Jerez de la Frontera or Ronda?

Neither town has a beach of its own, but Jerez is much better placed for one. Valdelagrana, El Puerto and the Playa de la Victoria in Cádiz are a short train ride away, and the wide Atlantic beaches at Sanlúcar and La Barrosa are within the hour. A day at the beach fits easily into a city stay.

From Ronda, the nearest sea is the built-up Mediterranean coast around Estepona and San Pedro. It is about 50km away, down a road full of hairpin bends. Without a car you cannot really get there, and even with one it takes a whole day, so most visitors use a pool instead.

Jerez is the better place to eat, and sherry is at the centre of it. You can taste in the bodegas, drink fino from the barrel in the tabancos, and eat kidneys and oxtail cooked in sherry or fried fish and prawns from the nearby coast. The tapas streets around Plaza del Arenal and Calle Larga give you plenty to choose from in the evening.

Ronda's mountain cooking is heartier but has less range: game, lamb, cured hams, and chestnuts and mushrooms in autumn, with local Sierras de Málaga wine. Eat in the tapas bars of the Mercadillo rather than on the view terraces by the gorge. A few days covers it.

The two are about level on heritage, and a couple of days covers either, but the sights are of a different kind. In Ronda the setting is the main attraction: the Puente Nuevo across El Tajo, the cliff-top paths, and a compact group of sights including the Maestranza bullring and some of the best-preserved Arab baths in Spain.

In Jerez the interest is more in traditions that are still alive, spread across a flat old centre. There is the Almohad Alcázar and the Gothic-Mudéjar parish churches, the flamenco quarters of Santiago and San Miguel, the cathedral-like sherry bodegas and the dressage horses of the Royal Andalusian School.

Neither is a town for clubbing, but Jerez gives you a fuller evening. Tabancos, copa bars and the terraces around Plaza del Arenal stay busy well past midnight at weekends, a few clubs stay open later, and for a week in May the Feria del Caballo fills the fairground with dancing until dawn. Ronda winds down earlier, with dinner and a drink around Plaza del Socorro and then quiet streets, except during the September fair.

Ronda is the better base for the outdoors, because the mountains start at the edge of town. A path drops to the foot of the Tajo and climbers use its cliffs. The Sierra de Grazalema, with the Garganta Verde, lies to the west, and the Spanish fir forests of the Sierra de las Nieves lie to the east. The Caminito del Rey is about an hour away.

From Jerez, the same Grazalema range is more than an hour's drive, and the land around town is gentle vineyard country. Its own strengths are on the lowlands and the coast: boats to Doñana from Sanlúcar, birdwatching in the salt marshes of the Bay of Cádiz, kitesurfing towards Tarifa and horse riding.

Both make good bases, but the trips point in different directions. Jerez has the edge because of the trains. Seville is about an hour away, Cádiz half an hour, and the sherry towns of El Puerto and Sanlúcar are close, all without a car. Arcos is half an hour away by road.

Ronda sits among the white villages. Setenil is about twenty minutes away, Zahara and Grazalema are within the hour, and the Roman ruins of Acinipo and the cave paintings of the Cueva de la Pileta are close. The big cities are one and a half to two hours away, and you really need a hired car for the villages.

Jerez is easier with children. It has one of the better zoos and botanical gardens in Spain, the dancing-horse show and a flat centre, and in summer the wide, gently sloping Atlantic beaches are easy to reach.

Older children in Ronda will enjoy the bridge, the walk into the gorge, the stairway cut through the rock at the Casa del Rey Moro and the nearby caves. Nothing there is built for children, though, and the steep cobbled lanes are hard work with a pushchair. Families usually stay in a country house with a pool.

Both centres are easy to walk, but Jerez is flat and Ronda is not: the lanes down into La Ciudad and towards the gorge are steep. Jerez also has better connections, with direct trains to Seville, El Puerto and Cádiz and the airport a few minutes away by rail, while Ronda's trains and buses are slow and infrequent. In both towns you need a car to reach the white towns and the sierras, and parking in Ronda's old town is tight.

Nobody goes to either town to shop, but Jerez has more worth buying. Beyond the chains on Calle Larga, there are saddlers and makers of leather riding boots who serve the horse world, shops selling flamenco dresses, shawls and guitars, and sherry and brandy straight from the bodegas. Ronda's Carrera Espinel and the souvenir streets near the bridge have less to offer, and the best things to take home are wine, cured meats, olive oil and convent sweets.

Costs are much the same in both, and both are cheaper than the big Spanish cities or the coast. In Jerez, sherry in the tabancos and the bodega tours cost little, but rooms are scarce and expensive during the Feria, the flamenco festival and the motorcycle race weekends. In Ronda, the extra costs are the hotels with gorge views and the hired car most visitors need, while the rural houses in the hills are fairly priced for what they offer.

This is the widest gap between the two towns. Jerez is one of the places where flamenco was born, and it is still a local art there. You can hear it in the peñas of Santiago and San Miguel and in informal sessions in the tabancos, as well as at the more polished tablaos. The flamenco festival in late winter brings major dancers to the Teatro Villamarta and students from around the world, and the theatre also runs a modest season of opera, zarzuela and dance.

Ronda offers small flamenco shows for visitors and an occasional programme at its municipal theatre. Its one big event is the Corrida Goyesca at the September fair, a bullfight in eighteenth-century costume.

Neither town has a bathing culture of its own, but Jerez has a small advantage: an Arab-style bathhouse with warm pools and massage. Ronda's Arab baths are a monument to visit, not a place to bathe. What both offer is a slow pace, which in Jerez means long lunches and shaded patios, while in Ronda the best rest is in a farmhouse hotel in the hills, with a pool and olive groves.