Marbella or Ronda?

This is where Marbella wins outright. About 27km of shore holds more than two dozen beaches, from La Venus and El Fuerte in the centre to the dunes at Cabopino. The sand is fine and greyish, with sun loungers and grilled-sardine stalls along it, and the beaches are a walk from most places you might stay.

From Ronda, the nearest sand is around San Pedro, which is Marbella's own western district, down a winding mountain road. Most visitors there cool off in a hotel or farmhouse pool instead.

Marbella has the wider range. You can eat skewered sardines on the beach, tapas behind the Alameda and acclaimed tasting menus on the Golden Mile, though the overpriced seafront middle is best skipped.

Ronda's cooking is narrower but has more local character. It is the food of the Serranía: oxtail stew, lamb and game, mountain hams, and chestnuts and mushrooms from the Genal valley in autumn. Both towns pour Sierras de Málaga wines, but only around Ronda can you visit the wineries themselves.

Ronda has much more to see. The town is split by the Tajo gorge, more than 100m deep, and joined by the Puente Nuevo. It also has one of Spain's oldest bullrings, some of the country's best-preserved Arab baths and the stairway cut through the rock at the Casa del Rey Moro, enough to fill one or two unhurried days.

Marbella's heritage is pleasant but brief. There is the Plaza de los Naranjos with its 16th-century town hall, a print museum, Dalí bronzes along the Avenida del Mar and Roman mosaics at Río Verde. Many people staying in Marbella make Ronda their day of sightseeing.

The gap here is wide. In summer, Marbella is one of Spain's best-known places to go out, with daytime beach clubs that turn into evening parties, champagne bars facing the yachts at Puerto Banús and clubs open until dawn. The old town's terraces offer a gentler night.

A night in Ronda means a late dinner and a drink around the Plaza del Socorro, and the town is asleep by the early hours, apart from during the September fair. In winter the difference narrows, because Marbella's scene also shrinks to a quiet drink.

Marbella pairs mountain and sea. Sierra Blanca rises straight behind the town, and the climb to La Concha is a demanding half-day with views to Gibraltar and Morocco on clear days. The Spanish fir forests of the Sierra de las Nieves are within easy reach by car, and the coast adds paddleboarding, sailing and dolphin-watching, though the shore itself is heavily built up.

Ronda goes further, because it sits inside the landscape rather than beside it. A path drops from the town to the foot of the Tajo gorge, whose cliffs draw climbers. The crags of Grazalema, the Garganta Verde ravine and its griffon vultures lie to the west, the Sierra de las Nieves lies to the east, and the Genal chestnut woods turn copper in autumn. From either town, the Caminito del Rey makes a good day out.

The two are about level, but they face different ways. From Marbella the outings run along the coast and up to its edges: Málaga's Alcazaba and Picasso Museum, Gibraltar, hilltop Casares and Mijas, and Granada for a long day.

Ronda points inland, to the white villages of the Sierra de Cádiz. Setenil de las Bodegas, with its houses under the rock, is twenty minutes away, and Zahara and Grazalema are within the hour. There are also the Palaeolithic paintings of the Cueva de la Pileta, and Seville is within range. Each town counts the other as an easy outing, and from either one a hire car makes the trips far simpler.

Marbella is much easier with children. Its town beaches are sheltered and lifeguarded in season, the flat promenade suits scooters and buggies, and many places to stay are built around pools. The animal park, zoo, water parks and cable car along the coast are a short drive away.

Ronda's steep cobbled lanes are hard work with a pushchair, and it has no zoo or aquarium. Older children do enjoy the bridge, the path into the gorge and the nearby caves, and a country house with a pool works well as a base.

Ronda is the easier town to get around. The bridge, the bullring, the old town and the Mercadillo are minutes apart on foot, though some lanes are steep, and a railway station on the Algeciras line helps with arriving.

Marbella stretches thinly along the motorway from San Pedro to Cabopino. Only the old town and the central seafront are walkable, there is no train, and visitors rely on coastal buses and taxis. In both places the outings beyond town really call for a car.

Marbella is the place for shopping, specifically for luxury. Puerto Banús has a dense strip of international fashion and jewellery boutiques facing the yachts, with a department store beside them, while the old town sells linen, leather and ceramics.

Ronda has little beyond Carrera Espinel's everyday shops and souvenirs near the bridge. The best things to bring home from Ronda are edible: local wine, cured meats and convent sweets.

Ronda is clearly the cheaper stay. Mercadillo tapas and set lunches are good value, the sights charge modest fees, and rural houses are fairly priced. Costs rise mainly at hotels overlooking the gorge, at Easter and during the September fair.

Marbella is expensive by Spanish standards, and steeply so in July and August, especially for beach clubs and dinner around Puerto Banús. Old-town tapas and cheaper rooms outside summer soften that, and some visitors save by staying in a neighbouring town.

Neither town is a destination for live performance, but Marbella has a little more in summer. An outdoor festival in an old quarry amphitheatre brings big international pop and rock acts, and the hotels and beach clubs put on concerts. For opera or serious flamenco, people go on to Málaga.

Ronda offers small-venue flamenco for visitors and an occasional theatre programme. Its one distinctive event is the Corrida Goyesca at the September fair, a bullfight in eighteenth-century costume held in the historic ring.

Marbella has far more on offer for pampering. Spa resorts, yoga retreats and detox clinics line the Golden Mile and the hills behind it, and a few Arab-style bathhouses have hot and cold pools. It is most restful from October to May, before the summer crowds and parties arrive.

Ronda's Arab baths are a monument to visit, not somewhere to bathe, and it has only a few hotel spas. What it offers instead is stillness once the day-trippers leave, and farmhouses among olive groves where you can do very little for a few days.