Goreme or Larnaca?

There is nothing to compare here. Goreme is on a dry inland plateau a long drive from any coast, so swimming means a hotel pool. Larnaca is built around its seafront.

Finikoudes beach has shallow, calm water right by the old town. Mackenzie Beach is livelier, and quieter stretches lie east towards Dhekelia. The town beaches are pleasant rather than beautiful, but the sea is warm for half the year. The turquoise bays of Ayia Napa and Protaras are within an hour.

Larnaca offers more to eat. Its meze moves from dips and halloumi to sheftalia and slow-baked kleftiko, fish tavernas cook the day's catch near the old harbour, and village tavernas inland are often better still.

Goreme's menus are aimed at visitors and look much alike after a couple of nights. The meal worth having is testi kebab, cracked open at the table, with gozleme from the roadside stalls and a glass of Cappadocian wine. Neither place is for serious food lovers, but in Larnaca you are less likely to tire of the food.

Goreme has the more striking sights. The Goreme Open Air Museum is a whole valley of rock-cut Byzantine churches. The frescoes in the Dark Church and nearby Tokali Church are among the best in Cappadocia, and the village itself is carved into the tuff.

Larnaca's sights are spread more thinly. The ninth-century Church of Saint Lazarus, Hala Sultan Tekke beside the Salt Lake and the remains of ancient Kition are worth seeing. Both places can be covered in a day or two, but Goreme's monuments are the ones that stay with you.

Goreme has hardly any nightlife, because the balloons launch before dawn. An evening there means a drink of wine or raki on a terrace looking at the lit rocks.

Larnaca stays up later, at least in summer. Cocktail bars along Finikoudes and the lanes behind it are busy until late, and Mackenzie Beach has DJs and a younger crowd. For real clubbing, people go to Ayia Napa.

Goreme's whole appeal is its landscape, and it beats Larnaca on the outdoors. You can walk for hours from the village through valleys of cones and pink tuff, past dovecotes and hidden chapels, then see the same ground from a balloon at sunrise.

The country around Larnaca is flat and sunbaked, but it has things Goreme lacks. Flamingos winter on the Salt Lake, the Zenobia is a world-famous wreck dive, and Cape Greco has sea caves for kayaking. The pine forests of the Troodos are about ninety minutes away.

Both make good bases, but for different kinds of outing. From Goreme, the underground cities of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, Uchisar's rock citadel, the abandoned cave village of Zelve and the potters of Avanos are all within an hour. The stone mansions of Mustafapasa and the Seljuk mosques of Kayseri add some contrast, but most outings are variations on the same rock-cut heritage.

Larnaca opens up a whole island instead. Nicosia and its crossing into the northern half of the divided capital, the lace village of Lefkara and Neolithic Choirokoitia are all a short drive away, and Kourion's ruins above the sea make another good day. Famagusta's walled old town is not much further than Nicosia, but you reach it through a crossing point into the north. Paphos and the painted churches of the Troodos are a long day by car, and the outings are far more varied.

Larnaca is easier with children. Finikoudes slopes so gently that small children can paddle safely, the promenade has playgrounds and ice cream, and the short trip from the airport makes travel days easier.

Goreme is better suited to older children who like adventure. They can sleep in a cave room, crawl through an underground city or ride horses through the valleys. With toddlers, the steep paths, rough lanes and minimum ages for balloon flights make it hard work.

Both have small centres you can walk around, and in both places the problems start once you leave town. Larnaca does a little better: the airport is a few minutes away, and intercity buses reach Nicosia, Limassol and Ayia Napa. Cyprus has no railway, though, and a hire car is the usual answer, driven on the left.

In Goreme, the Open Air Museum and the valley trails are within walking distance, but local buses are slow and infrequent. The underground cities and Ihlara mostly mean a tour, a taxi or a hired car, and both airports are about an hour away.

Neither is a place to shop seriously, but the shopping is quite different in each. Goreme's main street is souvenir stalls and little else, so the buys worth making are the region's own crafts. A hand-knotted carpet or kilim from one of the big showrooms that tours stop at, or a red-clay bowl from nearby Avanos, tends to be the one large purchase of the trip, with not much in between.

Larnaca gives you a bit more to browse, and that keeps it slightly ahead. Its central streets have the ordinary shops for shoes, jewellery and familiar chain stores, which Goreme does not have at all. Its crafts are smaller and easier to pack than a rug: Lefkara lace and silver filigree, pottery from the old Skala quarter, and halloumi, loukoumi or a bottle of Commandaria. For fashion, people go on to Nicosia or Limassol.

Overall costs are much the same, but they come from different places. In Goreme, a hostel in a cave house, gozleme stalls and free valley walks keep things cheap. Boutique cave hotels, tours and especially the dawn balloon flight can quickly double the cost of a stay.

Larnaca's prices are more even. Taverna meze is good value and most sights cost little. The extra costs are a beachfront room in high summer and a hire car, and rooms are much cheaper from November to March.

There is little live culture in either place, but Larnaca has slightly more. The municipal theatre stages plays and occasional concerts, the summer Larnaca Festival puts on music and dance at the fort, and some tavernas have bouzouki music at weekends. Goreme's shows are staged for visitors, and the Sema ceremony of the whirling dervishes in a caravanserai near Avanos is the one worth booking.

Both are calm places, but they slow you down in different ways. Goreme has village hammams for a steam, scrub and foam massage, small spas in the better cave hotels and quiet terrace breakfasts. Pre-dawn balloon starts and full tour days work against rest, and for thermal springs you have to drive elsewhere in the province.

Larnaca has no bathing tradition of its own, and its spas are in the resort hotels east of town. What it offers is an easy pace: long coffees on the seafront, evening walks and a mild, sunny winter.