Cortina d'Ampezzo or Salzburg?

Neither is a beach destination, but Salzburg gives you real summer swimming and Cortina barely does. The lakes at Ghedina and Pianozes are fed by snowmelt and suit a walk more than a swim, so in Cortina swimming mostly means the hotel pool.

From Salzburg, Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are within forty-five minutes and warm up to pleasant summer temperatures. You swim from lawns and wooden jetties rather than sand, and only between June and early September.

The two eat equally well but in different settings. Cortina's best meals are Ampezzan mountain cooking with a Venetian accent, such as casunziei with poppy seeds or polenta with game, often eaten on a rifugio terrace among the peaks, with a few ambitious kitchens back in the valley.

Salzburg's strengths are its coffee houses, Salzburger Nockerl and the monastery brewery in Mülln, where beer is poured from wooden barrels in the chestnut garden. In both places the choice is narrow and international food is scarce.

Salzburg is far richer here. Its UNESCO-listed old town brings together the cathedral, the Residenz, Hohensalzburg, Mirabell and the Mozart houses, with St Peter's catacombs and Hellbrunn close by, and together they make two or three full days.

Cortina's centre offers a basilica, painted houses, the 1956 Olympic ice stadium and the Rimoldi art collection, which is enough for a wet afternoon. Its most powerful history is the First World War front on Lagazuoi and the Cinque Torri, and reaching it takes a day in the mountains.

Both go quiet early, and neither is worth choosing for nights out. Cortina's evenings run from après-ski to the passeggiata on the Corso Italia and long dinners, and only in peak winter do a few smart bars and clubs stay open late for a glamorous crowd. Salzburg's best evenings are spent at the long tables of its beer halls, with student pubs along Rudolfskai at weekends in term, and Munich is the place to go for clubs.

Both sit in the Alps, but Cortina is in the heart of the mountains while Salzburg sits at their edge. In Cortina the pale Dolomite walls ring the town, the Fanes-Sennes-Braies park starts at the valley edge, and both the Dolomiti Superski runs and the classic via ferrata routes are on the doorstep.

Salzburg's outdoors is gentler and more varied. You can walk wooded ridges in the city itself, take the cable car up the Untersberg, sail and paddle on the Salzkammergut lakes or visit the Königssee in Berchtesgaden. The bigger ski areas are about an hour's drive away.

Salzburg has far more within easy reach. Hallstatt, the lakeside villages of St Wolfgang and St Gilgen, the salt mine at Hallein, the clifftop fortress at Werfen and Berchtesgaden are all close, and Munich is a simple train ride away.

From Cortina, most outings lead into the mountains. The towns of South Tyrol, such as Brunico and Bolzano with its Iceman, are pleasant drives, while Venice means a long coach journey each way.

Salzburg works better with children who are not on skis. The trick fountains at Hellbrunn, the zoo next door, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the marionettes and the miners' slides in nearby salt mines give it plenty for wet and dry days alike.

Cortina suits families who ski or hike, with ski schools, beginner slopes at Socrepes, public skating and gentle walks to huts. It has little else built for children, though, so rainy days drag and the costs mount quickly.

Salzburg is much easier to reach and to move around. It has a mainline station with trains to Munich and Vienna, a pedestrianised centre, trolleybuses out to Hellbrunn and the Untersberg, and flat riverside cycle paths. A car only helps for the lake villages.

Cortina's centre takes minutes to cross, and in winter ski buses link it to the slopes. The town has had no railway since 1964, though, mountain buses are infrequent, and most visitors end up hiring a car for the wider Dolomites.

Shopping is limited in both, and Salzburg has a slight edge in variety. Cortina's offer is concentrated on the Corso Italia, with luxury fashion, furriers, upmarket ski wear and the Cooperativa, a department store dating from 1893. Salzburg has little luxury but more character: made-to-measure dirndls and loden on Getreidegasse, farmers' stalls at the Andräkirche and Universitätsplatz, and a long-established Advent market on Domplatz.

Both are expensive, but Cortina is in a pricier league altogether. In the ski peak and in August, hotels and restaurants charge luxury-resort rates, lift passes come on top, and many budget travellers sleep in cheaper valleys and drive in. The rifugi and the shoulder months of June and September soften the cost a little.

Salzburg's old-town hotels and restaurants are still costly, especially during the festival and in Advent. Staying across the river, eating in outer-district inns and using a city card keeps the bill more manageable.

This is where the two differ most. Salzburg fills the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule every summer for its festival, adds Mozart Week and the Easter Festival, and keeps the Mozarteum, the Landestheater and the Marionette Theatre busy the rest of the year.

Cortina has no theatre season and no regular venue. Summer chamber festivals in its churches and the occasional concert at New Year are all the town offers.

Salzburg offers a little more for a restful stay. Its gardens, ridge paths and coffee houses are calm once the day-trippers leave, the Paracelsus Bad is a public sauna and pool, and real spa traditions lie nearby in brine-fed Bad Reichenhall and the radon springs of Gastein.

Cortina has no bathing tradition of its own, so wellness means Alpine hotel spas with hay baths and saunas, plus the clear air and slow afternoons of June and September.