Bologna or Catania?

There is no real contest. Bologna is inland, and a swim means an hour's train to Rimini or Cervia. There the Adriatic is warm and shallow, but it is lined with rows of rented umbrellas and the water is often greenish.

Catania has the sea on its doorstep in two forms. The long sandy beach of La Playa is the easy option, and on the black lava coast at Aci Castello and Aci Trezza you climb down ladders into clear water beside the sea stacks. Neither is Sicily's prettiest shore, but together they make swimming a daily part of the trip from June into October.

Both are serious food cities, but they eat in different ways. Bologna is the home of sit-down Emilian cooking: hand-rolled tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in brodo and mortadella in old osterie, with Parmigiano and balsamic vinegar made nearby. For a trip built around long lunches it has the deeper tradition, though there is little beyond Emilian food and it feels heavy in the heat.

Catania eats standing up and outdoors. There are arancini and crispelle from the tavola calda counters, granita with brioche for breakfast and horse meat grilled over smoke on Via Plebiscito. The Pescheria is a far louder market than the Quadrilatero, and Etna's volcanic wines give the table its own character.

Bologna gives you more to see and more depth. Its medieval centre of brick towers and nearly 40km of porticoes is remarkably intact. Around Piazza Maggiore, San Petronio and Santo Stefano you'll also find the anatomical theatre in the Archiginnasio and a fine collection of Bolognese painting in the Pinacoteca.

Catania's appeal is the late-baroque city rebuilt in black lava and pale limestone after the earthquake of 1693. It shows best in Piazza del Duomo, along Via dei Crociferi and in the vast San Nicolò monastery, with Roman remains below the streets. Its museums are slighter, though the Feast of Sant'Agata in February is a spectacle Bologna cannot match.

Both are university cities where nights out are young, cheap and informal. Bologna's evenings revolve around bars and taverns: crowds standing outside on Piazza Verdi, the long run of pubs on Via del Pratello, and wine bars after aperitivo. It falls almost silent in August.

Catania stays out later. In summer the action shifts to the beach clubs of La Playa, which become open-air dance floors, so it is at its liveliest just when Bologna empties. In winter it settles into weekend bar-hopping around Piazza Bellini.

Etna gives Catania a landscape Bologna has nothing to match. The volcano rises to about 3,300m, often smoking, less than an hour away. Its slopes have crater trails, lava fields and beech woods. Further north you can wade through the Alcantara Gorge, and you can kayak among the basalt stacks off the coast.

Bologna's outdoors are milder. The Colli Bolognesi and the arcaded climb to San Luca make easy walks from the centre, and the higher Apennines lie about an hour and a half south. North of town there is only flat farmland.

Northern Italy's main rail lines meet at Bologna, so more is within easy reach without a car. Florence is about half an hour away by fast train. Ravenna, Ferrara, Modena and Parma are short hops, and even Venice and Verona work as day trips.

Catania is a fine base for eastern Sicily, with places of real quality in reach: Ortigia and the Greek theatre at Siracusa, Taormina above the sea, the baroque towns of Noto, Modica and Ragusa, and the mosaics at Piazza Armerina. Getting there is the difference. Buses reach the main towns, but you really need a hire car for the baroque circuit.

Neither city is built around children, and both need outings to fill the days. Bologna is the easier city to walk with a pushchair: it is flat, largely closed to cars and shaded by the porticoes. Its sights are aimed at adults, though, and Mirabilandia or the beach mean a full day away.

Catania's streets are harder work, with traffic, narrow pavements and little shade. On the other hand, the gently shelving sand of La Playa and the Etnaland water park are close by, and walking on old craters is a real adventure for older children.

Bologna is much easier to move around. The centre is compact, flat and mostly closed to cars, the arcades keep walkers out of sun and rain, and the main station is at the edge of the old town.

Catania's core along Via Etnea and around the cathedral is walkable too, but beyond it things get tiring. There is a single metro line, buses crawl through heavy traffic and drivers often don't stop for pedestrians. Many visitors hire a car for Etna and the baroque towns, then struggle to park it in the centre.

Food is the main thing to take home from both, but Bologna has the broader shopping. Beyond the mortadella and Parmigiano of the Quadrilatero, it has a small luxury cluster on Via Farini and in the Galleria Cavour, an antiques market in Piazza Santo Stefano, and bookshops and vintage stores around the university.

Catania has the chain stores of Via Etnea and little in the way of fashion or design. Its markets are livelier, though, with La Fiera selling everything daily. Bronte pistachio cream, Etna wine and Caltagirone ceramics are the things to pack.

Catania is the easier of the two on the budget, though neither is a bargain. Bologna eats well for its price, with aperitivo food and trattoria meals cheaper than in Italy's main tourist cities. Its hotels, however, are priced like the rest of prosperous northern Italy and become scarce during the big trade fairs.

In Catania, street food makes a full meal for little money, guesthouses in the old centre are reasonable outside July and August, and buses and the metro are cheap. Guided trips to the summit, beach-club sunbeds and a hire car are the costs that add up.

Each has a historic opera house worth an evening: Bologna's Teatro Comunale, and the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, the composer's birthplace. Beyond that they differ in kind. Bologna, a UNESCO City of Music, adds basement jazz clubs most nights, student gigs, and summer concerts and films in Piazza Maggiore.

Catania's distinctive art is the opera dei pupi, Sicilian puppet theatre with marionettes of knights and Saracens. In summer, concerts move into courtyards and the region's ancient theatres. Outside the opera season, it has less live music to fill the evenings.

Neither is a place to come for rest, but Bologna is the calmer of the two. Its pace is unhurried for a city, and thermal pools are close by at Castel San Pietro Terme, about twenty minutes away, and at Porretta Terme in its green Apennine valley.

Catania is noisier, with constant traffic and no bathing tradition, so spa time means a hotel or resort on the coast or on Etna's lower slopes. A granita breakfast and the evening passeggiata slow the day down, and the villages on the volcano are quieter places to stay.