Orlando or St. Augustine?

St. Augustine has the sea close at hand. Anastasia Island's wide sands run from the dunes of the state park down to quiet Crescent Beach, ten to fifteen minutes from the fort, so you can spend the morning in the old town and the afternoon in the surf. The water is warm and gently shelving in summer but too cold for swimming in winter.

From Orlando, Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic is about an hour's drive and the calmer Gulf around Clearwater nearer two, so the coast becomes one outing in the week. For everyday swimming you use hotel pools and water parks.

Orlando has more range if you are willing to drive for it. There are the Vietnamese kitchens of Mills 50, chef-led places in Winter Park and Audubon Park, steak rooms on Sand Lake Road and Epcot's country pavilions inside the parks. The catch is that the tourist corridors run on chains and park counters.

St. Augustine has less choice but a clearer local identity, built on shrimp, oysters and the Minorcan datil pepper that goes into its chowder and pilau. Beyond the waterfront seafood places and a few chef-driven rooms, though, the list of good places is short.

This is where the two differ most. St. Augustine packs more than four centuries of history into a few walkable streets: the coquina Castillo de San Marcos, the balconied lanes of the Spanish quarter, and Flagler's Gilded Age hotels, one now a college and the other the Lightner Museum. Two or three days are well spent here.

Orlando's heritage is citrus groves and theme parks. Its one outstanding sight is the Tiffany collection at the Morse Museum in Winter Park, which makes a neat pairing with the Tiffany glass at Flagler College. The museums in Loch Haven Park fill an afternoon rather than a trip.

Orlando goes on later. At weekends the bars and clubs around Orange Avenue and Church Street downtown fill with a university crowd, and there is a gay scene in Ivanhoe Village and Mills 50. Disney Springs and CityWalk offer resort guests an easier evening that ends earlier.

St. Augustine is a town of courtyard pubs and cocktail bars around St. George Street and the bayfront, with a few beach bars on the island. It has hardly any clubs. It suits a drink after dinner rather than a night that runs into the small hours.

Both sit in flat, watery country where summer heat pushes walks and paddles into the early morning, so the difference lies in the kind of water. Orlando's is fresh: the spring-fed pools at Wekiwa and at Blue Spring, where manatees gather in winter, cypress swamps, and airboat rides past alligators on the Kissimmee headwaters.

St. Augustine's is tidal. Salt marsh, dunes and the Matanzas River make for kayak trips among dolphins and ospreys, and the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve has long marsh walks, all a short drive from the old town.

Orlando has the better list. It starts with Kennedy Space Center, about an hour east, and reaches Tampa's Ybor City and the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, and St. Augustine itself is one of its best days out. Mount Dora and DeLand make gentler outings.

From St. Augustine the choices are Jacksonville's museums and Cummer gardens, the Victorian port of Fernandina Beach and the speedway at Daytona. The space centre and the theme parks are a long two hours away. From either city, almost every trip needs a car.

Orlando wins this outright. Disney's four theme parks and two water parks, Universal for teenagers, SeaWorld and Legoland are backed by resorts with bunk-room suites, stroller hire and character breakfasts. The cost is heat, queues and a scale that needs planning.

St. Augustine is a pleasant place to bring children rather than the reason for the trip. The Alligator Farm, the cannon firings at the fort, the lighthouse climb and gentle summer surf fill a few days, and families staying there drive two hours to Orlando for the rides.

St. Augustine's old town is compact and flat. The fort, St. George Street, Flagler College and the bayfront are minutes apart on foot, and sightseeing trolleys loop past the main sights. For the beaches you still need a car, a bike or a taxi.

Orlando is strung out along Interstate 4, with parks, hotels and downtown miles apart and pavements that do not invite walking. A car is close to essential unless you stay inside Disney, with its monorail, boats and gondolas, or at one of Universal's hotels.

For brand hunters, Orlando is a proper shopping stop. It has two large premium outlet centres, the luxury labels of the Mall at Millenia and the boutiques of Park Avenue in Winter Park, though independent design and markets are missing.

St. Augustine's St. George Street runs to fudge, T-shirts and pirate souvenirs. The galleries and antique dealers of Aviles Street, and the local datil-pepper sauces, make better keepsakes. There is an outlet mall by the interstate, but nobody plans a trip around it.

Neither is cheap, and the money goes in different places. In Orlando, rooms along International Drive and in Kissimmee are fairly priced and condos suit families who want to cook for themselves. The real expense is park tickets, express passes, hire cars and parking.

In St. Augustine the pressure falls on rooms, as inns and hotels near the old town climb steeply at weekends and in peak season. The streets and public beaches are free, and a midweek stay in a highway or island motel keeps the cost down.

Orlando's performances mostly happen indoors and St. Augustine's mostly outdoors, though neither has a deep theatre or music culture. In Orlando that means touring Broadway and the Orlando Philharmonic at the Dr. Phillips Center, Shakespeare in Loch Haven Park, the spring Fringe, and the polished shows and fireworks of the resorts.

In St. Augustine, touring rock, country and folk acts play the amphitheatre in the woods on Anastasia Island, and acoustic sets fill the old-town patios. For an orchestra or serious theatre you have to go to Jacksonville.

Orlando offers rest through its resort facilities, and St. Augustine through its slower pace. In Orlando that means big resort spas, lazy rivers and landscaped pools around Lake Buena Vista, though the park days in between are tiring.

St. Augustine has few spas, but it has B&B verandas, courtyard gardens and an evening stroll along the bayfront seawall. It is at its calmest midweek.