Cortina d'Ampezzo or Pisa?

Only Pisa offers a real beach. Tirrenia and Calambrone have long sandy shores backed by pine woods about 12km from the centre, with shallow, warm water in high summer that suits children. Viareggio is a short train ride further.

In Cortina, swimming mostly means a hotel pool. Lakes such as Ghedina and Pianozes are beautiful to walk around but fed by snowmelt and too cold for more than a quick dip.

Pisa eats a little better and much more cheaply. Its strength is everyday Tuscan cooking in the trattorias and wine bars around the Piazza delle Vettovaglie market: ribollita, game, salt cod and hot cecina, priced for students, with good seafood towards the coast.

Cortina's best meals have a setting Pisa cannot match. Ampezzan dishes such as beetroot casunziei and polenta with game are served on rifugio terraces among the peaks, and the valley has some ambitious kitchens. The range is narrow and rarely cheap, though, and street food is scarce.

Pisa is far ahead here. The cathedral, baptistery, Leaning Tower and Camposanto on a single lawn are among the great ensembles of Italian architecture, and the quieter city has Vasari's palace on Piazza dei Cavalieri, Santa Maria della Spina and medieval painting at San Matteo.

Cortina's centre is pleasant, with its basilica bell tower, painted houses and the 1956 Olympic ice stadium. The Rimoldi art collection is its best museum. Its most moving heritage is the First World War front on Lagazuoi and the Cinque Torri, and that is a mountain outing rather than a stroll through town.

Neither city is a place for big nights, but Pisa has more going on. During term, students fill the squares around the old market late into the evening, aperitivo draws people to Borgo Stretto and the river, and summer moves the crowd to the beach bars.

Cortina's evenings are après-ski and the passeggiata on the Corso Italia, followed by a long dinner. A few smart bars stay open late only in the peak winter weeks, and the town goes quiet early the rest of the year.

Cortina is in a different league. The Ampezzo valley is ringed by the Tofane, Cristallo and Pomagagnon, the Tre Cime and Lago di Misurina are close, and the choice runs from world-class skiing to some of the oldest via ferrata routes in the Alps.

Pisa's outdoors are gentle by comparison: cycling and riding through the pine woods and dunes of San Rossore, olive-terrace paths on the Monte Pisano and birdwatching at Massaciuccoli. Proper mountain walking means a trip to the Apuan Alps or the Cinque Terre cliffs.

Pisa is one of the best day-trip bases in Italy. Florence is an hour by train, Lucca under half an hour, and the Cinque Terre a little over an hour. Volterra, San Gimignano and Siena are within reach by car.

From Cortina, most outings head up into the peaks rather than to other towns. South Tyrol offers San Candido, Brunico and Bolzano with its Iceman, but these are charming rather than essential, and Venice means a long day on a coach.

Both work about equally well for children, but the days look very different. Cortina suits active families, with ski schools for every age, skating at the Olympic stadium and easy summer walks to huts and meadows, though wet days drag and the bills mount.

In Pisa, the tower lawn and its famous photo, the shallow sandy beaches at Tirrenia and bike rides in San Rossore make the days. The midsummer heat and the crowds at the cathedral square are what parents have to plan around.

Pisa is much easier. The airport is linked to the central station by a shuttle train, the flat centre is easy to walk, and the station is a rail hub for western Tuscany, so a car is rarely needed.

Cortina has had no railway since 1964. Getting there means a coach from Venice or a long drive. Its small centre is easy on foot, and ski buses work in winter, but buses to the passes run a limited service and most visitors hire a car.

There is little to choose between them, but they sell very different things. Cortina's Corso Italia is short and upmarket, with luxury fashion, furriers, mountain wear and the old Cooperativa store, plus wood carving and filigree.

Pisa's shopping is everyday rather than exclusive: high-street chains on its own Corso Italia, smarter shops under the Borgo Stretto arcades, a produce market and a monthly antiques fair by the river.

Pisa costs a great deal less. Rooms are mid-range, student trattorias feed people well for little, and walking is free. The main extra costs are the tower climb and summer beach loungers.

Cortina is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy, with luxury prices for rooms and restaurants in winter and August, plus lift passes and equipment hire. The rifugi and the shoulder months of June and late September soften the cost only a little.

The two cities keep opposite calendars. Cortina has no theatre season, so its music arrives with the summer visitors: chamber and classical festivals in churches and halls, and the occasional concert played outdoors with the Dolomites as the backdrop. A winter ski trip finds almost nothing, apart from a concert or two around Christmas and New Year.

Pisa offers far more, and mostly in the months when Cortina is silent. From autumn to spring the Teatro Verdi, a horseshoe-shaped 19th-century house, puts on opera, ballet and symphonic concerts, and university chamber series and church recitals add to the choice. Anything on a larger scale still means the train to Florence.

Both are restful in their own way, though the rest takes different forms. Cortina's comes from Alpine hotel spas with saunas and hay baths, clear mountain air and afternoons on hut terraces, best in the quieter weeks.

Pisa has what Cortina lacks: thermal water. The springs at San Giuliano Terme have been used since Roman times and feed a spa in an 18th-century bath palace, and Casciana Terme has a larger public pool.