La Romana or Santo Domingo?

La Romana has much the better swimming. The town itself has no beach, but just to the east Bayahibe and Dominicus have pale sand on calm, clear water, and the islands of Catalina and Saona are an easy boat ride away. Most visitors stay right on this coast.

In Santo Domingo nobody swims along the Malecón, where the shore is coral rock and surf. The beach is a day out: Boca Chica's shallow lagoon, crowded and loud at weekends, or the quieter sand at Juan Dolio. The finer beaches lie along the coast towards La Romana.

Both serve the same Dominican staples of rice, beans, stewed meat and Sunday sancocho, but Santo Domingo goes further. It adds mangú breakfasts, late-night street carts, courtyard restaurants in old stone houses and the more ambitious kitchens of Piantini and Naco.

In La Romana most visitors eat at their all-inclusive, and the choices outside it come down to grilled fish by the water in Bayahibe, the town's comedores and a polished marina strip. It feeds you well enough, but you will not plan meals around it.

This is where the two cities differ most. Santo Domingo's Ciudad Colonial is the real thing: the first cathedral, hospital and paved street in the Americas, the Fortaleza Ozama and the Alcázar de Colón. The Plaza de la Cultura museums add enough for two or three days.

La Romana's main sight, Altos de Chavón, is a handsome 20th-century recreation of a Mediterranean hill village. Its small museum of Taíno objects is worth an hour. With a look round the sugar-town centre, a single morning covers it.

Santo Domingo is the place to go out. Weekend nights start late in the bars and plazas of the Colonial Zone, carry on in the lounges and clubs of Piantini and Naco, and end on a packed dance floor well after midnight. The neighbourhood colmadón is there too for a louder local night.

La Romana has the colmado version without the rest. Visitors get a few marina bars and Bayahibe beach bars, all quiet by late evening, and most nights finish with the hotel show.

La Romana's outdoors is in the sea. Parque Nacional del Este has mangrove channels, frigatebirds and Saona's starfish sandbar, and Bayahibe's reef walls, wrecks and underwater cannon museum make it a serious dive base. On land, add a kayak up the Chavón gorge or a walk to the Taíno caves.

Santo Domingo has only city-scale green space: the lagoons of Los Tres Ojos, the Botanical Garden and Parque Mirador Sur. Its wilder country, such as Los Haitises or the mountains at Jarabacoa, means a long day or a night away.

La Romana has slightly more within easy reach, and its best outing is the capital itself. The Ciudad Colonial is about an hour and a half west, and the Taíno rock art of the Cueva de las Maravillas, San Pedro de Macorís and the basilica at Higüey are all closer.

From Santo Domingo the excursions run the other way, to Chavón and to Bayahibe for the island boats. That puts the best of them around two hours out, and many trips sold in town are beach days.

La Romana works better for a beach vacation with children. The water off Bayahibe is shallow and calm, family resorts have kids' clubs and pools, and the starfish on Saona's sandbar are a guaranteed hit. The catch is that there is almost nothing for children outside the hotels.

Santo Domingo has more attractions, with the National Aquarium, the zoo, the cave lagoons and forts with cannons to climb around. It is harder work, though, with constant heat, broken pavements and a taxi for most trips. Many families combine a few city days with a resort stay.

Neither is easy, but Santo Domingo is easier. Its Colonial Zone is compact enough to see on foot, and app taxis are a simple way to reach Piantini or the Malecón. There is a metro as well, though it mostly serves commuters.

La Romana is a string of places along a highway, with nothing walkable between them apart from little Bayahibe. You depend on hotel transfers, excursion pick-ups, taxis or a hire car on poorly lit roads.

Both sell the island's signature buys of larimar, amber and hand-rolled cigars, and La Romana is the cigar-making town. Santo Domingo simply has more places to buy them. Calle El Conde is lined with jewellery shops, the Mercado Modelo is good for bargaining over crafts and faceless clay dolls, and big malls cover everyday fashion.

In La Romana, shopping comes down to jewellery and resort-wear at Chavón and the marina, plus souvenir stalls in Bayahibe.

Santo Domingo is easier on a budget. Comedor lunches, street food, app taxis, modest museum entries and cheap guesthouses keep a city stay inexpensive, and only the boutique hotels and Piantini restaurants are costly.

La Romana's town is cheap too, but few visitors stay there. The real costs are the resort, plus boat trips, dives and transfers priced for tourists. At the gated resort, you are firmly in luxury territory.

Santo Domingo, the home of merengue and bachata, has live music in its bars and plazas. Its best-loved ritual is the Sunday evening concert among the San Francisco monastery ruins, where everyone dances. The Teatro Nacional adds the symphony, ballet and opera.

La Romana has the Chavón amphitheatre above the gorge, a striking setting when a big concert comes. Otherwise it is resort bands and the nightly hotel show.

La Romana is the place to unwind. Its larger resorts have proper spas, and there are massage huts along the sand. Above all, the days fall into an easy rhythm of swimming, shade and siesta, and Bayahibe goes quiet once the day boats leave.

Santo Domingo is loud with traffic and music. Rest there means a hotel spa on the Malecón, a colonial courtyard or the botanical garden, and many visitors go to the coast to slow down.