Basel or Lucca?

Neither city sits on the sea, but Lucca gets you to proper beaches far more easily. The Versilia coast starts at Viareggio, about 25 minutes by train, with long sandy shores, shallow water and the pine-backed dunes of the Lecciona for those who skip the umbrella rows.

Basel's version is the Rhine: drifting downstream past the old town with a swim bag, then drying off on the gravel banks. It is a memorable local ritual, but it means a strong current and a short season, and there is no sand within easy reach.

Lucca is the better place to eat, mainly because its cooking has a strong local identity: farro soup from the Garfagnana, tordelli in ragù, chestnut dishes in the cooler months and cecina from the bakery counter, washed down with Colline Lucchesi wines in family trattorias. The range is narrow, but it is honest and fairly priced.

Basel eats well without much of its own to show, borrowing tarte flambée from Alsace and wines from Baden, with a small fine-dining tier on top. The Markthalle and the Marktplatz market are the easiest casual meals, and many people simply cross the border for a better-value dinner.

The two are fairly close, but they reward different kinds of sightseeing. Basel is about collections: Holbein and the Old Masters at the Kunstmuseum, the Fondation Beyeler in its Renzo Piano building, Tinguely by the river and the architecture campus at Vitra, plus a neat old town around the red sandstone Münster.

In Lucca the town itself is the exhibit. The complete Renaissance walls, the carved Romanesque façade of San Michele in Foro, the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro and the tree-topped Torre Guinigi make a place to wander rather than a list of galleries, and its museums are modest by comparison.

Basel gives you more to do after dinner, though neither is a party city. In summer people drink on the steps by the riverside buvettes of Kleinbasel, the Kaserne area and Rheingasse have bars all year, and a few clubs in old harbour buildings play electronic music at weekends. Fasnacht, with its pre-dawn start and three days of drums and lanterns, is in a league of its own.

Lucca's evenings are an aperitivo in a piazza, a slow dinner and a stroll along the walls, with the centre quiet by midnight. Anyone who wants to dance has to head out to the Versilia beach clubs in summer and arrange a late ride back.

Lucca has the wilder scenery nearby. The Apuan Alps rise within about an hour, with jagged limestone peaks, marble quarries and demanding hiking, while the Garfagnana chestnut woods and the reed beds of Lake Massaciuccoli add quieter walking and birdwatching. Closer in, the 4km tree-lined ring of the walls is the daily running and cycling track.

Basel is gentler but very well placed for walkers and cyclists, with the Jura ridges, the Black Forest summits and the Vosges all within reach, and flat Rhine paths leading into Germany and France. For real mountains, though, it is a couple of hours to the Alps.

From Basel, day trips cross three countries, while Lucca's stay within Tuscany and its coast. Colmar and the half-timbered Alsace wine villages are about an hour from Basel, and Freiburg's minster is under an hour away in Germany. Lucerne, Bern and Zurich are each about an hour by fast train. Roman Augusta Raurica is a quarter of an hour out, and the Rhine Falls are a little further.

From Lucca, Pisa's Campo dei Miracoli is half an hour by train and Florence a little over an hour. The villa gardens of Marlia and Collodi, the sculptors' studios of Pietrasanta and the Garfagnana villages make slower days. With an early start, the Cinque Terre and San Gimignano are within reach too.

Both are calm, safe and easy with children, and neither has much built just for them. Basel's trump card is the Zolli, one of Europe's best zoos, a short walk from the station, along with the current-driven Rhine ferries and Europa-Park about an hour away in Germany.

Lucca's best outings are more active: cycling the walls on a family quadricycle, climbing to the trees on the Torre Guinigi, Pinocchio Park at Collodi and the beaches under half an hour away, which the Rhine cannot match for small swimmers.

Basel is the easier city to move around once you go beyond the centre. Green trams reach every district and even cross the borders, hotel guests ride free, and direct trains go to most day-trip destinations, so a car is never needed.

Lucca is a joy inside the walls, flat and mostly traffic-free, with bikes for hire at every gate and the station just outside. The countryside is the weak point, since buses to the villas, hill villages and the Garfagnana are sparse and a car makes those days far simpler.

Basel sends you home with a Swiss watch or a box of chocolates, Lucca with olive oil and perhaps an antique. In Basel, Freie Strasse and Gerbergasse mix watchmakers, jewellers and chocolatiers with international chains. The Spalenberg lanes add small design shops, and the Christmas market around the Münster is among the prettiest in Switzerland.

Lucca's Via Fillungo is narrower and older, with fashion and jewellery behind Liberty-style shopfronts, and the side lanes sell local oil, farro and buccellato. Its real event is the antiques market, one of Italy's oldest, which fills the streets around the cathedral one weekend a month. Beyond that, a keen shopper will run out of streets within a day.

The gap here is wide. Lucca costs about what you would expect in central Italy, cheaper than Florence, with fairly priced trattorias, inexpensive regional trains and plenty of free sights; rooms are the main expense, and staying just outside the walls helps.

Basel is expensive in every department, from hotels to museum tickets to a drink by the river, and trade fairs push rooms higher still. Free local transport and cheaper meals over the border in Germany and France soften it, but only partly.

Basel has the broader and more ambitious stage scene. Theater Basel puts on opera, ballet and drama with a reputation for daring productions, the Stadtcasino hosts two resident orchestras in a hall known for its acoustics, and early-music concerts are a local speciality. The main season runs from autumn to early summer.

Lucca's music is built around Puccini, with recitals of his arias most evenings in a central church, a season at the Teatro del Giglio and summer opera by the lake at Torre del Lago. Its summer festival also brings big open-air concerts to Piazza Napoleone.

The two are evenly matched: both relax you through their pace and send you out of town for a proper soak. From Basel, the saline baths of Rheinfelden are twenty minutes away, with the German-style spa towns of southern Baden, and Baden-Baden for a longer day, just over the border.

From Lucca the choices are more atmospheric: the belle époque spa halls of Montecatini Terme, the warm cave pools at Monsummano and the steam grottoes of Bagni di Lucca in the wooded Serchio valley.