Havana or Trinidad, Cuba?

Trinidad has the edge, mainly because its beach is closer and better. Playa Ancon is a long pale strand about 15 minutes away by taxi, bus or even bicycle, with calm water and a reef for snorkelling. La Boca offers a more local alternative.

Havana's Malecón is all rock and sea wall, so swimming means half an hour by taxi to the Playas del Este. Strands like Santa María del Mar are lovely and turn lively with local families at weekends. From either town the sea is a day off rather than the main event.

Both serve the same Cuban repertoire of ropa vieja, black beans, roast pork and lobster, and neither has street food or market halls worth the name. Havana comes out ahead because its paladares are spread across Vedado, Miramar and the old town, and some of them actually experiment.

Trinidad's menus repeat from one place to the next, and the best meal is often dinner at your casa. The drinks tell the same story. Trinidad has its honeyed canchanchara in a clay cup, while Havana has the historic bars where the daiquiri and mojito made their name.

Havana has far more to see. Habana Vieja has four great colonial squares and baroque churches, the Morro and La Cabaña fortresses guard the harbour, and beyond the old town lie Centro and Vedado with their art deco, along with serious museums of art and revolution. All of that takes days.

Trinidad is a single preserved sugar-era town of pastel houses, red roofs and cobbles centred on the Plaza Mayor. Its museums, such as the Museo Romántico and the Palacio Cantero tower, are small. The charm is the intact whole, and two or three days are enough to take it in.

Havana's nights are bigger and more varied. They take in old town bars, salsa clubs in Vedado and Miramar where locals dance seriously, arts centres with DJs, and the Malecón as an open-air meeting place, with taxis linking it all.

In Trinidad everything happens on the steps by the Plaza Mayor, in a few courtyard bars and in a club inside a hillside cave. It is friendly, with locals and visitors dancing together, but after a few nights you will have seen all of it.

This is where Trinidad pulls well ahead. The Escambray rises right behind the town, and Topes de Collantes has forest trails down to Salto del Caburní, with El Nicho and Guanayara further in. Horse rides cross the sugar valley, and there is diving off Ancon.

Havana's outdoors is mostly the Malecón at sunset and the shade of the Almendares park. Las Terrazas is an hour west and Viñales around three hours away, so nature is an excursion from the capital rather than something next door.

Trinidad is the better base for outings. The Valle de los Ingenios, with its ruined mills and the Manaca Iznaga tower, starts at the edge of town. Elegant Cienfuegos and old Sancti Spíritus are each about an hour and a half away, and Santa Clara's Che memorial is around two.

Havana's easy trips are Hemingway's Finca Vigía, Cojímar and Matanzas. Trinidad, Viñales and Cienfuegos are three hours or more from the capital and really need overnight stays. From both places, trips usually mean a car with a driver or a tour.

Neither town is easy with small children, though both welcome them warmly. Havana has more to fill a day, with the National Aquarium in Miramar, classic-car rides and cannons at the fortresses, but it also has heavier traffic and broken pavements.

Trinidad is calmer and has shallow water at Ancon close by. Its huge cobbles rule out pushchairs, though, and power cuts make the heat harder to bear. In either town older children do better than toddlers.

Both are walkable at the core and awkward beyond it. In Havana you can walk the old town and follow the Malecón to Vedado, but further than that you depend on taxis of every kind, from classic cars to shared almendrones and coco-taxis.

Trinidad's centre is smaller and largely closed to cars, though the steep, rough cobbles call for good shoes. Leaving town to reach the beach or the hills means a shuttle, a taxi or a hired bike.

Neither is a place to shop. Havana's best buys are art from the studios of Habana Vieja and Vedado, plus cigars and aged rum, with a large harbourside craft market for souvenirs. Trinidad's speciality is handmade: embroidered and crocheted tablecloths and blouses along its craft lanes, plus pottery thrown in family workshops.

Trinidad is the cheaper stay. Casas particulares there cost little and often serve dinner as well as breakfast, the town is all on foot and music in the squares is mostly free. What adds up are the taxis to Ancon and the mountains.

Havana can be just as cheap if you stay in private homes and eat simply. Its state hotels and better paladares, though, quickly push spending towards Southern European levels. Bring cash to both, as cards are unreliable.

Both towns live on son, salsa and rumba, and the standard is high in both. Havana adds a full formal stage on top: the Ballet Nacional at the Gran Teatro, the National Symphony at the Amadeo Roldán, jazz clubs in Vedado, the Jazz Plaza festival, Sunday rumba in the Callejón de Hamel and cabaret at the Tropicana.

Trinidad offers one tradition done with real warmth. Bands play nightly at the Casa de la Música and the Casa de la Trova, and Afro-Cuban drumming fills the Palenque de los Congos Reales. There is no theatre or classical music, though.

Havana's kind of rest is a pause in a big city: an afternoon on a shaded balcony, a rocking chair in a colonial courtyard, an evening watching the sea from the Malecón. Traffic noise and exhaust fumes are never far off, so if calm matters, stay in a quiet guesthouse in leafy Vedado or Miramar.

Trinidad slows down the way a small town does, with rocking chairs on doorsteps and long afternoons in shaded family courtyards, but roosters at dawn, horse carts and late music break the quiet. Spas are scarce in both, limited to a few hotels, and from Trinidad the better escape is the cooler air of the Escambray hills.