Aspen or Cortina d'Ampezzo?

Neither town is a place to swim, and both send you to a hotel pool. What differs is the summer water. Aspen's best option is floating or rafting the Roaring Fork River. In Cortina, the snowmelt lakes of Ghedina and Pianozes are better for a walk around the shore than for a dip.

Distance to the sea differs too. Aspen is about two days' drive from any coast. From Cortina the Adriatic is a little over two hours away, so mountains and coast can share one Italian trip.

The two eat at much the same level. Both cook well for wealthy visitors, and both are thin on cheap food. In Aspen the cooking is international: steak and sushi counters, Italian dining rooms and chef-led menus with deep wine lists. Its big food moments are après-ski on the terraces at the base of Aspen Mountain and the Food & Wine Classic in June.

Cortina has what Aspen lacks, a cuisine of its own. Look for beetroot casunziei with poppy seeds, barley soup and polenta with game, ideally eaten on a rifugio terrace high above the valley. In the valley, the wines come from the Veneto and South Tyrol.

Neither town has major sights, and either fills an afternoon rather than a trip. Aspen's interest is its silver-boom past. You can see it in the red-brick Victorian downtown around the Wheeler Opera House and in the painted miners' cottages of the West End, with Herbert Bayer's modernist Aspen Institute campus as an unexpected extra.

Cortina gives you a bell-towered basilica, the ice stadium from the 1956 Winter Games and the Rimoldi collection of Italian art. Its most powerful history is out of town, in the First World War tunnels and trenches on Lagazuoi and the Cinque Torri. That turns history into a mountain day.

Aspen is clearly the livelier of the two at night. In ski season, après-ski moves from the slopeside decks to downtown bars and lounges. Around Christmas, New Year and the X Games, hotel bars and a few small clubs keep going late. Even summer has drinks on the patios.

In Cortina, the evening ritual is the stroll along the Corso Italia and then a long dinner. A club or two opens in peak winter weeks, but for most of the year the town is asleep by late evening.

Both are among the finest mountain settings anywhere, but the landscapes are very different. Aspen's Elk Mountains give you four separate ski areas linked by free shuttles: steep Highlands, gentle Buttermilk, huge Snowmass and a gondola rising straight from downtown. In summer the Maroon Bells and wilderness routes to summits above 4,000m are close at hand.

Cortina is ringed by the pale, jagged towers of the Dolomites. It also plugs into the vast Dolomiti Superski network, so you can ski the Sella Ronda circuit rather than staying on one resort's runs. In summer it leans towards climbing, with historic via ferrata routes, the Tre Cime and long hut-to-hut walking.

Cortina has the better choice of outings. Within an hour or two you reach South Tyrol: San Candido, Brunico's castle and the Messner Mountain Museum, and Bolzano, where the Iceman lies in the archaeology museum. Austria's Lienz is in range, and Venice is a long but possible day.

Aspen's list is mostly small mountain towns. Choose from Glenwood Springs down the valley, Carbondale, Redstone and Marble, or Leadville over Independence Pass. In winter the pass closes and the options shrink further.

Both work for families who ski or hike, and neither has a zoo, aquarium or theme park. Aspen's strengths are gentle Buttermilk with its kids' areas and lift-served summer extras like alpine coasters and ropes courses. Free buses make moving between mountains with children easy. The 2,400m altitude can knock young ones back for a day or two.

Cortina offers beginner slopes at Socrepes, public skating in the Olympic ice stadium, a forest rope park and meadows beside the huts. Wet summer days with little ones are harder to fill.

Aspen is far easier to manage without a car. Free buses link the town to all four ski areas and run down the valley to Glenwood Springs. A summer shuttle reaches the Maroon Bells, and the local airport is minutes from downtown.

Cortina's centre is just as walkable, but the town has had no railway since 1964. Arriving usually means a coach from Venice. Buses to Misurina and the passes are infrequent, so most visitors end up hiring a car to explore the Dolomites.

Aspen offers more for serious shoppers. Its few downtown blocks hold international luxury labels you would not expect in a mountain town, plus commercial art galleries and Western-style leather goods.

Cortina's offer is one street, the Corso Italia, with fashion, furriers and ski wear. It does have something Aspen lacks: the Cooperativa di Cortina, trading since 1893, and shops selling local wood carving and filigree. That gives it more to take home that actually comes from the place.

Neither is a place for a tight budget, but Aspen is the harder of the two on your wallet. Its ski-season rooms, lift tickets and meals are priced well above big-city norms, and even staying in Glenwood Springs only softens the bill.

Cortina is still expensive in the winter peak and in August. Lunch at a rifugio is good value for the setting, though, and early summer and late September ease the rates a little.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Aspen's summer belongs to the Aspen Music Festival and School, with orchestral, chamber and opera performances in the Benedict Music Tent, plus jazz and the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. The Wheeler Opera House keeps concerts, comedy and film going all year.

Cortina has no theatre season and no regular venue. Its music is limited to summer chamber concerts in churches and the odd performance at New Year.

Both are calm outside the peak weeks, and both rely mainly on hotel spas. Aspen's advantage is natural hot water within reach. The big mineral pools and cave vapour baths of Glenwood Springs are an hour away, and Conundrum Hot Springs rewards a long hike.

Cortina has no springs, but its hotel spas follow Alpine tradition, with hay baths, saunas and steam rooms. A slow afternoon on a hut terrace in June or September is as restful as either town gets.