Cesky Krumlov or Trieste?

Cesky Krumlov has nowhere to swim in town, since the Vltava is for rafts and canoes. In summer you have to drive to Lipno reservoir, about half an hour away, where there are grassy and sandy shores and the water reaches around 20°C.

Trieste lives by the sea from June to September. Locals swim off the stepped concrete platforms and ladders at Barcola, or from pebble coves at Sistiana, Duino and Grignano, in clear, warmer water. There is almost no sand, but anyone happy to climb down into the Adriatic will swim every day.

Meals in Cesky Krumlov are solid South Bohemian cooking: roast duck and pork with dumplings, svíčková and river trout, eaten in cellars and on riverside terraces. The local beer is the highlight, and many menus are written for day visitors.

Trieste gives you far more to explore. There are the buffets carving boiled pork with horseradish, jota soup, marinated sardoni and Central European cakes such as presnitz. The city's Habsburg coffee rituals have their own vocabulary, and the farmhouse osmize on the Karst sell their own Terrano and Vitovska.

The two are equally rewarding but very different. Cesky Krumlov is one intact Renaissance and Baroque townscape around a single great castle, with its Cloak Bridge and a rare Baroque theatre that still has its original stage machinery. Most visitors have seen it all within a day or two.

Trieste's history is spread across a whole port city. There is the grand Piazza Unità facing the sea, the Borgo Teresiano grid along the Canal Grande, San Giusto's mosaics and Roman theatre, and Miramare Castle on the coast. A large synagogue and the Risiera memorial add a heavier side of the twentieth century.

Neither is a place for clubbing, but Trieste has more life after dinner. Its aperitivo hour fills Piazza Unità, the Canal Grande and Cavana with spritz drinkers, and students keep a few streets of wine bars going. In summer the kiosks at Barcola stay open into warm nights.

Cesky Krumlov is quieter still. A handful of cellar bars and backpacker pubs stay open, and the river terraces are busy on summer evenings. Outside the peak months the lanes empty early.

Both put good outdoors close at hand, but of different kinds. Cesky Krumlov's is river and forest: canoeing the Vltava's wooded meanders, walking or cycling the spruce ridges of the Bohemian Forest, and cross-country skiing in winter.

Trieste's is limestone and sea. You can walk the clifftop Strada Napoleonica and the Rilke Path, hike and climb in the Val Rosandra gorge, and go underground at the Grotta Gigante. On the water there is sailing on the gulf and snorkelling in the Miramare marine reserve.

Trieste is the stronger base, with Italy, Slovenia and Croatia all within reach. Aquileia's mosaics, star-shaped Palmanova, Piran and Ljubljana are easy, and Venice works as a long day by train.

From Cesky Krumlov, the outings stay within South Bohemia. You can visit the arcaded square of České Budějovice, Hluboká's white castle, the Baroque farmhouses of Holašovice and the fish ponds of Třeboň. Most of them are much easier with a car.

Trieste gives children more variety. There is the Grotta Gigante, a small aquarium, a hands-on science centre and summer days at Barcola, although swimming is off rocks rather than sandy shallows.

Cesky Krumlov has the storybook appeal of the castle, the bears in its moat and a gentle family raft trip. Its steep cobbled lanes are hard with a pushchair, though, and once the castle and river are done there is little left for children.

Cesky Krumlov's old town takes about a quarter of an hour to cross on foot, but trips into the countryside depend on thin bus and train links or a hire car.

Trieste's centre is flat and walkable along the sea, apart from the stepped climb to San Giusto. City buses run out to Miramare and up onto the Karst, and passenger boats cross the bay to Muggia, so you need a car far less often.

Neither is a shopping destination. In Cesky Krumlov it means souvenirs: Bohemian glass, garnet jewellery, marionettes and the green moldavite stone found in the region. Trieste has a bit more, with ordinary Italian clothing shops around Corso Italia and antique dealers in the old-town lanes. Its best buys are edible: freshly roasted coffee, Karst wine and presnitz.

Cesky Krumlov is the cheaper stay. Guesthouses in old houses, Czech meals and local beer are moderately priced, although rooms with castle views and the separately priced castle tours cost more.

Trieste is fairly priced for northern Italy rather than cheap. Buffet lunches and standing coffees cost little, and the sea and the Karst are free, but seafood restaurants and better hotels cost what they would in other Italian cities.

Trieste has a real season. Opera and ballet play at the Teatro Verdi on the waterfront, operetta is a rare Habsburg legacy, and the city also has prose theatre and a Slovenian-language stage.

Cesky Krumlov's performances are almost all in summer. Plays and opera are staged in the castle garden's revolving open-air theatre, and a music festival brings classical concerts to the castle and churches. The rest of the year is close to silent.

Cesky Krumlov is calm for only part of the day. Once the day visitors have gone, the old town falls still around the river. Trieste is unhurried from morning onwards, with long sittings over a newspaper in the old coffee houses and sunset walks out along the Molo Audace pier, which makes it the more restful stay.

For treatments, Cesky Krumlov has a few hotel wellness rooms and beer baths, with Třeboň's peat baths a day trip away. Trieste's spas are in hotels and a few day spas, and proper thermal baths mean leaving the city.