Cortina d'Ampezzo or Verona?

Neither city has a coast, but Verona comes much closer to offering a swim. Cortina's water means the snowmelt lakes of Ghedina and Pianozes, which are lovely to walk round but cold even in midsummer, so most swimming happens in a hotel pool.

From Verona, the southern shore of Lake Garda is about half an hour away. In high summer the lake is warm and calm, with lidos, lawns and Sirmione's flat limestone shelves to swim from. It is a day out rather than a reason to stay, but a real one.

Both draw on the cooking of the inland Veneto, but Verona has more depth, with its wine country on the doorstep. In Cortina d'Ampezzo the highlight is mountain food, such as casunziei with poppy seeds or polenta with game, best eaten on a rifugio terrace. The valley adds a few ambitious kitchens and wood-panelled stube, but the choice stays narrow and the bills high.

Verona's osterie around Piazza delle Erbe and in Veronetta serve Amarone risotto, bigoli with duck and bollito with pearà. Valpolicella, Soave and Bardolino are made nearby and poured by the glass at counters. Street food and international cooking are scarce in both.

The gap here is wide. Cortina's sights fit into a rainy afternoon: the basilica and its bell tower, the ice stadium from the 1956 Winter Olympics and the Rimoldi art collection. The First World War trenches on Lagazuoi and the Cinque Torri are its most striking heritage, but they take a full day in the mountains.

Verona is a city people visit for its history alone. The Arena, the Roman theatre, San Zeno's bronze doors, the Scaliger tombs and Castelvecchio's galleries designed by Scarpa fill two or three unhurried days, all inside one loop of the Adige.

Evenings run later in Verona, though dancing until dawn is not really on offer in either town. In Cortina d'Ampezzo a night out means après-ski drinks, a stroll along the Corso Italia and a long dinner. Its few smart late bars come alive only in the peak winter weeks, and in summer the town is quiet by late evening.

Verona has the aperitivo crowd in Piazza delle Erbe and student wine bars in Veronetta that stay busy in term time. On summer opera nights the centre fills again close to midnight as the audience leaves the Arena.

Cortina d'Ampezzo is far ahead. Lifts rise from the town into a ring of pale Dolomite peaks, and the Tre Cime and Lago di Misurina are under an hour away. The same valley offers some of the Alps' oldest via ferrata routes and the Alta Via 1 in summer, and the Dolomiti Superski network in winter.

Verona's outdoors is gentler and further from the door: vineyard walks in the Valpolicella, the cycle route up the Adige, Monte Baldo's ridges and the reliable wind at the north end of Lake Garda. It is enough for a day or two of activity, not for a trip built around mountains.

Verona is much the better base. Venice, Vicenza, Padua and Mantua are all within about an hour by train. The Garda towns and the cellars of Valpolicella and Soave are closer still, so a week of outings need never repeat itself.

From Cortina, the trips that matter lead into the mountains. San Candido, Brunico and Bolzano with its Iceman make pleasant drives into South Tyrol, but Venice is a long day by coach.

Verona has more for children, though most of it lies outside town: Gardaland, the water parks on Garda's southern shore and the drive-through safari at Parco Natura Viva. In the centre, the Arena gives children a ready-made gladiator story. Summer afternoons are hot, and a car helps.

Cortina suits families who come to ski or walk, with ski schools at Socrepes, public skating at the Olympic stadium and easy trails to huts with meadows to run around in. Wet days with young children are harder to fill, because nothing there is built purely for them.

Both centres are easy on foot, but Verona is far better connected. In its largely traffic-free core, the Arena, the piazzas and Castelvecchio are a short stroll apart, and trains run often to Venice, Milan and the lake at Peschiera.

Cortina has had no railway since 1964, so arriving means a coach or a long drive, and buses up to the passes and the Tre Cime are sparse. Most visitors who want to explore the wider Dolomites hire a car.

Each town has one smart street, and Verona offers a little more range. Via Mazzini and the streets off it carry Italian labels, jewellers and shoe shops. The best things to take home are edible: Amarone, Garda olive oil and pandoro.

Cortina's Corso Italia is shorter and more expensive, with furriers, jewellers and luxury mountain wear, anchored by the Cooperativa department store that dates from 1893. Wood carving and filigree are the local crafts to look for.

Cortina d'Ampezzo is much the dearer, and its costs pile up on every front at once. In the ski weeks and high summer, both rooms and dinners in the valley are priced for a luxury resort, a day on the slopes adds passes and hire on top, and with no railway a hire car often joins the bill. The main relief comes up on the mountain, where a rifugio lunch costs less than the view would suggest.

In Verona the weight falls mainly on the room, especially inside the river loop on opera nights and during the big trade fairs, when a bed near the station or across the Adige is the sensible fallback. Food, wine and travel cost far less than in the Alps, because trains do the work a car does in the mountains, and only the tables facing the Arena charge for the view.

Verona has one of Europe's great summer spectacles: opera in the Arena, with Verdi and Puccini performed to thousands on Roman stone tiers on most evenings from June to early September. Shakespeare and jazz in the Roman theatre and a cool-season programme at the Teatro Filarmonico add to it.

Cortina has no theatre and no regular venue. It offers only summer chamber concerts in churches and halls, now and then out in the mountains.

The two are close here, but they relax you in different ways. In Cortina, wellness lives inside the hotels, with Alpine spas, hay baths and indoor pools after a day outdoors, and in the quiet, clear-aired valley of June and September.

Verona's comes from the warm springs around it: Sirmione's lakeside thermal pools, the spring-fed lake near Lazise and the springs at Caldiero, used since Roman times. In town, the Giardino Giusti and the riverside walk make for slow afternoons.