Fes or Rabat?

Fes has no beach worth the trip, since the coast is about three hours away. Swimming means a hotel pool or a riad plunge pool, which is worth having in the summer heat.

Rabat has the Atlantic on its doorstep, with the city beach right below the Kasbah of the Udayas and calmer, cleaner sand south towards Temara, Harhoura and Skhirat. The swell, the currents and the cool water make it a place for surfing and a local afternoon out rather than lying in the sun, but it is still a real beach, which Fes cannot offer.

Fes has the more accomplished cooking. Its Andalusian-influenced kitchen gives you pastilla with almonds and cinnamon, tagines with quince and preserved lemon, and long multi-course dinners in riads. The medina breakfast counters serve bissara and sfenj.

Rabat eats more plainly: home-style tagines, grilled sardines and Atlantic seafood by the port and river, and a strong café-and-pastry culture on the Ville Nouvelle terraces. Where it beats Fes is range. Being the capital, it has French, Lebanese and other international restaurants in Agdal and Hassan, and wine is a little easier to find.

In Fes the city itself is the monument. Fes el-Bali is a car-free medieval maze with intact trades and quarters, and it holds some of the finest Marinid buildings anywhere, plus the Chouara tannery, the Seffarine square and the Mellah. You could spend days there and still find new corners.

Rabat's heritage is spread out in time and in space: the blue-and-white Kasbah of the Udayas, the unfinished Hassan Tower beside the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, and the storks nesting in the Chellah ruins. It also has something Fes lacks, a modern art museum. The whole set is calm and well kept, and most visitors cover it in two or three days.

Neither city is for a night out, but Rabat has a bit more going on after dark. In Fes the medina empties when the shops close. An evening is a long rooftop dinner and tea, with only a few hotel bars in the Ville Nouvelle.

Rabat's evenings happen outdoors, along the Bou Regreg promenade, on café terraces and in medina streets that stay lively on summer nights. Drinks are served in hotel bars and a handful of lounges in Agdal and Hassan. If you want clubs, you have to go to Casablanca.

Fes has the mountains close by. Within about an hour you reach the Middle Atlas cedar forests around Azrou, where Barbary macaques live wild, along with limestone plateaux dotted with lakes and the caves and ridges of Tazekka National Park. All of it needs a car or driver, and spring or autumn is the time to go.

Rabat's outdoors is flat and coastal: the estuary for paddling, surf schools at the river mouth, the cork oaks of the Maamora forest and birdwatching at Sidi Boughaba. It is easy and pleasant all year round, but there is no proper hiking within a day.

The two are evenly matched, but the outings are very different. From Fes, the classic long day with a driver takes in imperial Meknes, the Roman mosaics of Volubilis and the holy town of Moulay Idriss. Alpine-looking Ifrane and the cave houses near Sefrou are other options.

Rabat is the train traveller's base. Casablanca is about an hour away, Tangier and Asilah are reached on the high-speed line, and Salé's old medina is only a tram ride across the river. Fes gives you ancient and imperial sites by road, while Rabat gives you other cities by rail.

Rabat is far easier with children. The medina is calm and hassle is rare, the tram removes long walks, and the national zoo, the Jardin d'Essais and the Bouknadel gardens give children open space. The strong waves at the city beach call for close supervision.

Fes is hard going with small children: steep lanes shared with laden donkeys, persistent touts, the smell of the tanneries and very hot summer afternoons. Older children who enjoy getting lost and watching craftsmen can love it, as long as outings are kept short and a pool is waiting back at the riad.

In Fes everything inside the medina is on foot, along twisting lanes that climb and dead-end. Many first-timers take a guide on day one, and petit taxis connect the gates with the Ville Nouvelle and the station. For most day trips you need a car.

Rabat is much simpler. The medina, the kasbah, the Hassan Tower and the Ville Nouvelle sit close together on broad, flat streets, and a tram runs out to Agdal, the Chellah and Salé. Rabat Ville station is in the centre, so you can manage without a car for both the city and its day trips.

Fes is one of Morocco's great craft centres. In its medina, tannery leather, Seffarine copper, blue-and-white Fassi pottery, zellige and carved cedar are made and sold lane by lane. Haggling is hard, and guides on commission will steer you to certain shops, so it pays to wander alone.

Rabat's buying is concentrated on Rue des Consuls, which is strongest in the city's own dense pile carpets. Haggling there is gentler, and Salé adds pottery. Rabat's modern high streets in Agdal and its riverside mall are more useful than anything Fes offers, but the souks are much thinner.

Both cities are cheap on the ground, with low costs for street food, mint tea, petit taxis and entry to sights. Fes keeps your budget lower mainly because of where you sleep. Its medina is full of modest riads with real character.

Rabat, as the capital, leans towards business hotels, and its Agdal and Hassan restaurants cost more. In both cities alcohol is the one expensive item.

Rabat has more on stage. The Mohammed V National Theatre and the Grand Theatre on the Bou Regreg put on Moroccan and Arab music and theatre, though programmes run irregularly and are mostly in Arabic and French. The Mawazine festival brings international and African acts to open-air stages.

Fes has the deeper musical roots, in Andalusian classical and Sufi devotional music, and its Festival of World Sacred Music fills palace gardens with concerts. Outside the festival you will mostly hear music at riad dinners.

Fes offers more to soak in. Every medina quarter has its public hammam, many riads run their own calmer ones, and the historic hot springs at Moulay Yacoub and Sidi Harazem are within easy reach. The irony is that the medina itself is loud and intense, so you find your calm back in a riad courtyard or on a roof terrace at dusk.

In Rabat the restfulness comes from the city rather than the spa. Its bathhouses are simple and local, and the hotel spas are the comfortable alternative, but the quiet lanes, the kasbah garden and the evening river walks make the whole stay feel unhurried.