Bled or Genoa?

Neither is a beach destination, but Genoa gives you more swimming. Bled has freshwater dips from grassy lidos and wooden piers below the castle, and confident swimmers can swim out to the island. Bohinj, colder and wilder, is the alternative, and the season ends in early September.

Genoa has the sea. There is the pebble cove at Boccadasse, the bathing platforms along Corso Italia and at Nervi, and a short train ride to Camogli, Sestri Levante or sandy Varazze. Expect pebbles, rented loungers and crowded weekends, but more choice of water than an Alpine lake can offer.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Eating in Bled comes down to the kremšnita custard slice, hotel dining rooms and a handful of inns serving trout and žlikrofi, and the better meals are out in the valley farm inns.

Genoa is a city to eat in: focaccia at breakfast, trofie with pesto, farinata and fried fish from the old-town friggitorie, seafood in harbour trattorias and a Vermentino to go with it. A food lover would exhaust Bled in a day or two and still be finding new things in Genoa after a week.

Bled's culture amounts to two postcard views: the clifftop castle with its small museum and printing workshop, and the baroque island church with its wishing bell, reached by pletna boat. Both are memorable, and you can see both in a day.

Genoa offers days of sightseeing: the medieval caruggi, the UNESCO palaces of Via Garibaldi hung with Van Dyck and Rubens, the striped cathedral and the marble sculpture of Staglieno. Anyone who cares about art and architecture will be far better served there.

Bled has evenings rather than nightlife: a drink on a terrace and a walk along the lit shore, with the village asleep before midnight. Genoa is reserved by Italian standards, but at weekends its old-town squares fill with students and aperitivo drinkers, and there are waterfront bars at Porto Antico and beach clubs in summer. Neither suits clubbing, but only Genoa gives you a reason to stay out late.

Both are fine places to walk, but Bled sits at the edge of the high mountains. Triglav National Park, the Vintgar Gorge, Bohinj and the Pokljuka plateau are all within about half an hour. There is hut-to-hut hiking, rafting on the Sava, paragliding, and skiing at Vogel in winter.

Genoa's outdoors is coastal and gentler: the fortress trail from Righi, the Portofino cliff paths down to San Fruttuoso, the Cinque Terre terraces and whale watching in the Pelagos Sanctuary. It combines sea and hills well, but it cannot match the Alpine scale around Bled.

Bled is a good base for Slovenia. Ljubljana is under an hour away and medieval Radovljica is close by. Postojna cave and Piran each make a full day out, and the Wörthersee in Austria is through the Karawanks tunnel. The further trips are easiest by car.

Genoa has more within easy reach, and mostly by train. Camogli, Portofino and Sestri Levante lie along the Levante, with the Cinque Terre beyond. Quiet Noli and Finale Ligure Borgo are to the west, and Milan or Turin work for a museum day. So many famous places on one railway line gives Genoa the edge.

Both work for children, in different ways. Bled is an outdoor village: rowing to the island, the shallow lidos, the toboggan run on Straža and a flat lake path for pushchairs. A wet day there is hard to fill.

Genoa has rainy-day answers at Porto Antico: the aquarium, the science centre and the walk-through submarine. The funiculars are an outing in themselves, but the steep, stepped old town is hard going with a pushchair. Bled suits active families in good weather, and Genoa suits families who want indoor attractions to fall back on.

Both centres are easy to explore on foot, though Bled's is flat around the lake and Genoa's climbs steeply from the water. Beyond the centre, Genoa is easier without a car: funiculars and lifts reach the hills, a short metro line runs through the centre and the coastal railway reaches the Riviera towns.

From Bled, buses and trains cover Ljubljana, Radovljica and Bohinj. Trailheads, Pokljuka and the Vršič pass are poorly served, though, so most visitors who want the mountains hire a car.

Bled has a few gift stalls by the lake selling honey, lace and painted beehive panels, and little else. Genoa has much more: arcaded Via XX Settembre and the Galleria Mazzini for Italian labels, and old-town shops for candied fruit, olive oil, silver filigree and coral. It is no fashion capital, but shopping for food and crafts there is a real pleasure.

Bled is Slovenia's most expensive resort, and its lakeside hotels and terraces charge for the view. Staying in Radovljica or Bohinj and sticking to the free trails keeps costs down. Genoa is the cheaper of the two, with focaccia and farinata for quick meals, fair trattoria lunches and inexpensive funiculars. Its costs rise mainly in the smart Riviera towns and on days spent on a rented lounger.

In Bled, live music means occasional summer concerts in the castle or churches and folk evenings put on for visitors. Genoa has the Teatro Carlo Felice for opera, ballet and symphony concerts, an established drama company performing in Italian, Paganini concerts and small clubs that keep its singer-songwriter tradition alive.

It is not a music capital, but in Genoa you can plan an evening at the opera. From Bled, that means a trip to Ljubljana.

Bled began as a health resort with Arnold Rikli's nineteenth-century air and sun cures. Today it offers spa hotels with pools fed by the lake's mild springs, and above all a slow pace of early walks and pletna rides.

Genoa has hotel spas and the quiet villa gardens of Nervi, and Acqui Terme's thermal waters are a little over an hour away. Its centre is noisy with port traffic and crowded lanes, so for a calm week Bled is the better place.