Salamanca or Sintra?

Sintra is far ahead here, simply because it has a coast. Praia Grande and Praia das Maçãs are sandy beaches with lifeguards in summer, about twenty minutes from town. Adraga sits beneath dark cliffs and Azenhas do Mar has its tidal pool. Cold water, heavy surf and sea fog make them an afternoon out rather than a reason for a beach stay.

Salamanca lies far inland on the Castilian plain. Summer swimming there means the municipal pools or the river beaches along the Tormes and in the reservoirs of the province.

Salamanca eats better. Evenings move from counter to counter around the Plaza Mayor and Calle Van Dyck, with Guijuelo ham, farinato and hornazo on the bar. The Mercado Central and roast suckling pig or morucha beef cover the Castilian side, though seafood and international cooking are thin.

Sintra's strengths are narrow: warm travesseiros and queijadas from the old pastry houses, and grilled fish in the coastal villages. The old-town restaurants cater to day-trippers and the choice at dinner is small, so a serious meal means Lisbon.

Both are UNESCO-listed and both reward a couple of days, but their sights are different in kind. Salamanca is a single townscape in golden sandstone: the baroque Plaza Mayor, the Plateresque university façade, the twin cathedrals and a dense run of convents and colleges, all floodlit at night.

Sintra is a landscape of romantic and royal buildings spread over a wooded hill. It runs from the painted Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle to the National Palace's great chimneys, Regaleira's Initiation Well and Monserrate. Neither has strong museums, though Salamanca's Casa Lis is a worthwhile Art Nouveau collection.

This is the widest gap between the two. Students fill Salamanca's old centre from Thursday to Saturday, moving from tapas to packed bars on Calle Bordadores and Gran Vía and on to small clubs open past 3am. The crowd is young, and the city goes quiet in high summer.

Sintra has a few wine bars and terraces and nothing that runs late. A night out there means taking the train to Lisbon and planning the ride back.

In Sintra, nature starts at the door. The town sits in the mossy forest of the Serra de Sintra, with trails to Pena Park, Cruz Alta and Peninha, clifftop paths at Cabo da Roca and surf at Praia Grande. The hills stay cool and green even in summer.

Around Salamanca there is open wheat plain, with riverside paths along the Tormes. Its bigger landscapes are about an hour away by car: the chestnut forests of the Sierra de Francia and Las Batuecas, peaks above 2,000m in Béjar and Gredos, and the Arribes del Duero canyon.

Sintra has the stronger list. It is led by Lisbon itself, about forty minutes away by train, with Cascais and the Estoril coast reachable by bus. With a car you can add Mafra, Ericeira, Óbidos, Alcobaça and Batalha, and go as far as Évora.

Salamanca is a good base for the historic towns of Old Castile. Walled Ávila and Romanesque Zamora are about an hour away, Ciudad Rodrigo stands near the border and La Alberca and Mogarraz keep their half-timbered houses. There is no capital on the doorstep, though, and many of the villages need a car.

Neither place is built for children, and both work best as a few days within a wider trip. Salamanca is compact and largely pedestrian, with a frog and an astronaut to find in the stonework and cathedral towers to climb, but summer afternoons are very hot and winters are cold.

Sintra offers more storybook excitement: castle walls, the Initiation Well, Regaleira's tunnels and shady parks in summer. The cost is steep cobbled paths, crowded buses and rough surf, which make it better for school-age children than for toddlers.

Salamanca is the easier place to get around. Almost everything lies in a pedestrian old town you can cross on foot in about twenty minutes, and trains link the city to Madrid and Valladolid. Only the mountain villages and the Arribes really need a car.

Sintra's centre is small, but the main palaces sit high above it. You reach them by a stiff climb, a crowded circular bus or a tuk-tuk. Driving in the hills is awkward, with narrow one-way lanes and little parking, though buses do reach Cascais and the beaches.

Neither place is for serious shopping, but Salamanca has a little more. The pedestrian streets north of the Plaza Mayor carry Spanish chains and a department store. The local buys are ibérico ham, cheese and charro silver filigree.

Sintra has no fashion streets at all. Its old town sells tiles, ceramics, cork, linen and boxed pastries, a few dealers trade in old azulejos, and the Sunday fair at São Pedro de Penaferrim sells antiques and bric-a-brac.

Salamanca is easier on the budget. Students keep tapas and drinks cheap, often with a free tapa, rooms are moderately priced, and you walk everywhere. Only the cathedral and university tickets add up.

In Sintra, the tascas, the pastries and the train from Lisbon are inexpensive. Separate palace tickets, though, can cost more than your food if you see four or five, and manor-house rooms in the centre are dear. Staying in the outer villages or near the coast cuts the bill.

Salamanca has more on through the year. Touring theatre, dance and flamenco play at the Teatro Liceo and the municipal arts centre, and the university holds choral concerts in its historic halls. In the evenings, caped student tunas sing under the Plaza Mayor arcades. There is no opera or major orchestra.

Sintra's high point is its summer festival of classical music and dance, staged in the palaces and quintas. For the rest of the year there are concerts and theatre at the Olga Cadaval centre and fado now and then. Otherwise, regular performances mean an evening in Lisbon.

Neither has a bathing culture of its own, so rest comes from pace and setting. Salamanca has small Arab-style bath houses in town, an old balneario at Ledesma and the Roman-era springs of Baños de Montemayor within about an hour. The city's slow rhythm of long lunches, siestas and the cloisters of San Esteban and Las Dueñas does the rest.

Sintra's calm lies in its quintas among old gardens and misty forest. It is best early in the morning and after the day-trippers leave, since the centre is crowded during the day.