Catania or La Spezia?

Catania has swimming on its own doorstep, and of two kinds: the long sand of La Playa with its beach clubs to the south, and the lava platforms and ladders of the Riviera dei Ciclopi to the north, where you drop into clear water beside basalt sea stacks.

La Spezia's own waterfront is a port, so every swim is a trip out by bus, boat or train. The coves at Lerici, Tellaro and Palmaria are pretty and Monterosso has proper sand, but most beaches are small, often pebbly and largely taken by paid establishments, so swimming is an outing rather than part of the daily routine.

Catania eats better and more boldly. The tavola calda counters, horse-meat grills on Via Plebiscito, pasta alla Norma, pistachio granita with brioche and the theatre of La Pescheria make simply walking around a way to eat, and Etna's volcanic reds and whites are among Italy's more interesting wines.

La Spezia's cooking is good but narrower: farinata from wood ovens, mesciua, pesto on trofie and testaroli, and the gulf's rope-grown mussels, with crisp Cinque Terre whites alongside. It is steady, honest provincial food, and it will not fill a week the way Catania's will.

Catania is a sightseeing city in its own right: a UNESCO-listed late-baroque centre in black lava and pale limestone, Via dei Crociferi's run of churches, the San Nicolò l'Arena monastery and Roman remains surfacing under the streets. The museums are modest, but the streets themselves carry it.

La Spezia's centre is a nineteenth-century naval town of arcades and Liberty facades, with no medieval core. The Museo Amedeo Lia and the Lunigiana stele statues in Castello San Giorgio are worth an afternoon, but the region's history mostly lies out in Portovenere, Sarzana and Luni.

This is the widest gap between the two. Catania, with its big student population, stays out late in the bars around Piazza Bellini and Via Gemmellaro, and in summer the La Playa beach clubs turn into open-air dance floors.

La Spezia's evening is the aperitivo on Via del Prione or the seafront, then a gentle wind-down. Most visitors are asleep early before a day on the trails, and late bars or club nights are rare.

Both are excellent bases for the outdoors, but the landscapes could hardly differ more. Catania has a smoking volcano of about 3,300m within an hour, with cable car and jeep trips towards the summit craters, walks across lava flows, winter skiing with a sea view and the Alcantara Gorge to wade.

La Spezia's draw is the terraced cliffs of the Cinque Terre, with village-to-village footpaths, the Palmaria loop and the Montemarcello promontory, plus marble peaks in the Apuan Alps inland. Both coasts are good for kayaking and diving.

Both put a remarkable amount within reach, and what changes is how you get there. From La Spezia, the Cinque Terre villages are minutes away by train, Portovenere by bus or boat, and Pisa and Lucca about an hour by rail, so a car is never needed.

Catania's list is just as strong but more spread out. Siracusa and Taormina are each about an hour, while Noto, Modica, Ragusa Ibla and the Piazza Armerina mosaics lie further and are far easier by car.

Neither is an easy family city, and the reasons differ. Catania has the gentle sand at La Playa, Etna's craters for older children and the Etnaland water park, but its streets are trafficked, uneven and shadeless in the summer heat.

La Spezia's flat centre and seafront gardens are calmer with a pushchair, and boat trips and the sheltered beaches at San Terenzo and Lerici work well. It has no theme park, though, and the steep villages and crowded trains suit older children better than toddlers.

La Spezia is much the simpler base. Its flat centre is walkable, and the station sends regional trains through the Cinque Terre and on towards Genoa, Pisa and Florence, with buses and seasonal ferries around the gulf. A car is more nuisance than help, and the only real snag is packed summer trains.

Catania's old centre is easy on foot, but beyond it the single metro line and slow buses struggle in heavy traffic. Many visitors end up hiring a car for Etna and the baroque towns, and then face the city's parking.

Catania's markets give it the edge. La Fiera, around Piazza Carlo Alberto, is a big, noisy daily market, La Pescheria is worth walking through even if you buy nothing, and Caltagirone ceramics and lava-stone pieces are crafts with real local roots. Via Etnea covers the chain stores.

La Spezia's shopping is plainer and more everyday: clothing chains and a few independent boutiques on Via del Prione and Corso Cavour, and produce and fish at the Piazza Cavour market. In both places the best things to bring home are edible, Bronte pistachio cream and Etna wine from one, pesto, olive oil and Sciacchetrà from the other. Neither suits a trip built around fashion or design.

Catania goes further on a budget, chiefly because street food makes a full meal for very little and rooms in the old centre are reasonable for much of the year. The big extras are guided summit trips on Etna and a hire car.

La Spezia is mid-priced: cheaper than sleeping in the Cinque Terre villages, which is why many stay here, but with summer rooms at ordinary Western European levels. Trail passes, boat trips and bathing establishments add up, and spring and autumn are kinder to the wallet.

Catania has a real stage to offer: the grand Teatro Massimo Bellini in Bellini's home town, with an opera and symphonic season visitors can attend, plus the Sicilian puppet theatre of the opera dei pupi.

La Spezia has the Teatro Civico for touring theatre and concerts and a long-running summer jazz festival, but most of the year is quiet and there is no opera without a trip to Genoa or Pisa.

In Catania, rest comes from the pace of the day, and in La Spezia from the places around it. Catania's centre is noisy and full of traffic, so calm comes from long lunches, a slow breakfast granita and the evening passeggiata, or from moving out to a hotel spa on the coast or a quieter village on Etna's lower slopes.

La Spezia has the small thermal baths at Equi Terme, about an hour inland in the Lunigiana. Off-season you also get the quiet of Palmaria or an unhurried lunch in Tellaro. In summer, though, the crowds on the Cinque Terre trails undo much of that calm.