Cinque Terre or Sicily?

Cinque Terre's coast is mostly cliff. Monterosso has the only real sand, at Fegina, with umbrellas packed close in summer. In the other villages you swim off harbour slipways and rock shelves, which is perfect for a dip between walks but not for spending a day on the beach.

Sicily offers far more choice. There is the white sand of San Vito Lo Capo, the marl cliffs of the Scala dei Turchi, the reserve beaches at Vendicari, Favignana's turquoise coves and the black volcanic shores of the Aeolian Islands. The sea also stays warm for a month longer. The catch is that the beaches are spread around a large island, so it pays to choose one stretch of coast and stay there.

Cinque Terre's cooking is good but has a narrow range: trofie with pesto, focaccia and farinata, Monterosso anchovies, fried fish in paper cones and a glass of Sciacchetrà. In the busiest villages many menus are written for day-trippers, so the better meals are in Monterosso or up in the hilltop settlements.

Sicily is one of Italy's great food regions. You can eat panelle and arancine standing at the stalls of Ballarò, granita with brioche for breakfast, fish couscous in Trapani, chocolate in Modica and mineral wines on Etna's slopes. Almost every area has its own speciality worth travelling for.

In Cinque Terre the sight is the place itself: five villages on the rock, terraces built over centuries, and the harbour square at Vernazza. Add a few striped Gothic churches and a watchtower and you have seen it within a day or two.

Sicily has layers left by Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spanish rulers. There are the temples at Agrigento, the mosaics at Piazza Armerina and the Palatine Chapel, Ortigia's cathedral built around a temple, and the baroque towns of Noto and Ragusa Ibla, rebuilt after the earthquake of 1693. Seeing the best of it takes about a week.

Neither is a party destination, but the gap is wide. Cinque Terre's evening is a glass of white wine at sunset, a couple of bars in Monterosso or Riomaggiore, and quiet streets well before midnight.

Sicily offers a proper night out in its cities. Catania's historic centre fills with students and locals until late, and in Palermo people drink in the street around the Vucciria. In summer there are open-air clubs at Mondello and below Taormina.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, but in different ways. Cinque Terre is one compact national park and marine reserve. You can walk the Sentiero Azzurro or the higher Sentiero Rosso and return by train, and kayak out to the grottoes, all within a small area.

Sicily's landscapes are on a bigger scale and spread further apart. You can take guided walks on Etna's summit craters, climb Stromboli in the evening to watch it erupt, follow the Zingaro cliff path, walk in the beech woods of the Madonie, and dive around the Egadi Islands. In both places the walking is best in spring and autumn.

Cinque Terre's location on the coastal railway is its advantage. Portovenere by boat, Lerici, Sarzana, Pisa, Lucca and Genoa can all be reached without a car, so you get Ligurian ports and Tuscan cities from one small base.

Sicily offers more and deeper choices from any base. The baroque towns around Noto, the Etna wine villages, hilltop Erice and the salt pans at Trapani are all within reach, as are ferries to Favignana or Lipari. Many of these trips are much easier with a hire car.

Cinque Terre is hard work with small children. It is built of stairs, pushchairs are useless, trains are packed in summer and Corniglia sits hundreds of steps up. Monterosso, with its flat streets and gently shelving beach, is the one practical base. Walking trails and boat trips suit older children who like to hike.

Sicily is a much easier choice. Families are welcome everywhere until late, shallow sandy bays such as San Vito Lo Capo and Mondello suit toddlers, and an agriturismo with a pool makes for an easy base. Older children can explore the lava fields or watch Palermo's puppet theatre. The long drives and the heat of high summer are the main drawbacks.

This is the one area where Cinque Terre clearly wins. A local train links all five villages with only minutes between stops, ferries run between the harbours in season, and the trails connect everything else. A car is more of a burden than a help. The hard parts are the crammed summer carriages and the steep stairways.

Sicily usually means hiring a car. The motorways between the main cities are fine, but inland roads are slow, city driving is chaotic, trains away from a few routes are sparse, and bad weather can cancel island ferries. With two city bases you can manage without a car, but you will see much less of the island.

In Cinque Terre the shopping is mostly for things to eat and drink: pesto, jarred anchovies, lemon liqueur and the terraced wines, plus some linen and ceramics. There is no fashion shopping at all.

Sicily offers more. There is majolica from Caltagirone, coral work from Trapani, puppets in Palermo, Modica chocolate and Bronte pistachio cream to take home. For clothes you can try Via Libertà in Palermo, Via Etnea in Catania or the boutiques on Taormina's Corso Umberto.

Cinque Terre's high cost comes from its rooms. Rooms in the villages are few and in heavy demand, and you also pay to use the park's paths. Focaccia, takeaway fish and the cheap train keep daily spending down, but many budget travellers stay in La Spezia or Levanto instead.

Sicily is one of the cheaper parts of Italy, with low-cost street food and fairly priced B&Bs and agriturismi even in summer. The exceptions are Taormina, the Aeolian Islands and the best-known beach resorts in July and August, and hire cars, which are expensive in high season.

Cinque Terre has almost no stage of its own. There is an occasional church concert and the saints' day processions with village bands, and for anything more you go to La Spezia or Genoa.

Sicily has real venues. Palermo's Teatro Massimo has a full opera and ballet season, and Catania's Teatro Bellini honours the composer born in the city. Each year ancient tragedies are staged in Syracuse's Greek theatre, and in summer the theatre at Taormina hosts performances with Etna behind the stage. The opera dei pupi marionette shows are a tradition found nowhere else.

Relaxation in Cinque Terre depends on timing. The car-free villages and a terrace above the sea feel restful in spring, in autumn or early in the morning, but not on a crowded summer afternoon. Spa options amount to a few guesthouse massages.

Sicily has more to offer. There are hot springs near Sciacca and Segesta, volcanic mud and warm sea vents on Vulcano, Pantelleria's crater lake, and spas in the Taormina hotels. Its best form of rest, though, is a slow stay at a countryside agriturismo or on quiet Salina.