Cannes or La Spezia?

In Cannes the beach is in the middle of town. A curve of fine sand on calm water runs along the Croisette, the wider and mostly free Plage du Midi lies west of the old port, and the red-rock coves of the Esterel are twenty minutes away. You can walk from breakfast to the sea.

La Spezia's waterfront is a naval port and promenade, so a swim is always an outing. It is a worthwhile one, from the clear rocky water around Portovenere and Palmaria to the sandy bay at Monterosso. The beaches are small, though, often pebbly, and much of the shore belongs to paid bathing establishments.

Both kitchens are built on market produce and the sea, and neither has much range. Cannes leans Provençal, with bouillabaisse, socca and rosé on a terrace. It also has real fine dining in the palace hotels and up in Mougins, although the tourist menus along the Croisette are poor value.

La Spezia's food is more its own: farinata from wood ovens, mesciua soup, testaroli with pesto and the gulf's rope-grown mussels, with Cinque Terre whites to drink. There is little fine dining, but ordinary meals are steadier and more local.

Neither is a heritage destination, and each can be seen in about a day. In Cannes the appeal is setting and glamour: the castle on Le Suquet with its ethnography collection, the Belle Époque palace hotels and the red-carpet steps of the Palais des Festivals.

La Spezia leans more on its museums. The Museo Amedeo Lia holds early Italian paintings, there is a naval museum by the arsenal, and Castello San Giorgio keeps the strange Lunigiana stele statues, all set in a nineteenth-century grid of streets rather than a medieval quarter.

In summer and during festival weeks, Cannes has a real night scene. Beach clubs on the Croisette become party venues, a few clubs stay open until dawn and the streets behind the old port fill with bars. It is dressy and expensive, and it fades out of season.

In La Spezia the evening is mostly the aperitivo, a spritz or a Vermentino on Via del Prione or the waterfront at Lerici. After that most people turn in, ready for an early start on the trails.

La Spezia is the stronger base for walkers. The terraced cliffs of the Cinque Terre national park, with the Sentiero Azzurro and the quieter ridge paths, are only minutes away. Palmaria and the Montemarcello promontory offer gentler walks, and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps are about an hour inland.

Cannes has fine scenery too, above all the red volcanic rock of the Esterel and the coast path around Cap d'Antibes, with sailing and diving around the Lérins islands. It just has nothing as striking as the Cinque Terre on its doorstep.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is what lies along the line. From Cannes the coastal train links Riviera towns from Antibes and Nice to Monaco and Menton, while the perched villages of Saint-Paul-de-Vence and Èze and the perfume town of Grasse are inland.

From La Spezia the five Cinque Terre villages are a short train ride away, Portovenere is just across the gulf, and Pisa and Lucca are about an hour by train. It comes down to Riviera glamour and art against cliff villages and Tuscan cities.

Cannes is the easier of the two with young children, mainly because the beach is right there. The sand slopes gently, the water is calm, and the flat promenade has carousels and play areas. Neither town has much made for children, though the aquarium in Monaco is a train ride from Cannes.

La Spezia is calm and safe, and boat trips around Portovenere and the shallow beaches at San Terenzo work well. Every swim needs transport, though, and the steep villages and crowded summer trains suit older children better than toddlers.

Both have compact, flat centres with the station in the middle, and both work best by train rather than car. In Cannes the regional line covers the Riviera towns, but the hill villages and the Esterel corniche are easier to reach by car, despite summer traffic and scarce parking.

La Spezia reaches nearly everything without a car: trains through the Cinque Terre and inland towards Pisa, buses to Portovenere and Lerici, and ferries from spring to autumn. Its weak spot is the crush on the coastal trains in summer.

For shopping, Cannes is in a different league. The great Paris fashion and jewellery houses line the seafront, Rue d'Antibes behind it adds French mid-range labels and chocolatiers, and Rue Meynadier sells olive oil, soaps and Provençal fabrics.

La Spezia has the everyday shops of a provincial city along Via del Prione and Corso Cavour. The things worth buying are mostly to eat or drink, such as pesto, olive oil and anchovies, along with Carrara marble pieces from the towns nearby.

La Spezia is clearly the cheaper place to stay. Rooms cost less than in the Cinque Terre villages and everyday eating is fair value. The costs that add up are the trail passes, boat trips and bathing establishments.

Cannes is expensive along the waterfront, and hotel rates climb much higher during the film festival and the big trade fairs. Lunch menus in the backstreets, picnics from the Forville market and the free beaches help, and some visitors stay in a cheaper neighbouring town and come in by train.

Neither is a destination for live performance, but Cannes has more to see. The Palais des Festivals hosts concerts and touring shows through the year, the regional philharmonic plays its season and the town runs a respected dance festival. In summer there are classical concerts in the castle courtyard on Le Suquet and free film screenings on the beach.

La Spezia relies on the Teatro Civico and a summer jazz festival with open-air concerts around the gulf. For opera you have to go to Genoa or Pisa.

If a massage or a seawater cure is part of the plan, Cannes is the better base. Several of the grand seafront hotels have full spas, and thalassotherapy, the French tradition of treatments in heated seawater, is easy to find along this stretch of coast. La Spezia has nothing like it in town, and its nearest thermal water is the small set of baths at Equi Terme, about an hour inland in the Lunigiana.

Neither town has a public bathing culture, so in both the real rest comes from the pace. Cannes is calm on its seafront outside the busy season but loud during festival weeks and in August. Around La Spezia, calm means a long lunch in Tellaro or a day on Palmaria, away from the crowded Cinque Terre paths.