Granada, Nicaragua or La Fortuna?

Neither town has a beach. Granada still gives you proper swimming: Laguna de Apoyo, about half an hour away, is a clear, calm crater lake with docks and lodges where you can spend a whole lazy day. The Pacific sand at San Juan del Sur is close enough for a long outing.

La Fortuna offers the cool, churning plunge pool below its waterfall and a few quiet bends in the river, which are good for cooling off but not for a day by the water. The Guanacaste coast is more than three hours away, so if you want a beach you will need to plan separate nights there.

Neither town is a reason to travel for food, but Granada has more character at street level. Vigorón served on a banana leaf around the central park, nacatamales and the smoky fritanga grills in the evening give you a real taste of the town, and La Calzada adds a long row of restaurant tables, though some are better than others.

La Fortuna's best meals are the casados at family-run sodas, which are filling and reliable, but the menus aimed at tour groups are mostly steak and pizza. What it has that Granada does not are the cacao and coffee farm visits, where you taste chocolate made from the bean on volcanic soil.

Here the two are far apart. Granada is one of the oldest Spanish colonial towns on the mainland, and its ochre and blue streets lead to a yellow cathedral, La Merced's bell tower and the San Francisco convent with its basalt idols from Zapatera. The pleasure lies mostly in the townscape rather than in large museums, but it is a real townscape.

La Fortuna grew up as a farming settlement and then as a base for the volcano, so it has no old quarter to explore. Its white church is famous mainly as the foreground of photos of Arenal. For heritage you have to visit the Maleku communities further north.

Both towns are quiet after dark, but Granada at least has a street to spend the evening on. Tables spill out along La Calzada, hostel bars attract backpackers and a few small clubs play salsa and reggaeton at weekends, which is enough for a couple of sociable nights.

In La Fortuna, early starts for hikes and rafting set the pace. A handful of bars and the odd weekend band are all there is, and most people spend the evening in a hot spring instead.

Both towns sit among volcanoes, but La Fortuna is built entirely around them. Arenal's near-perfect cone looks over primary rainforest, lava-flow trails, a 70m waterfall and hanging bridges where sloths and toucans are a common sight. Beyond that there is rafting on the Balsa and Toro rivers, canyoning, kitesurfing on Lake Arenal and day trips to Río Celeste and Caño Negro.

Granada's outdoor days are fewer but still varied: cloud-forest trails on Mombacho, kayaking among Las Isletas and driving up to the rim of Masaya's active crater. It offers fewer adventure sports, and the lowland heat sends you out early.

From Granada, you visit other towns. Masaya's craft market and the Monimbó quarter, the pottery village of San Juan de Oriente, the Catarina lookout and Managua's cathedral ruins all make easy outings, and San Juan del Sur works as a long day.

Excursions from La Fortuna are almost all into the landscape. Zarcero's topiary garden and the Maleku villages are the main places to visit, and the trip to Monteverde by jeep, boat and jeep works better as a transfer than as a return day.

La Fortuna is the easier choice with children. Hot-spring resorts with water slides, sloths and frogs seen from the hanging bridges, gentle horse rides and chocolate-making visits keep different ages happy. Age limits on ziplines and rafting, frequent downpours and the steep waterfall stairs are the main catches.

Granada can work for older, adaptable children, who will enjoy the carriage rides, the monkey island in the islets and peering into Masaya's steaming crater. With toddlers it is harder going, because of the heat, the broken pavements and basic medical care.

Both centres are small enough to walk, but in Granada the sights are within that walkable grid, from the cathedral to Xalteva and the lakefront, with cheap taxis and carriages for the hottest hours. Old school buses run to Masaya and Managua, and shuttles cover the rest.

In La Fortuna, almost everything you came for is several kilometres out along the road to the lake or up the hill to the waterfall. Local buses are not much help for visitors, so you will depend on tour transport, taxis or a hire car, and the rural roads slow down in heavy rain.

Neither town is a place to shop seriously, but Granada gives you far more worth carrying home. Most of what is on sale is made by people within a short drive, from the potters of the hill villages to hammock weavers and cigar rollers. A slow browse in town, followed by the bigger market in Masaya, can fill a bag with things that clearly belong to this corner of Nicaragua. For clothes or anything branded, look elsewhere.

La Fortuna's few shops mostly sell the printed shirts and trinkets you find in any tourist town. Local coffee and chocolate are the most useful buys, and the Maleku pieces are the only real link to local makers. It is enough for a last-minute gift, but you will not spend an afternoon browsing there.

Granada is much the cheaper place to stay. Rooms, street food, taxis and even the volcano and island tours cost very little, and the restored-mansion hotels on La Calzada still feel modest to most visitors.

In La Fortuna, sodas and hostels are fairly priced, but the hot-spring resorts, rafting, canyoning and guided walks are priced for an international market. Staying in town and using the free river and the trails you can walk alone helps, but a busy week here costs noticeably more.

In Granada, music happens in the street rather than on a stage. Marimba players and folkloric dancers perform for diners around the central park and on La Calzada, and some hotels and cultural centres put on evenings of traditional dance. Processions and patron saint festivities bring music and costumed dancers onto the streets.

La Fortuna has even less. You might find a band in a bar at the weekend or a folkloric show with dinner, but there are no theatres or regular music venues at all.

La Fortuna is one of the best places in the region to unwind. Volcanic heat feeds terraced thermal pools set in rainforest gardens, from large complexes to quieter natural ones, and spa treatments, open-air yoga and quiet lodges fill the rest of the day.

Granada has no bathing tradition. Its version of rest is a rocking chair in a shaded courtyard, a hotel pool and a stroll once the heat breaks. For a real retreat, the yoga and massage lodges at Laguna de Apoyo are a short drive away.