Bern or Bologna?

Neither city has a coast, but Bern makes swimming part of an ordinary summer day. You walk upstream from the Marzili, drop into the cold green Aare and let the current carry you back past the Federal Palace, with riverside lidos for lawns and pools. Lake Thun offers calmer water twenty minutes away.

Bologna has nothing similar in town. The nearest swimming is the Adriatic at Rimini, an hour by train, and the water there is warmer and much gentler than the Aare, which makes it the safer choice for small children. The shore, though, is a strip of rented sunbeds and green-tinged water, good for a day out of the heat but no real attraction.

Food is the biggest gap between these two cities. In Bologna, eating is a reason to come: tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in brodo and lasagne verdi in family osterie, pasta rolled by hand in shop windows, and the Quadrilatero's delicatessens and the Mercato delle Erbe a few steps from Piazza Maggiore. Parmigiano, Parma ham and balsamic vinegar come from towns nearby.

Bern eats well in a hearty Alpine way, with the Berner Platte, rösti and fondue in guildhall dining rooms and arcade cellars, plus very good chocolate. The range is small and the bills are high. Bologna's weak point is variety beyond Emilian cooking, which matters less when the local food is this good.

Bern's UNESCO listing covers the whole old town: sandstone houses on a tight loop of the Aare, about 6km of arcades, painted fountains, the Zytglogge and the Minster tower looking out to the Alps. It is compact and all of a piece. Its museums are better than its size suggests, with the Zentrum Paul Klee and the Einstein Museum both worth planning around, and two days covers it.

Bologna is the stronger city for sightseeing. Here UNESCO lists the porticoes rather than the centre, nearly 40km of them, running through a much larger medieval core in red brick. Piazza Maggiore and San Petronio, the Two Towers, the seven churches of Santo Stefano and the Archiginnasio's wooden anatomical theatre are joined by the Pinacoteca's Bolognese painting and the arcaded climb to San Luca. It fills two or three days and repays them.

Bologna goes out far more, thanks to its students. Crowds fill Piazza Verdi and the cheap bars around the university, Via del Pratello's taverns stay busy until late, and the evening starts with aperitivo around the Quadrilatero. The main exception is August, when the students leave and the city goes quiet.

Bern's evenings are smaller and quieter: cellar bars under the arcades, the streets near the station at weekends, summer terraces along the Aare and the Reitschule for rough late parties. On a weekday the city goes to bed early.

Bern has the great landscape. The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau are visible from the old town and about an hour away by train, with high trails, cable cars and skiing. Lake Thun, the Emmental and the Jura are closer, and the Gurten funicular and the Aare's wooded paths begin inside the city.

Bologna's outdoors is gentler. San Luca and the Colli Bolognesi are good for easy hill walks, the Parco dei Gessi has gypsum caves, and the Via degli Dei sets off for Florence from Piazza Maggiore. The higher Apennines are an hour and a half away, and the hot, humid summers keep most walking to spring and autumn.

Bern makes day trips effortless. Lucerne, Basel and Zurich are about an hour away, Fribourg and Gruyères lie across the language border, and lake towns such as Murten, Thun and Neuchâtel are closer still. The outings tend to be smaller and more scenic, and you could see a different town every day for a week.

Bologna goes further, mainly because of where its trains lead. Florence is barely half an hour away, Ferrara's walls and castle are under an hour and Ravenna's mosaics about an hour. Modena and Parma lie along the Via Emilia, and Venice, Verona and Padua each make a full day out.

Bern is the easier choice with children. The bear park, the wooded Dählhölzli zoo along the river, the dioramas at the Natural History Museum and the playground at the top of the Gurten funicular give younger children plenty to do, and the mountains are close. The one real caution is the fast river.

Bologna is friendly and flat, with traffic-free streets, shade under the porticoes and gelato everywhere. Little of it is aimed at children beyond climbing the Asinelli tower, though, and families usually head out to Mirabilandia or the beach at Rimini. The summer heat is hard on small children.

Both centres are best seen on foot, and Bern's is the easier to manage. You can walk from the station to the bear park in about twenty minutes, staying dry under the arcades. Trams and buses run punctually on one fare system, and funiculars and a public lift save you the steep climb up from the river.

Bologna's medieval centre is flat and largely closed to cars, so walking there is simple too. Beyond it, buses cover the wider city and the hills, and there is no metro. Watch out for bikes, which are everywhere under the arches. In both cities the main station sits at the edge of the old town.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what you bring home differs. In Bologna it is food: mortadella, aged Parmigiano and fresh tortellini from the Quadrilatero, plus a small cluster of luxury fashion around Via Farini and the Galleria Cavour and vintage shops in the university quarter.

Bern's arcaded main streets offer Swiss chains, watches and chocolate. The steep cellar shops on Gerechtigkeitsgasse are the more interesting browse, with antiques and crafts, but there is almost no luxury fashion.

This is a large difference. Bern is very expensive across the board: rooms, dinners and even a terrace beer cost far more than visitors expect. The help comes from free pleasures such as the river paths, the bear park and Federal Palace tours, plus the transport pass most hotels include.

In Bologna, eating and drinking are the good news, with trattorias, aperitivo that includes food, and local wine all cheaper than in Italy's tourist hubs. Rooms are the cost to watch, especially during the big trade fairs. Even so, a stay works out far cheaper than in Bern.

Bologna has the deeper musical life. The Teatro Comunale is one of Italy's historic opera houses, UNESCO names the city a City of Music, small jazz clubs play most nights and student venues keep indie gigs going. In summer, Piazza Maggiore hosts outdoor concerts and films.

Bern offers opera and drama in German at the Stadttheater, the symphony orchestra in the Casino, new dance at the Dampfzentrale, a spring jazz festival and the Gurtenfestival in July. In both cities spoken theatre is in the local language, so music is the better bet.

Bern is the slightly better place to unwind. Its quiet Sundays and unhurried arcades help, and the city has its own thermal bath complex with saunas and steam rooms, plus a hammam-style spa in the old town. Mountain spa hotels in the Bernese Oberland are close for more serious time.

Bologna relaxes you through long lunches under the porticoes, but the university quarter is noisy and summer is heavy. For spa water you leave the city for Castel San Pietro Terme or the old valley spa town of Porretta Terme.