Bologna or Turin?

Neither city has a beach, but Bologna gets you to the sea far more easily. Rimini and the Romagna Riviera are about an hour by train, with shallow, warm Adriatic water in August and long rows of organised lidos.

From Turin the nearest sea is the Ligurian coast at Savona, close to two hours away, so in summer locals go to lakes such as Avigliana or further to Lago Maggiore. Either way, a swimming vacation means staying on the coast.

Both are among the best places in Italy to eat, and the difference is in what you eat. Bologna is the home of egg pasta: tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in brodo and mortadella, with Parmigiano and Parma ham from towns close by and Lambrusco poured at aperitivo in the Quadrilatero.

Turin's Piedmontese cooking is more refined: agnolotti del plin, vitello tonnato, autumn white truffles and serious bottles of Barolo. It adds a sweet side that Bologna lacks, with gianduiotti, bicerin in arcaded cafés and the vermouth that started the aperitivo. In both cities, choice is thin once you look beyond the regional cooking.

The two are level overall but offer different things. In Bologna the main sight is the townscape: medieval red brick, the UNESCO-listed porticoes, the Two Towers, the seven churches of Santo Stefano and the anatomical theatre of the Archiginnasio, which together take two or three days.

Turin is a city of great museums and royal buildings. The Museo Egizio alone justifies the trip, and the Royal Palace, the Savoy residences such as Venaria, the cinema museum in the Mole and contemporary art at Rivoli make for a longer and more varied list.

Bologna goes out more. Its large student population fills Piazza Verdi and Via Petroni with crowds outside cheap bars, and Via del Pratello keeps its taverns busy late, though clubbing means a taxi out of town and August goes very quiet.

Turin's evenings revolve around the aperitivo, followed by wine bars in the Quadrilatero Romano, pavement crowds in San Salvario and the riverside Murazzi in summer. It has clubs in old industrial buildings, but the mood overall is sociable and calmer.

Turin is far ahead here because the Alps are on its horizon. The Gran Paradiso, with ibex and high trails, the Susa valley and the ski slopes of the Via Lattea are around an hour or an hour and a half away, offering hut-to-hut hiking in summer and proper skiing in winter.

Bologna's countryside is gentler: the arcaded climb to San Luca, the Colli Bolognesi, the gypsum caves of the Parco dei Gessi and the start of the Via degli Dei to Florence. Its Apennine skiing at Corno alle Scale is modest by comparison.

Both make fine bases, but Bologna is exceptional because of its rail junction. Florence is barely half an hour away, Ravenna's mosaics and Ferrara's walls are about an hour or less, Modena and Parma are short hops, and Verona, Padua and Venice are all realistic in a day, every one of them by train.

Turin's outings are more about countryside: the Langhe wine villages of Barolo and La Morra, truffle-town Alba and the Sacra di San Michele on its rock. Milan is an hour by fast train, but the wine hills are easiest to explore with a car.

Turin gives children more to do. The glass lift up through the Mole, the car museum, the Egyptian mummies, the planetarium and the rack railway to Superga all appeal, and the Zoom Torino zoo park is a good day out by car.

Bologna is easy to be in, flat and traffic-free under the porticoes, but its sights are aimed at adults. Climbing the Asinelli tower is the main adventure, and families tend to head out to Mirabilandia or the beach at Rimini.

Bologna is the simpler city to move around. Its centre is smaller and almost everything is walkable under cover, and the station sits right at the edge of the old town, so the lack of a metro hardly matters.

Turin's grid of arcades is just as flat but spreads further, from Porta Nuova to the Mole and the river. Its single driverless metro line helps on one axis, but trams and buses are slower and take some learning, and a car is useful for the hills and mountains.

In both cities the best things to take home are edible, and neither is a fashion destination. Bologna's bags fill with mortadella, Parmigiano and tortellini from the Quadrilatero, with a small luxury cluster in the Galleria Cavour and an antiques market in Piazza Santo Stefano.

Turin has the longer arcaded high street in Via Roma and a sweeter haul of chocolate, pastries and truffles. It also has the bigger flea market, with the Balon every Saturday and the Gran Balon once a month.

Turin is the easier city on the wallet. Its central hotels are fairly priced for most of the year, public transport is cheap and aperitivo spreads can stand in for dinner, though truffles and museum tickets add up.

Bologna's meals and free-to-enter churches are good value, but old-town rooms cost as much as anywhere in prosperous northern Italy. Trade fairs push prices up in both cities, more sharply in Bologna.

The two are close, and Turin's classical programme is the larger: opera and ballet at the Teatro Regio, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra and concerts in the Lingotto auditorium, plus festivals of jazz and electronic music.

Bologna, a UNESCO City of Music, has its historic Teatro Comunale and a more grassroots scene of jazz basements and student gigs, with summer concerts and film screenings in Piazza Maggiore. In both, the theatre is in Italian.

Neither city has a bathing culture, so relaxing in either means hotel spas and a slow pace. Bologna has thermal water much closer, at Castel San Pietro Terme about twenty minutes away and at Porretta Terme in the hills, while Turin's springs at Acqui Terme or in the Aosta valley are nearly two hours off.

Turin makes up for it with a quieter city life of historic cafés, evening walks along the Po and afternoons in Valentino park, whereas Bologna's university quarter can be noisy.