Assisi or Venice?

Only Venice has a real beach. The Lido is a short boat ride from San Marco, with kilometres of fine sand and shallow, warm Adriatic water that suits children, and Pellestrina and Jesolo are further along the coast. The water is greenish rather than clear.

Assisi is inland, about two hours from either coast. The nearest swimming is at the small lake lidos of Trasimeno, so a pool at a country hotel is the realistic way to cool off.

Assisi serves plain Umbrian country food: strangozzi with black truffle, Castelluccio lentils, wild boar and Monte Subasio olive oil, with Sagrantino from Montefalco to drink. The choice is narrow, though, and the best meals are in side-lane trattorias and agriturismi.

Venice gives you more variety and a better way of eating. You can graze on cicchetti in the bacari around the Rialto, buy lagoon seafood at the market and order risotto turned black with cuttlefish ink. The tourist menus around San Marco mean you have to choose with care.

Assisi is centred on one masterpiece, the double Basilica of San Francesco with its Giotto and Cimabue frescoes, along with the Temple of Minerva, Santa Chiara and the Rocca in a pink-stone town that two unhurried days cover.

Venice is on another scale. The whole city is the monument, from San Marco and the Doge's Palace to the palazzi of the Grand Canal, and the art goes deep: the Accademia, Titian at the Frari, Tintoretto at San Rocco, modern collections and the Biennale. Even a week leaves things unseen.

Neither city is a place for a big night out, but Venice at least has an evening scene. Spritz-fuelled aperitivo spills out along the Misericordia, and students keep Campo Santa Margherita busy later.

Assisi empties once the day-trippers leave. A glass of Sagrantino and a stroll through floodlit lanes is the whole programme, and for bars you go to Perugia.

Assisi is better for getting outdoors. You can walk straight from town through holm-oak woods to the hermitage and on to Subasio's open summit meadows, and you can cycle among the olive groves of the valley. The Valnerina and the Sibillini are within driving range.

In Venice the outdoors is the lagoon: marshes with egrets and flamingos, kayaking or Venetian rowing, and flat rides along the Lido sea walls. Proper hills are an hour or more away.

Both are excellent bases, but they work differently. From Assisi the excursions are a ring of Umbrian hill towns close by, such as Spello, Perugia, Spoleto, Gubbio and Todi, and a car makes the smaller ones far easier.

From Venice, fast trains reach larger cities: Padua, Vicenza, Verona and even Bologna. The lagoon islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello also make a day out without leaving the water.

Venice is the easier sell to children: boats instead of buses, no traffic, glass-blowing on Murano, the dinosaurs in the natural history museum and a shallow beach at the Lido. Stepped bridges and summer crowds still make it hard work with a pushchair.

Assisi is safe and welcoming but offers little beyond the castle and a hill walk for older children. Families usually stay at a valley agriturismo with a pool and visit the town in short trips.

Venice is easier to get around. It has no cars at all, almost everything is within walking distance, and vaporetti run along the Grand Canal and out to the islands. Arrival by train at Santa Lucia drops you right in the city, though the bridge steps punish wheeled luggage.

Assisi's centre is small but steep, and its station lies 4km below in the valley. Trains cover only the line through Perugia and Spoleto, so anyone touring Umbria ends up hiring a car.

Venice has much more worth buying. There are workshops making Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers, and the big fashion names line the streets between San Marco and the Rialto. Watch for cheap imports passed off as local on the main routes.

In Assisi, pilgrim souvenirs dominate. The worthwhile buys are Assisi-embroidered linens, Deruta ceramics, olive oil and Sagrantino.

Assisi costs a good deal less. Its basilicas are free, convent guesthouses and agriturismi keep rooms cheap, and walking a lane or two away from the basilicas cuts the cost of meals.

Venice is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Hotels, water transport and most church entries all add up, so savings come from eating cicchetti at the counter, sleeping in Mestre or coming in winter.

Venice has a genuine stage culture. La Fenice puts on full seasons of opera, ballet and concerts, the Goldoni stages drama, the Biennale runs its own festivals, and Vivaldi concerts fill the churches most evenings.

Assisi's music is mostly sacred: organ and choral concerts in the basilica, plus the medieval pageantry of Calendimaggio in spring. For opera or jazz you go to Perugia.

Neither has much in the way of spas, and in both the calm comes from stillness rather than treatments. In Assisi that means convent retreats and silent walks to the Eremo delle Carceri.

Venice offers hotel spas in palazzi and on the Lido. Real thermal pools are an hour away at Abano Terme, and the quiet is found in Castello, Cannaregio and Giudecca rather than around San Marco.