and theatres, and Teatro Sucre runs a small season of its own. On Christmas Eve the Pase del Niño Viajero procession fills the streets with costumed children and decorated horses.

Sucre's performances are mainly folkloric: dinner shows of dances from around Bolivia and weekend peñas with charango and panpipes. The national symphony only visits the Teatro Gran Mariscal from time to time.

Cuenca has a real bathing culture. In Baños, a short ride from town, people have soaked in hot springs for generations, and the spa complexes there offer mineral pools, steam rooms and mud treatments. Massage in town is cheap too.

Sucre has no springs and only a handful of massage rooms. What it offers is rest: shaded courtyards, benches on the Plaza 25 de Mayo and sunset from the Recoleta arcade.