Austrian Alps or Dolomites?

Neither region has a sea, but the Austrian Alps can give you a real lake vacation. The Wörthersee, Millstätter See and the other Carinthian lakes warm to the mid-20s in high summer, and Velden and Pörtschach are built around lidos with piers and lawns. The Salzkammergut lakes add clear, cooler water below limestone peaks.

In the Dolomites, swimming is a sideline. Braies and Carezza are for photographs and rowing boats. The warm water is down at Lake Caldaro on the wine route or at Riva on Lake Garda, so swimmers should stay low, near Bolzano or Trento.

Both regions serve hearty mountain food on hut terraces, but the Dolomites have the more interesting table. South Tyrol serves canederli and schlutzkrapfen with a properly Italian espresso afterwards, and the Ladin valleys add dishes of their own. The vineyards south of Bolzano produce Lagrein and Schiava and hold the autumn Törggelen evenings, and Alta Badia has an unusual number of serious kitchens for its size.

The Austrian Alps eat well in a narrower range: Kaiserschmarrn, Gröstl and Käsespätzle after a day outdoors, Salzburg's cafés and cakes, and fine dining in the Arlberg and Kitzbühel. In the big ski villages, menus tend to repeat one another.

The Austrian Alps hold far more built heritage. Salzburg's baroque old town under the Hohensalzburg, Innsbruck's Hofburg and Hofkirche, and the salt-mining landscape around Hallstatt are each worth a day. The Admont abbey library and the Habsburg spa towns add more.

The Dolomites are on the UNESCO list for their rock, not their buildings. Ötzi and the arcades in Bolzano, Trento's Castello del Buonconsiglio, and Bressanone with Novacella Abbey make rewarding rainy-day visits, as do the First World War tunnels on the passes. Still, they sit in the shadow of the mountains rather than competing with them.

In winter the Austrian Alps offer a far bigger night out. In Ischgl, St Anton, Saalbach and Mayrhofen, the après-ski starts in the slopeside huts and carries on in village bars and clubs late into the night. Innsbruck's student bars keep some life going outside the ski season.

The Dolomites wind down early. Selva, Canazei and Cortina have drinks at the foot of the slopes, and Cortina has a dressier wine-bar crowd, but most evenings end after dinner. In summer the villages are silent by eleven.

Both are Alpine landscapes of the first rank, and the difference lies in their character. The Austrian Alps are glacier country, with the Grossglockner and the Hohe Tauern, long valleys such as the Ötztal and Zillertal, and lakes for sailing and paddling. The skiing is spread across separate big areas such as the Arlberg and Ski Amadé.

The Dolomites are about pale rock towers rising out of green meadows: the Tre Cime, the Sassolungo and the ridge of Seceda. Via ferrata routes and the Alta Via trails let walkers onto the high rock. Dolomiti Superski links a dozen valleys into one ski area, with the Sella Ronda circuit at its centre.

Salzburg and Innsbruck both sit close to a border, which gives the Austrian side the wider reach. From Salzburg, Berchtesgaden and the Königssee are just across in Bavaria and Munich is about an hour and a half by train. From Innsbruck, the royal castles at Füssen and even Bolzano and Merano are within a long morning's drive over the passes. Nearer to home there are Hallstatt, St Wolfgang and Bad Ischl in the Salzkammergut, and little Rattenberg and Hall in Tirol in the Inn valley.

The Dolomites' best outings run along the Adige valley from Bolzano. Merano, Bressanone and Trento are each under an hour away, and the wine route runs through Caldaro and Termeno. Verona is an easy train ride. From the high villages every trip starts with a slow pass road, so it pays to split the stay between a mountain village and a valley town.

The Austrian Alps are the easier choice with children. Many hotels are built around them, with playrooms, pools and kids' clubs, and resorts such as Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis offer childcare as a matter of course. Innsbruck's Alpine Zoo, the trick fountains at Hellbrunn and the crystal world near Wattens fill rest days.

The Dolomites are excellent in summer, with the nearly flat paths of the Alpe di Siusi and the Armentara meadows and huts with farm animals. However, there are no zoos or theme parks, so a wet day means a pool or a drive to a museum in Bolzano.

Austria's main valleys are served by trains: along the Inn through Innsbruck, from Salzburg to Gastein, and over the Arlberg. Postbus routes climb into the side valleys, and guest cards often cover the local buses. You only really need a car to combine lakes, towns and passes in one trip.

In the Dolomites the railway reaches the valley floors along the Adige and Puster valleys and up to Calalzo, but Cortina has no station and the high resorts depend on buses. Moving between valleys means hairpin passes that are crowded in summer, which is why most visitors hire a car.

The Austrian side makes the slightly better shopping trip, and its two cities are the reason. Salzburg and Innsbruck are where you go to buy proper Alpine dress, a dirndl or a loden jacket made to last for years rather than worn once. Crystal from the works at Wattens and boxes of Mozartkugeln take care of the gifts, and Kitzbühel and Lech keep a handful of upmarket boutiques for their winter guests.

In the Dolomites, most of what you bring home is either carved or edible. Ortisei carries on Val Gardena's long woodcarving tradition with figures and cribs, and the rest of the bag is food: speck, mountain cheese, grappa and a bottle or two of South Tyrolean wine. Beyond Bolzano's arcades and Cortina's short main street, the choice soon runs out. December is the exception, when the Advent markets in Bolzano, Merano and Brunico hold their own against anything across the border.

In the Austrian Alps the savings lie away from the famous names. Family-run guesthouses and farm stays in quieter valleys, smaller ski areas and summer stays on the Carinthian lakes all cost noticeably less, and guest cards often bundle local buses and some lifts. The Arlberg, Kitzbühel and Salzburg in festival season stay expensive.

The Dolomites are a little dearer overall, especially from late December to March and in July and August, when Cortina and Alta Badia rank among Italy's costliest resorts. Here the cheaper bases are the Trentino valleys of Fassa and Fiemme and the towns of Bolzano, Bressanone and Trento. Coming in June or September gets you the same mountains at lower room rates.

For music, the Austrian Alps are in a different league. The Salzburg Festival, with Jedermann performed in front of the cathedral, the opera on Bregenz's floating stage on Lake Constance, the Schubertiade and the festivals at Erl make high summer a major classical season. Salzburg also keeps concerts going through the rest of the year.

The Dolomites offer pleasant occasions rather than reasons to travel. Bolzano and Trento have orchestral seasons, musicians play on meadows and hut terraces in Trentino in summer, and jazz concerts are held in castles and wineries.

The Austrian Alps have a public bathing culture that the Dolomites lack. Bad Gastein has radon springs and a healing gallery inside the mountain, Bad Hofgastein a large thermal bath and Bad Ischl a Habsburg past, while the Aqua Dome puts outdoor pools in front of the Ötztal peaks. On top of that, almost every valley has hotels with serious sauna areas.

In the Dolomites, wellness mostly means the hotel spa, which South Tyrol does with real care, and the old hay bath around Völs am Schlern. Merano's thermal baths are the main public option, so choose your hotel with the spa in mind.