Austrian Alps or Tuscany?

Tuscany has the sea, and that settles it for anyone after a beach vacation. Elba has clear water and sandy bays, the Maremma has pine-backed strands and the sheltered cove of Cala Violina, and Versilia runs for miles of fine sand with ordered rows of umbrellas.

The Austrian Alps offer lake bathing instead. Carinthia's Wörthersee and Millstätter See warm up well in high summer, and towns such as Velden organise the season around grassy lidos with piers and diving boards. It is a pleasant swim after a hike, but there is no sand and no salt water.

Tuscany is much the better place to eat. Its cooking runs from Florentine T-bone and pappardelle with wild boar to lampredotto from street carts, with market halls, Oltrarno trattorias and Chianti, Brunello and Vino Nobile tasted at the cellar door.

Alpine food is hearty and satisfying after a day outdoors, Kaiserschmarrn, Käsespätzle and Speck on a hut terrace, and Salzburg adds a café and cake tradition. Beyond the fine-dining kitchens of the Arlberg and Kitzbühel, though, menus repeat from village to village.

Tuscany wins clearly. Florence alone has Brunelleschi's dome, the Uffizi, the Accademia and the frescoed churches within a walkable centre, and Siena's Campo, Pisa's cathedral square, Lucca's walls and Pienza's planned streets add more on top.

The Alps have strong but scattered highlights: baroque Salzburg under its fortress, Innsbruck's Golden Roof and Hofkirche, salt-mining Hallstatt and the Admont abbey library. A rewarding few days, but you travel between towns to see them, and the overall depth is smaller.

The Austrian Alps go out harder, but mostly in winter. Après-ski in Ischgl, St Anton, Saalbach and Mayrhofen starts in slopeside huts in the late afternoon and carries on in village bars and clubs until late, and Innsbruck's students keep bars busy all year.

Tuscan evenings are slower: long dinners, then a drink in the piazza or on the steps of Santo Spirito in Florence. The real late nights belong to the Versilia coast in summer, where the beach clubs and dance halls run until dawn, so the two regions party in opposite seasons.

The Alps are in another league for the outdoors. The Grossglockner and its glaciers, the Krimml waterfalls, Tyrol's high valleys and vast ski areas give serious mountain terrain, and lifts, huts and marked trails make it easy to reach in summer and winter. The Salzkammergut and Carinthian lakes add sailing and paddling beneath the peaks.

Tuscany's landscape is gentler and mostly farmed: cypress lanes in the Val d'Orcia and Chianti, ideal for cycling between hill towns. Its wilder side lies in the Apuan Alps and the Casentino forests. What it has and the Alps lack is the sea, with cliff paths in the Maremma park and diving around Elba and the Tuscan Archipelago.

Tuscany has more outings than a single stay can use. Siena, Lucca, Pisa, San Gimignano and Volterra are each a day from Florence or Chianti, the Montalcino and Pienza loop covers wine country, and Bologna, Umbria and the Cinque Terre lie just beyond.

The Alps give a good but narrower list. Salzburg leads to Hallstatt, Bad Ischl and Berchtesgaden, and Innsbruck to Hall in Tirol and Rattenberg, with Munich, Bavaria's royal castles and South Tyrol across the borders.

The Alps are the more natural family choice. Resorts such as Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis and the Zillertal provide nursery slopes, children's ski schools and childcare as standard, and summer brings adventure trails, toboggan runs and shallow lake lidos, with Innsbruck's Alpine Zoo and the Hellbrunn trick fountains for rest days.

Tuscany works best split between a farmhouse with a pool and the sandy, shallow beaches of Versilia or Elba, and Italian restaurants welcome children late into the evening. The Pinocchio park and cycling on Lucca's walls help, but Florence's galleries and the July heat are hard on small children.

The Alps are easier without a car. Trains run along the Inn valley, to Gastein and over the Arlberg, Postbuses climb the side valleys, and guest cards often cover local transport, so one valley can be done car-free. Moving between valleys is slower, and combining lakes and passes is easiest by car.

Tuscany splits in two. Florence is a walking city with good trains to Pisa, Lucca, Arezzo and Viareggio, but Chianti, the Val d'Orcia and the Maremma really need a car, old centres are closed to traffic, and the island ferries need planning.

Tuscany has far more to buy. Florence's leather workshops around Santa Croce, the goldsmiths of the Ponte Vecchio, marbled paper in Oltrarno and the luxury houses on Via de' Tornabuoni lead the way, and towns add alabaster from Volterra, ceramics from Montelupo and marble from Pietrasanta.

In the Alps, shopping centres on dirndls, loden and felt hats along Salzburg's Getreidegasse and in Innsbruck, plus carved wood, Wattens crystal and mountain gear. December Christmas markets are the highlight, though the range stays small.

Both are expensive in season, and the costs simply fall in different places. In the Alps, lift passes, ski hire and lessons pile up in winter, Arlberg and Kitzbühel are among the dearest addresses in the mountains, and Salzburg's hotels climb during the festival.

In Tuscany the main costs are central Florence hotels, Chianti villas, Versilia beach clubs and car hire. Each softens in its own way: farm stays, half-board and Carinthian summers in Austria, and trattorias, cellar-door wine and cheaper towns such as Lucca, Arezzo and the Maremma in Tuscany.

The Alps have the stronger stage, especially in summer. The Salzburg Festival draws leading orchestras and singers for opera and the open-air Jedermann, Bregenz stages opera on its floating lake stage, and the Schubertiade and Erl add more. Salzburg's Mozart Week and Easter festival carry music through the rest of the year.

Tuscany's offer centres on opera too: the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Puccini recitals in Lucca and his operas staged outdoors by the lake at Torre del Lago. Lucca's summer pop and rock concerts give it a broader mix, but the headline events are fewer.

Both are excellent for rest, and the difference is in style. The Alps offer indoor and formal spa culture: Belle Époque Bad Gastein with its radon springs and healing gallery, the Aqua Dome's pools under the Ötztal peaks, and serious sauna worlds in hotels in almost every valley.

Tuscany's hot springs are often outdoors and informal, from the warm terraced pools at Saturnia to the steaming square of Bagno Vignoni and the white limestone pools of Bagni San Filippo. Add a farmhouse in the Val d'Orcia and long lunches, and idleness comes easily, away from Florence.