Capri or Corsica?

Corsica is far stronger for beaches. In the far south, Palombaggia, Santa Giulia and Rondinara are wide strips of pale sand on turquoise water, the Agriates coves are wilder, and the west coast offers quieter granite inlets. A car opens up a wide choice.

Capri has almost no sand, only the small pebble coves at the two marinas and rock platforms with ladders into deep water, mostly run as bathing clubs. Its pleasure is the swimming itself, off the rocks at Punta Carena or from a boat under the Faraglioni, in water that is exceptionally clear but crowded for space in high summer.

Corsica gives you more to eat your way through. Its cooking comes from the mountains, with cured pork such as lonzu and figatellu, brocciu in everything from omelettes to fiadone, chestnut flour and wild boar, plus serious wine from Patrimonio and Sartène and lively morning markets in Ajaccio and Bastia.

Capri's table is shorter: caprese salad, ravioli capresi, torta caprese, lemons, clams and fried anchovies. It is pleasant in the trattorias of Anacapri under lemon pergolas, but the restaurants round the Piazzetta charge for the view, and there are no markets to explore.

Corsica offers more sightseeing, spread across a road trip: Bonifacio's old town on its white cliffs, the citadels of Calvi and Corte, Napoleon's birthplace and the Italian paintings of the Palais Fesch in Ajaccio, and the carved standing stones of Filitosa.

Capri has a compact set of fine sites rather than towns to explore. Tiberius's Villa Jovis, Villa San Michele and the Certosa make a good two days, set among whitewashed lanes and the Gardens of Augustus, and then the island's cultural offer is largely done.

Neither island is built for a big night out, but Capri's evenings have a sharper focus. Everything gathers in the Piazzetta after the day-trippers' ferries leave, with dressed-up aperitivo and then piano bars where Neapolitan songs run late, glamorous and costly rather than wild.

Corsica's evenings are long dinners and harbour terraces, spread across the island. In July and August a few large open-air clubs open in the hills behind Porto-Vecchio and Calvi has busy beach bars, so it has the dance floors Capri lacks, but only in those places and that season.

Corsica is a different scale of landscape. Peaks above 2,700m stand within sight of the sea, and the GR20, the red granite of the Calanques de Piana, the Restonica lakes, the forests of the interior and the diving round the Lavezzi islands give an active traveller far more than a week's worth.

Capri's scenery is famous and close at hand: the Faraglioni, the Arco Naturale, the Sentiero dei Fortini along the western coast and the chairlift up Monte Solaro. A boat round the island to the Blue Grotto and some snorkelling round it off, but it all fits into a few days.

Capri sits in the middle of one of Italy's richest bays, and that is its advantage. Sorrento, Naples, Positano, Amalfi and Ischia are all reached by boat, and Pompeii or Herculaneum make a long but possible day, though everything depends on calm seas and the summer timetable.

Corsica's outings are its own towns and villages: Sartène, the craft villages of the Balagne, Cap Corse, Corte by the island railway, or the short ferry from Bonifacio to Sardinia. Slow mountain roads mean each base has only a handful of trips within easy reach.

Corsica works much better with children. Calm, shallow bays around Porto-Vecchio, campsites and resort villages with pools, river pools and easy walks make for a relaxed beach and outdoor vacation, as long as you settle in one base and avoid long, twisting drives.

Capri is hard work for families: steep steps, narrow lanes, packed buses and swimming from rocks into deep water. Older children who swim well will enjoy the boat trip, the Blue Grotto and the Monte Solaro chairlift, ideally from a calmer base in Anacapri, but small children are better off elsewhere.

Capri is far simpler. Ferries land at Marina Grande, the funicular climbs to Capri town, and small buses and open taxis link the rest, so a car is never needed. The catch is steep walking and long summer queues, which ease if you stay overnight.

On Corsica a car is close to essential. Roads are narrow and winding, journeys take longer than the map suggests, buses are infrequent, and the narrow-gauge railway between Ajaccio, Corte, Bastia and Calvi, though lovely, leaves out the south.

For a small island, Capri is a real shopping destination. Via Camerelle and Via Vittorio Emanuele are lined with luxury boutiques, and the local crafts, from sandals made to measure while you wait to linen, ceramics and island perfumes, give it character.

Corsica's shopping is about food and craft to take home: charcuterie, cheese, chestnut flour, honey, wine and hand-forged knives from the Ajaccio and Bastia markets and the Balagne villages. Beyond a few summer boutiques in Porto-Vecchio and Calvi, there is little else.

Neither island is cheap in summer, but Corsica gives more room to economise. Campsites, inland villages, market food and the shoulder months of June and September bring costs down, though car hire and ferry crossings add to the bill.

Capri is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy, with scarce rooms, pricey terraces and bathing clubs. Cheap buses, free walks and Anacapri's simple trattorias help, and sleeping in Sorrento or Naples saves money at the cost of the island's evenings.

Corsica has more to listen to, mainly its own polyphonic singing, unaccompanied male voices heard in churches in summer, along with the jazz festival in Calvi, guitar evenings among the Patrimonio vineyards and small theatres in Ajaccio and Bastia.

Capri has no theatre or season at all, only occasional summer concerts at the Certosa or Villa San Michele and Neapolitan songs in the late piano taverns. For opera, you take the boat to Naples.

The two are broadly level, and neither has a bathing tradition to plan around, so rest on both comes from hotel spas and pace. The difference is in the setting. Capri's calm is limited to early mornings and evenings in Anacapri's gardens and terraces, once the day-trippers have gone, with Ischia's thermal baths across the bay.

Corsica's quiet comes from space: long lunches, siestas and mountain villages that fall silent after dark, plus a few simple old thermal springs such as Pietrapola inland.