Cusco or Sucre?

Neither city has a beach, and this one is a draw. From Cusco the nearest beach is a flight away on Peru's Pacific coast, and the glacial lagoons in the hills are far too cold for a swim. Bolivia has no coastline at all, so in Sucre a hotel or municipal pool is the only water you will find.

Cusco eats better and more widely. The San Pedro market covers everyday highland cooking, from trout and alpaca to roast cuy and slow-cooked picantería dishes, while the Novoandino restaurants around the Plaza de Armas and in San Blas build tasting menus on native ingredients. Beware the tourist menus right by the square.

Sucre's table is plainer and more local: morning salteñas, spicy chorizos chuquisaqueños and set lunches upstairs at the Mercado Central. Its standout is chocolate from long-established makers on the main square. Beyond a few traveller cafés there is little fine dining.

Both have colonial centres worth walking, but Cusco has a second, older city underneath. Inca walls line streets like Hatun Rumiyoc, the Santo Domingo monastery rises from the foundations of Qorikancha, and the zigzag ramparts of Sacsayhuamán stand above the town. The Cusco School paintings in the cathedral add to the depth.

Sucre is a smaller, tidier set. Its whitewashed UNESCO-listed grid holds the Casa de la Libertad, where Bolivia declared independence, and the Recoleta convent sits above the rooftops. The weaving collection at the Museo de Arte Indígena and the dinosaur trackway give it a character of its own, but two or three days will cover it.

Cusco has more going on after dark. A tight knot of bars and clubs just off the Plaza de Armas fills with backpackers and trekkers, stays open late at weekends and runs hostel pub crawls, with calmer cocktail and craft beer bars up in San Blas.

Sucre's night out belongs to its students. A handful of bars and a couple of clubs near the square get busy on Fridays and Saturdays, but midweek the town turns in early, and a glass of singani after dinner is the usual end to the evening.

Cusco opens onto some of the greatest mountain country on the continent. You have the terraced Sacred Valley below the snow peaks of the Cordillera Urubamba, hard dawn hikes to Humantay and the 5,000m Rainbow Mountain, and the long treks on the Inca Trail, Salkantay and Ausangate. Add rafting, downhill biking, condors and vicuñas.

Sucre's outdoors is drier and quieter, in folded red and ochre hills. The highlight is a guided one-to-three-day walk in the Cordillera de los Frailes, past the striped bowl of the Maragua crater and Jalq'a villages. Closer in, the Siete Cascadas make an easy half day.

Cusco has far more to fill extra days. Within about an hour lie the Sacred Valley towns of Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero, the circular terraces of Moray and the Maras salt pans, with Tipón and Andahuaylillas to the south-east. Machu Picchu crowns the list, though the road, train and bus make it a very long day, often better split with a night in the valley.

From Sucre the list is short. Tarabuco's Sunday textile market is the classic outing, and La Glorieta and Yotala make half days. Potosí is far enough away to be the next stop on your route rather than a day out.

Sucre is much easier with children. It sits around 600m lower than Cusco, its centre is calm and compact, the main square has room to run around, and the dinosaur models and real footprints at the Parque Cretácico are a sure hit.

Cusco asks a lot of a family. The altitude is a real risk for small children, the cobbled streets are steep, and the days are built around ruins, churches and pre-dawn departures. Families with young children often base themselves down in the Sacred Valley, while older children who like history and walking can do well in the city.

Sucre is the easier city to move about on foot. Its regular colonial grid is simple to read, and almost everything lies within a few blocks of the Plaza 25 de Mayo, with only the climb to the Recoleta to puff over. A tourist bus serves the dinosaur park.

Cusco's centre is also compact, but the climbs to San Blas and Sacsayhuamán in thin air, along with narrow pavements, make walking slower work. Taxis do the uphill runs, and the Sacred Valley usually means a tour or driver, with the Machu Picchu train leaving from stations outside town.

Cusco is the bigger shopping trip. Alpaca and baby alpaca knitwear, ponchos and blankets are everywhere, the best from natural-dye weaving cooperatives such as those in Chinchero, and San Blas workshops add ceramics, carved saints and silver. Much of the stock around the main square is factory-made, and not every "alpaca" label is honest.

Sucre's range is narrower but distinctive: dark Jalq'a weavings with their imagined creatures and bright Tarabuco geometrics in fair-trade shops, plus a bag of the city's chocolate.

Both are cheap day to day, but Sucre is cheaper still and has no unavoidable splurge. Market lunches, salteñas, taxis and guesthouses in colonial houses all cost very little, which is why language students stay for weeks.

In Cusco, daily costs stay low, but the Machu Picchu train and entry, along with guided treks like the Inca Trail, take a large share of any budget, and the boutique mansions and restaurants on the square charge close to international rates.

Neither has a deep programme, and both lean on folkloric dance and Andean bands. The difference is in the extras. Cusco's strength is its festivals: Inti Raymi staged at Sacsayhuamán around the June solstice, and masked dancers at Corpus Christi and the Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage.

Sucre has the more formal stage. The nineteenth-century Teatro Gran Mariscal hosts the national symphony from time to time, and weekend peñas give a more local setting for charango and panpipes than Cusco's dinner shows staged for visitors.

Neither is a spa town, and both rest more on mood than on facilities. Cusco offers cheap massage on every street around the square and hotel spas that pump oxygen into rooms. For real calm you go down to the Sacred Valley's riverside lodges, or out to hot springs at Aguas Calientes or Lares.

Sucre has fewer treatments but an easier rhythm. The altitude is lower, the climate milder, there are shaded courtyards and plaza benches, and the Recoleta arcade at sunset makes it a natural place to stop and recover after the harsher altiplano.