St. Augustine or Tampa?

Both give very good beach days, but the beaches are different. St. Augustine's Atlantic beaches on Anastasia Island are wide and flat and only ten to fifteen minutes from the old town. The surf is easy and the water is usually greenish rather than clear.

Tampa's own shore is mostly seawall, so a beach day means a drive of 35 to 60 minutes to Clearwater, St Pete Beach or Fort De Soto. There you get soft white sand and a calmer, warmer Gulf, which is why many beach-minded visitors stay on the islands instead.

Tampa eats better, and its food has more of a story behind it. The cigar workers of Ybor City left the local Cuban sandwich with Genoa salami, café con leche and deviled crab croquettes. Food halls and steakhouses in South Tampa and Seminole Heights add range.

St. Augustine's plates are mostly casual seafood. The Minorcan datil pepper livens them up, in a spicy clam chowder and in pilau. There are a few chef-led places near the old town, but overall it eats like the small town it is.

St. Augustine has much deeper history. Its 17th-century coquina fort, the balconied lanes of the colonial quarter and Flagler's extravagant hotels, now Flagler College and the Lightner Museum, make a whole old townscape rather than a handful of sights.

Tampa's heritage is narrower: the brick cigar factories and social clubs of Ybor City, Henry Plant's minareted railway hotel and two riverside museums. They are worth seeing but don't take long, and visitors who want art usually cross to St Petersburg.

Tampa has the livelier evenings. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City has dance clubs that run late, SoHo has polished cocktail patios, and the city takes its craft beer seriously. Every winter the Gasparilla pirate invasion turns the bayfront into a huge street party.

St. Augustine is better for a drink after dinner in the courtyard pubs and taverns around St. George Street. There are almost no clubs, and most places close well before the small hours.

Both are flat and watery, and in either city the outdoors mostly means paddling and watching wildlife. St. Augustine's setting is coastal: salt marsh, dunes and the Matanzas River, with dolphins on kayak trips and long birding walks in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve.

Tampa reaches further inland. Its options include cypress swamp on the Hillsborough River, manatees gathering in winter and the clear spring-fed rivers around Crystal River, though most of these need a drive.

Tampa has the somewhat better choice of days out, and most of the drives are shorter. The Dalí Museum in St Petersburg is half an hour away, and the Greek sponge docks at Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and Frank Lloyd Wright's campus in Lakeland are all within reach.

From St. Augustine there are fewer options, and they are further away. Jacksonville and Amelia Island lie to the north, while Kennedy Space Center and Orlando are long days about two hours away.

Tampa is the easier place to keep children happy for a week. Busch Gardens has roller coasters, an animal park and a water park next door, ZooTampa and the Florida Aquarium fill afternoons, and the shallow Gulf water suits toddlers. Almost all of it involves a drive.

St. Augustine has less to offer but is compact and easy to walk. The Alligator Farm, the cannon firing at the fort and the lighthouse climb fill a few good days, and the big theme parks are two hours away.

Neither works well without a car, but St. Augustine's historic district is small and flat enough to see entirely on foot, and sightseeing trolleys loop past the main sights. In Tampa only downtown, the Riverwalk and the streetcar to Ybor City are easy without a car. The beaches, the theme parks and South Tampa all mean driving, often through slow traffic on the bridges and interstates.

Tampa gives a shopper more to work with: an upscale mall with luxury brands, the boutiques of Hyde Park Village and cigars still rolled by hand in Ybor City. St. George Street in St. Augustine is mostly fudge and pirate souvenirs, though the galleries and antique dealers around Aviles Street and a bottle of datil-pepper sauce make the browsing worthwhile.

Both cost about what you would expect for an American tourist destination, with tax and tip on top, so neither is a bargain. In St. Augustine the main strain is hotels near the old town at weekends, which you can ease by staying midweek and making the most of the free walks and beaches.

In Tampa the main extra cost is a hire car, and theme park tickets weigh on family budgets. On the other hand, hotel rates fall in summer and the Cuban sandwich counters keep lunch cheap.

Tampa has the fuller programme. The Straz Center stages touring musicals, opera, ballet and plays, the Florida Orchestra performs there, and the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre is a lovely place to see a film or a concert.

St. Augustine's main stage is the open-air amphitheatre in the woods on Anastasia Island, which hosts touring rock, country and folk acts, and cover bands play on bar patios most nights. For opera or a full orchestral season you would have to go to Jacksonville.

Neither is a spa destination. In both, relaxation means hotel treatment rooms rather than any bathing tradition. The difference is where you find calm: in St. Augustine it is a B&B veranda or an evening walk along the bayfront seawall, while in Tampa it means leaving the city's sprawl for the slower Gulf islands across the bay.