Kas or Nicosia?

In Kas, swimming is part of the day. You climb down ladders from wooden decks on the peninsula into deep blue water, or use the two small pebble beaches near the harbour. When you want sand, the gorge-backed cove at Kaputas and the long dune beach at Patara are a short ride away, and boats stop at coves you cannot reach by road.

Nicosia sits on an inland plain, so the beach is always an outing. Larnaca's sand or the coast around Kyrenia is about three quarters of an hour away by car, and the water there is just as warm. Back in the city, a pool is the only place to swim.

Nicosia eats better and more widely. Its meze runs from halloumi and village sausage to kleftiko and souvla from the charcoal grill, and a short walk across the Green Line brings Turkish Cypriot kebabs, lahmacun and pastries around the Bandabulya market. Cypriot coffee and Commandaria wine add to the mix.

Kas offers the pleasures of the Turkish coast: cold mezes and grilled fish with rakı by the harbour, and long village breakfasts with honey and gözleme. Its few restaurant streets cook much the same food, though, and you will notice that after a week.

The gap here is wide. Nicosia's old city is ringed by Venetian bastions and cut in two by the Green Line, so one walk takes you from Byzantine icons and the terracotta warriors in the Cyprus Museum to a French Gothic cathedral with minarets and an Ottoman caravanserai.

Kas has the small seaside theatre of Antiphellos, Lycian tombs in the cliff, the Lion Tomb at the top of the shopping lane and pretty whitewashed houses. You can see all of it in a morning. Its real archaeology lies out of town.

Nicosia has the livelier evenings. Students and young professionals fill the pavement bars around Faneromeni Square and Ledra Street until well after midnight, and a few clubs on the avenues outside the walls stay open later.

Kas is about a cocktail on a terrace above the sea after a late dinner. A handful of bars stay busy with divers and yachting people in high summer, there are no real clubs, and the town turns in early once the warm months are over.

Kas is built for the outdoors. Mountains drop straight into some of the clearest water in the Mediterranean, with reefs, caves and wrecks for divers a short boat ride away. The Lycian Way runs past the town, you can kayak over the drowned city at Kekova, paragliders land by the marina, and Saklikent gorge is an hour inland.

Nicosia itself is a flat plain that turns brown in summer, and its green space is mostly the moat gardens. The good walking starts at the edges of the city: on the crest of the Kyrenia range, or in the pine forests of the Troodos about an hour away, which stay cool in summer and have snow in winter.

Both are good bases for day trips, and Kas has the edge. From Kas, ancient Lycia surrounds you: Myra and the church of Saint Nicholas at Demre, Xanthos and Letoon, Patara, and the castle village of Simena at Kekova. You can even take a short ferry to the Greek island of Kastellorizo.

Nicosia's trips spread across a whole island and both sides of the divide, from Kyrenia harbour, Bellapais and St Hilarion to Famagusta, Salamis and the painted churches of the Troodos. Most of them are much easier with a hire car.

Neither town is built around children, but Kas gives them more to do. Boat trips with swimming stops, snorkelling for older children, and the shallow sandy water at Patara and Kaputas make up for the deep-water rock platforms in town.

Nicosia is just as safe and welcoming at the dinner table. Beyond a few parks and the museum rooms, though, there is nothing for children, the beach needs a car, and midsummer heat is hard on small children.

Kas is the easier place to get around. The harbour, old quarter and swimming decks are close together, though the lanes are steep. Minibuses run along the coast to Kalkan, Patara and Demre, and boats leave from the harbour for Kekova and the Greek island. You only need a car for the inland sites.

In Nicosia, the old town inside the walls is easy on foot, and you can cross north at Ledra Street with your ID. Beyond the walls are car-built suburbs with no rail and few useful buses, so most trips mean driving on the left.

Nicosia has more to shop for. Ledra and Onasagorou streets have chains and independents, Makarios avenue has the international brands, and the Cyprus Handicraft Centre sells Lefkara lace and pottery. Across the line, the Bandabulya market sells spices, copperware and Turkish delight.

Kas has one or two bougainvillea-shaded lanes of silver, linen, kilims and small galleries. They make a nice browse after dinner, and that is about all.

Nicosia is easier on the wallet. A full meze or a souvla lunch is good value, and meals and shopping in the northern half cost less again. The main extra expense is a hire car.

Kas is one of the more upmarket small resorts on the Turkish coast. In summer, its harbourside dinners, dives and boat trips cost about what they would in southern Europe. You can keep costs down with back-street pensions, pide bakeries, minibuses and a spring or autumn visit.

As the capital, Nicosia has the island's formal stage: the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, the state theatre company and year-round municipal programmes. Its bars play rebetiko, folk and jazz, and there are open-air concerts in the moat in summer. Visitors who don't speak Greek will get more from the music than the plays.

In Kas, performance means a musician in a bar on a summer night and the occasional concert in the ancient theatre.

The two are about level, but they help you unwind in different ways. In Kas the rest comes from the setting: long breakfasts, afternoons on a sun deck above the sea, hotel hammams on the peninsula and yoga retreats in the hills in spring and autumn.

Nicosia has the real bathing heritage. You can take steam and a massage under the domes of the 16th-century Omeriye Hammam or in the old baths of the north, and for deeper quiet you can head up to the cool pine villages of the Troodos.