Girona or Granada?

Girona's coast is the easier one to make a habit of. Buses reach the main resorts such as Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Platja d'Aro and Tossa de Mar, but they don't run often. That makes the quieter coves further north, around Begur and L'Escala, really a trip for people with a car. In July and August the best-known of those coves fill early in the day and parking is scarce, so an early start pays off.

From Granada the trip is longer and climbs over the mountains by bus or car, so the sea becomes one planned outing rather than something you do every few days. The reward is calm, clear water, especially in the small coves around La Herradura, which suit snorkelling. On an ordinary summer day in the city, a swim means a hotel or municipal pool.

The two cities eat equally well, in very different ways. Girona has fine-dining kitchens with an international reputation alongside Catalan home cooking: mar i muntanya dishes, botifarra with beans and Empordà wine. A sit-down meal is the main event of the evening.

Granada eats on the move. The free tapa with each drink turns an evening into a round of bars through the Realejo and around Calle Navas, and the teterías of Calderería Nueva add a Moorish note. Neither city offers much international range.

Granada is in a different league here. The Nasrid palaces of the Alhambra, the Generalife gardens, the whitewashed Albaicín and the Royal Chapel where Ferdinand and Isabella lie add up to one of Europe's great historic ensembles, and they deserve several days.

Girona's Barri Vell is a fine walled quarter, with a cathedral nave among the widest in the world and the well-preserved Jewish Call. But it is a smaller set of sights, and most visitors see it in a day or two of walking.

Granada keeps going much later. Its large university fills Calle Elvira and the pubs around Pedro Antonio de Alarcón after midnight at weekends, and the clubs run until dawn, though the scene is informal rather than polished.

In Girona the evening usually ends after dinner on a terrace, with a few student bars and small clubs at the edge of the centre. Anyone after a real night out takes the train to Barcelona.

Both have superb country close by, but of different kinds. Girona's surroundings are rolling and varied, with cycling lanes and greenways leading out of town, the volcanic beech woods of the Garrotxa and the coast-guard path above the coves of the Costa Brava. The high Pyrenees are about an hour and a half away.

Granada's is high and dramatic. The Sierra Nevada rises straight behind the city, with skiing at Pradollano about 45 minutes away and summer walks towards Mulhacén, the highest peak in mainland Spain. The terraced Alpujarras valleys offer gentler walking.

Girona has the edge, mainly because so much lies so close. Barcelona is under 40 minutes away by fast train, Figueres and the Dalí Theatre-Museum about half an hour, and Besalú, Peratallada, Empúries and even Perpignan across the French border are all within an easy day.

Granada's best outings are fewer and further. Córdoba's Mezquita is about an hour and a half by train, and the Renaissance towns of Úbeda and Baeza and the dolmens at Antequera reward a longer drive.

Granada is a little easier with children, mostly thanks to the Parque de las Ciencias, a hands-on science museum with a planetarium that fills most of a day. The fountains of the Alhambra also hold young children's attention well.

Girona has nothing comparable, and families tend to treat it as a quiet base for the beaches. In both cities, steep cobbled hills make pushchairs hard work, and Granada's summer afternoons are especially hot.

In Girona your own feet do the climbing. The stairways of the Barri Vell have no shortcut, though bikes work well for short local trips. The station gives fast rail links, but the coves, hill villages and wineries that make the region worth exploring depend on infrequent buses or a hire car.

Granada does more of the work for you. Small red minibuses wind up the cobbled lanes to the Alhambra, the Albaicín and Sacromonte, and the lower town from the cathedral to the Realejo is flat and easy. A car is more trouble than help in the restricted old centre and only earns its keep on trips into the Alpujarras and the mountain villages.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but what they offer differs. Girona's Rambla has independent fashion shops, bookshops and delicatessens, and the cycle shops cater to visiting riders.

Granada has a crafts tradition, with inlaid taracea woodwork, Fajalauza ceramics and guitars from local workshops, plus a department store and the Spanish chains on Calle Recogidas.

Granada stretches a budget further. The free tapa makes eating out unusually cheap, and rooms in the lower town and the Realejo are moderately priced. The costs gather around the Alhambra views and the shows aimed at visitors.

Girona sits around the middle for Western Europe. Its limited old-town rooms get expensive in summer and in the cycling season, and a hire car for the region adds to the bill.

Granada has a far livelier stage. There is zambra flamenco in the Sacromonte caves and rawer evenings in Albaicín peñas, a resident city orchestra, and a summer festival of music and dance held in the Alhambra's palaces since 1952. The legacy of Lorca and Falla still runs through it.

Girona's high point is Temporada Alta, its autumn theatre and dance festival. Outside that season the programme is thin, and many plays are in Catalan.

Granada is slightly the better choice for unwinding, because you can actually bathe in the city: hammams in the lower Albaicín recreate the Moorish sequence of warm and cold pools, with massage to follow. Lanjarón and Alhama de Granada add real spa towns within an hour.

Girona's Arab Baths are only a monument, so a thermal soak means the short trip south to Caldes de Malavella. The city's quiet morning lanes and river walks still make it an easy place to slow down.