Bled or Padua?

Neither city is on the sea, but in Bled you can swim right in the village. In high summer the lake warms to about 24°C, and people swim from grassy lidos, wooden piers and rocks along the shore, some of them all the way out to the island. Lake Bohinj, half an hour away, is a colder and wilder second option.

From Padua a swim means an hour's journey to Sottomarina or the Lido of Venice. The shallow Adriatic there is gentle for small children, but the beaches are flat rows of umbrellas. Bled gives you the more scenic swim and the easier one to fit into a day.

Padua is a far better place to eat. It has twin morning markets beneath the Palazzo della Ragione, Venetian home cooking such as bigoli with duck sauce and risotto with spring peas, and wines from the Euganean Hills. That keeps a food lover busy for days, even though fine dining is thin.

Bled offers kremšnita on a lake terrace and a short list of trout, žlikrofi and pizza, much of it aimed at day visitors. The better meals are in the farm inns of the surrounding valleys, and a keen eater will have done the village within a couple of days.

Bled has a cliff-top castle with a small museum and a baroque island church reached by pletna boat. Both are memorable for their setting more than for what is inside, and most visitors see everything in a day.

Padua is in a different league. It has Giotto's Scrovegni frescoes, a UNESCO-listed group of fourteenth-century fresco cycles and the domed Basilica of Saint Anthony with Donatello's bronzes. Add the world's oldest permanent anatomical theatre and the 1545 botanical garden, and there is enough for two or three full days.

Bled is asleep well before midnight. A drink on a hotel terrace and a walk along the lit shore is the whole evening, and anyone who wants more has to go to Ljubljana.

Neither city is for clubbing, but Padua at least has a real evening out. Students and locals stand with drinks in Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori until late, and there are wine bars and small pubs in the old ghetto and around the Bo. The city does go quiet in high summer and during the university breaks.

This is what Bled does best. The Julian Alps begin at the lakeshore. The Pokljuka plateau, the Savica waterfall and Lake Bohinj are all within half an hour, and the emerald Soča valley lies over the Vršič pass. There is hut-to-hut hiking, canyoning on the Sava and cross-country skiing in winter.

Padua sits on a flat plain, so its outdoors is gentler and further away. It offers trails and vineyards in the Euganean Hills, level bike rides along the Brenta towpaths and birdwatching on the lagoon. Real mountain walking, on Monte Grappa or the Asiago plateau, is about an hour and a half away by car.

Bled is a good base for a small country. Ljubljana, medieval Radovljica and the Postojna cave are all within range, as are Piran on the coast and Austria's Wörthersee. Many of these trips are easiest by car, though, and the list runs out sooner.

Padua's location is exceptional. Venice is under half an hour away by train and Vicenza a quarter of an hour, and Verona, Bologna and Ferrara are around an hour. The Brenta villas and walled towns such as Montagnana and Este are closer still, so you could take a different day trip almost every day of a week.

Bled suits children better because they can be outdoors all day. They can row out to ring the island bell, paddle at the shallow lidos, and try the toboggan run and rope park on Straža, and the flat lake path takes pushchairs. Rainy days are the weak point, as there is nothing large indoors.

Padua is flat and safe, children are welcome in any trattoria, and Prato della Valle gives them room to run. But the sights are frescoes and churches, so families tend to rely on trips to Gardaland or the Adriatic.

Both centres are small enough to walk. In Bled you follow the lakeshore path, and in Padua you walk under the arcades of a largely traffic-free core, with a tram from the station.

The difference is getting further afield. Bled's buses and two small stations cover Ljubljana and Bohinj, but trailheads, Pokljuka and the Vršič pass are poorly served, so most visitors exploring the Alps hire a car. Padua's station sits on main lines in every direction, which makes a car optional for almost everything except the hills.

Bled has almost nothing to buy beyond a few lakeside stalls selling honey, lace and painted beehive panels, plus a small supermarket for the basics.

Padua has real shops: fashion and shoe stores along the arcades, university bookshops and delicatessens beneath the Palazzo della Ragione that are ideal for cheese and wine to take home. A large antiques market fills Prato della Valle one Sunday a month. It is good for browsing, though serious shoppers still go on to Venice or Milan.

Bled charges resort prices for lakeside rooms and terrace views, especially in July and August. Guesthouses in nearby villages, the campsite at the western end of the lake or a bed in Radovljica bring the cost down. The walks and viewpoints that draw people here are free.

Padua is somewhat easier on the wallet. It costs what an ordinary northern Italian city does, and its hotels are a sensible base for exploring the region. Market produce and a standing aperitivo are cheap, and you can walk everywhere in the centre, which keeps daily costs down.

Bled has no stage of its own. Summer brings occasional concerts in the castle or the churches and folk evenings for visitors, but for a real performance you have to go to Ljubljana.

Padua's programme is modest but runs all year. Teatro Verdi, a nineteenth-century horseshoe theatre, puts on plays and some opera, and a chamber orchestra plays in the Sala dei Giganti and the Basilica. Students keep small live-music venues going. The Fenice in Venice and the summer Arena in Verona are easy to reach for major opera.

Bled's calm comes mostly from its setting. It has its history as Arnold Rikli's nineteenth-century health resort, a few hotel spas with pools fed by mild springs, and early walks around still water outside the summer peak.

Padua has the stronger offer in Abano Terme and Montegrotto Terme, about 12km away. Together they form one of Europe's largest thermal districts, with hot mineral pools and mud treatments at dozens of spa hotels, many of which take day visitors. A long soak after a morning of frescoes is easy here, in a way Bled's few hotel pools cannot match.