Bled or Venice?

Neither place is a beach destination, and the difference is mostly in kind. In Bled you swim in a lake, from grassy lidos and wooden piers, in water of about 24°C in high summer. The colder, wilder Lake Bohinj is half an hour away. Venice has a real sandy sea beach on the Lido, shallow, warm and gentle but greenish, and mostly laid out in rows of cabanas.

For a swim in fresh water with mountains behind you, Bled is the more appealing. For sand and open sea Venice has a slight edge, with quieter Pellestrina and the resort strips of Jesolo as alternatives. In both places a swim fills an afternoon rather than the whole trip.

Venice gives food lovers far more. The bacari around the Rialto and in Cannaregio lay out cicchetti to eat standing with a spritz. Lagoon dishes such as cuttlefish risotto black with its ink and bigoli in salsa come from the Rialto market, as long as you steer clear of the picture-menu places on the main routes.

Bled comes down to kremšnita on a lake terrace, hotel dining rooms, pizzerias and a few inns serving trout and žlikrofi. The better country cooking is in the farm inns of the surrounding valleys, and the village itself runs out of interest within a couple of days.

This is the widest gap between the two. In Venice the whole city is the sight: San Marco, the Doge's Palace and the palazzi along the Grand Canal. Behind them come the Accademia, Titian in the Frari, Tintoretto at San Rocco and the Biennale in the Arsenale and Giardini. A week barely covers it.

Bled has its cliff-top castle with a small museum and the famous view, the baroque church on the island reached by pletna boat, and a few villas from its spa-resort days. That is a lovely day of sightseeing at most. Anyone looking for galleries goes on to Ljubljana.

Neither suits a big night out, but Venice has more to fill an evening. The aperitivo crowd packs the bacari along the Fondamenta della Misericordia, and students keep a few bars busy late around Campo Santa Margherita. Bled offers a drink on a terrace and a walk along the lit shore, and the village is asleep well before midnight. For clubs, people in Venice head to Jesolo in summer, and people in Bled go to Ljubljana.

Bled wins outright. It sits where the Julian Alps begin. The Vintgar Gorge, the climb to Osojnica, Lake Bohinj, the Savica waterfall and the Pokljuka plateau are all within about half an hour, with rafting on the Sava, paragliding, multi-day hut routes and winter skiing at Vogel on top.

Venice's outdoors is flat and watery. You can kayak or learn Venetian rowing among the herons and flamingos of the northern lagoon, or cycle the sea walls of Pellestrina. Real mountains are more than two hours away, and the city has little green space beyond the Giardini.

Venice is the stronger base, mainly because fast trains make the Veneto easy without a car. Padua is about half an hour away, Vicenza and Verona a little further, and Bologna and Trieste around two hours. Murano, Burano and Torcello are a boat ride across the lagoon.

Bled covers a lot of ground in a small country. Ljubljana is under an hour away, medieval Radovljica is next door, and Postojna cave with Predjama Castle or the harbour at Piran each make a full day. Austrian Carinthia is through the Karawanks tunnel, though several of these trips are easiest by car.

Bled is easier with children. The flat lake path takes pushchairs and the lidos are shallow. Rowing out to ring the island bell, the toboggan run and rope park on Straža, and the Vintgar walkways fill the days, though a rainy day is hard to fill.

Venice thrills children with its boats and car-free alleys, the Lido sand, Murano glass-blowing and the dinosaurs in the natural history museum. But stepped bridges defeat pushchairs, summers are hot and crowded, and playgrounds are few, so it works best as a short stay with older children.

You walk in both places, but Venice is easier for a visitor without a car. Almost everything is within a forty-minute walk, vaporetti run to the Lido and the islands, and trains end right at Santa Lucia. The price is hundreds of stepped bridges and slow, crowded boats.

Bled's lakeside is easy on foot, and buses link it to Ljubljana and Bohinj. The places that make a stay worthwhile, though, such as the trailheads, Pokljuka, the Vršič pass and the Soča valley, mostly need a hire car or a transfer, and parking by the lake is tight in summer.

Venice is a real destination for craft shopping. Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers come from workshops in Dorsoduro, Castello and on Murano, and the big fashion names line Calle Larga XXII Marzo. Be wary of the imported fakes sold along the main routes. Bled has a few lakeside stalls selling honey, lace and painted beehive panels, and almost nothing else.

Bled is the cheaper of the two. It is expensive by Slovenian standards, especially by the lake in July and August, but guesthouses in the nearby villages, the campsite or a room in Radovljica or Bohinj bring costs down. The lake path, viewpoints and mountain trails are all free.

Venice is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Water transport is priced for visitors, and most sights and churches charge for entry. Eating cicchetti at the counter, staying in a quieter sestiere or sleeping in Mestre helps, but it rarely feels cheap.

Venice has a proper stage. La Fenice puts on opera, ballet and symphonic concerts, the Teatro Goldoni stages drama, and the Biennale runs its own festivals. Most evenings there are Vivaldi concerts in churches and scuole, though their quality varies. Bled has no theatre or concert hall, only the odd summer concert in the castle or a church and folk evenings for visitors, so a night at the opera means going to Ljubljana.

Bled is the more restful stay. It began as a nineteenth-century health resort under Arnold Rikli, and that history lives on in lakeside hotel spas fed by mild springs. Early walks around still water and slow boat rides set the pace, especially outside the summer peak.

Venice has hotel spas in palazzi and on the Lido, and Castello, Cannaregio and Giudecca are calm early and late in the day. The daytime crowds around San Marco break the spell, though. For real thermal bathing you would go to Abano Terme, about an hour away.