Granada or Salamanca?

Neither is a beach city, but Granada at least has the sea within reach. The Costa Tropical is about an hour south over the mountains, where the pebble and dark-sand coves of Salobreña, Almuñécar and La Herradura make a good day of swimming and snorkelling.

Salamanca is a long day's drive from any coast, so swimming means a municipal pool or a river beach on the Tormes on a hot afternoon. If the sea matters to you at all, Granada is the only one of the two that can offer it.

Both cities eat at the bar counter, moving from one tapas bar to the next, and in both a drink usually comes with a free plate. The difference is what is on it. Granada adds an Andalusian and Moorish touch: fried aubergine with cane honey, remojón salad of orange and salt cod, and mint tea with pastries in the teterías of Calderería Nueva.

Salamanca is meatier and more Castilian. Expect Guijuelo ibérico ham, hornazo, roast suckling pig and morucha beef, with wines from Toro and Ribera del Duero close by. Neither city has much fine dining or international cooking.

The Alhambra gives Granada the edge. Its Nasrid palaces and Generalife gardens are a monument on another level, and the Albaicín, the Royal Chapel, the Carthusian monastery and the cave houses of Sacromonte add both Moorish and Christian history. Salamanca answers with a beautifully unified old town in golden sandstone, where the baroque Plaza Mayor, the carved University façade and the Old and New Cathedrals are all a few minutes apart.

Museums play a minor part in both cities, and each takes two or three days to see. Granada's sights have more variety, while Salamanca's stand out for how well they fit together, especially when the stone is floodlit at night.

Students run the night in both cities, on the late Spanish timetable that starts with tapas. Granada's scene is spread across the city: bars on Calle Elvira near Plaza Nueva, terraces in the Realejo and student clubs around Pedro Antonio de Alarcón.

Salamanca's is a little livelier and more concentrated. From Thursday to Saturday the streets around the Plaza Mayor and Calle Bordadores fill with Spanish and foreign students, and the dance bars stay open well past 3am. Neither city has much serious clubbing or cocktail culture, and both go quiet in high summer.

Here Granada is far ahead. The Sierra Nevada fills its skyline and the slopes above Pradollano are about 45 minutes away, with skiing in winter and summer routes towards Mulhacén and the Veleta. The Alpujarras and the Dílar valley add chestnut woods, terraced slopes and old mule paths, some starting right at the edge of the city.

Salamanca stands on the flat Meseta, and the Tormes riverside paths are the only green space close by. The Sierra de Francia, Las Batuecas and the Arribes del Duero gorge are rewarding, but they are about an hour away and hard to reach without a car.

Granada has the bigger names within easy reach by train. Córdoba and its Mezquita are about an hour and a half away, Málaga a little over an hour, and Antequera's dolmens closer still. Úbeda, Baeza, Guadix and the white villages of the Alpujarras make good days out by road.

Salamanca makes a fine base for Old Castile. Ávila's walls and Zamora's Romanesque churches are both about an hour away, and Ciudad Rodrigo and the half-timbered villages of La Alberca and Mogarraz are full of character. Many of the villages, though, really need a car.

Granada has the one big attraction for children that Salamanca lacks. The Parque de las Ciencias, with its planetarium and butterfly house, fills most of a day, and the Alhambra's fountains hold younger children's attention. The catch is the steep, stepped Albaicín and Alhambra hill, which are hard going with a pushchair.

Salamanca is flatter and largely pedestrian, and children enjoy hunting for the frog and the astronaut carved into the stonework and climbing the cathedral towers. But it has no zoo, aquarium or theme park, so a day or two is enough.

Both cities are best seen on foot, but Salamanca makes it easier. Almost everything is in a largely pedestrian old town you can cross in about twenty minutes, on cobbles that only slope gently. Granada's flat lower town is just as easy, but the Alhambra, the Albaicín and Sacromonte are on steep hills, and you will be glad of the small red minibuses that climb up to them.

Leaving town is a different matter. Granada's trains reach Córdoba and Málaga, and Salamanca's reach Madrid and Valladolid. For the mountain villages around either city, a car helps.

Granada's Moorish crafts give it the edge. Taracea inlaid woodwork, blue and green Fajalauza ceramics and guitars from the city's workshops are the things worth carrying home. The Alcaicería, the rebuilt silk market beside the cathedral, is an atmospheric place to browse, even if much of what it sells is lamps and slippers for visitors.

In Salamanca the best buys are edible: ibérico ham, sausages and cheese from the Mercado Central. The other local find is charro jewellery, the province's traditional silver filigree buttons and pendants. For everything else, both cities have Spanish high-street chains and a department store, Granada around Calle Recogidas and Salamanca along Calle Toro, but little luxury or independent design.

Both are among the cheaper historic cities in Spain, and the free tapa with a drink keeps eating out cheap in each. In Granada, costs rise around the Alhambra: boutique stays in the Albaicín, terraces with a view of the palace and flamenco shows aimed at visitors.

In Salamanca, the extras are admission fees for the cathedrals, the University and the towers, which add up over a full day. Rooms there cost more on festival weekends and around Easter, but with everything in walking distance you will spend almost nothing on transport.

Flamenco and a festival in the Alhambra's palaces put Granada well ahead for an evening out. In the Sacromonte caves you can see the zambra, the city's own close-quarters flamenco, and the small peñas of the Albaicín offer rougher evenings. Every summer since 1952, the International Festival of Music and Dance has put on concerts and ballet in the palaces and in the Generalife's open-air theatre, and the City of Granada Orchestra plays through the rest of the year.

Salamanca's best-known music happens in the street: tunas of caped students singing under the arcades of the Plaza Mayor. Otherwise, the Teatro Liceo hosts touring productions, but with no resident major orchestra or opera season, keen concertgoers will find little to go to.

Bathing is part of Granada's Moorish inheritance. Hammams in the lower Albaicín recreate the warm, tepid and cold pools of the old Arab baths, which suits an evening after a day on the hills, and the real spa towns of Lanjarón in the Alpujarras and Alhama de Granada, with its thermal waters, are both within an hour.

Salamanca has only hotel spas and a few small bath houses in town, with the balneario at Ledesma and the Roman springs of Baños de Montemayor a drive away. Its strength is calm: siesta hours and quiet cloisters such as San Esteban and Las Dueñas.