Florence or Padua?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Padua is the more practical base for a day at the sea. Sottomarina and the Lido of Venice are about an hour away. The Adriatic there is shallow and calm, which suits small children, even if the long flat rows of umbrellas are nothing to look at.

From Florence, the Versilia coast around Viareggio is about an hour and a half by train and takes a whole day. Most visitors settle for a hotel or public pool instead. If the sea matters to you, plan a few nights on the coast rather than relying on Florence.

Florence has the stronger table. Bistecca alla fiorentina, ribollita and lampredotto from street carts are all part of it. So are the Mercato Centrale and the Sant'Ambrogio market, Chianti reds from vineyards just south of town, and the trattorie of the Oltrarno. Together they give more range and more memorable meals, as long as you avoid the set menus around the Duomo.

Padua eats Venetian home cooking: bigoli with duck sauce, baccalà and risotto with spring peas. Its best moments are the morning markets in Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta and the evening spritz. The cooking is good and honest, but the range is narrower and there is little fine dining.

Florence offers the Renaissance across an entire city. Its architecture, painting and sculpture fill churches, palaces and galleries that sit a short walk apart, from Botticelli in the Uffizi to Donatello and Michelangelo in the Bargello. Once the big names are done, there is still Fra Angelico in the friars' cells at San Marco, the Medici Chapels, the tombs at Santa Croce and the Pitti Palace with the Boboli behind it. Even after a week you will not have run out.

Padua's great art comes from about a century earlier and is more concentrated. Giotto's Scrovegni frescoes lead a group of early fourteenth-century cycles in the Eremitani, the Baptistery and the Oratory of Saint George. Add the Basilica of Saint Anthony, the frescoed hall of the Palazzo della Ragione, the university's anatomical theatre and a botanical garden laid out in 1545, and you have a couple of well-filled days rather than a week. It shows how the Renaissance began, while Florence shows it in full.

In both cities, nights out mean the aperitivo and the wine bar, and there are few clubs. What differs is the setting and the crowd. In Florence the liveliest spot is Piazza Santo Spirito in the Oltrarno. Summer brings outdoor bars along the Arno, and there are loud student pubs near the centre.

Padua's evenings happen in its main squares, Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori, where students and locals stand around with spritz glasses. The city is liveliest on weekday nights during term and goes quiet in high summer, just when Florence's riverside bars are busiest.

Both offer gentle, cultivated country close at hand rather than wild landscape. Florence sits in a bowl of hills, so walks start at Fiesole and San Miniato. The Chianti lanes are fine for cycling, and the Casentino forests and Apuan Alps lie further out.

Padua's surroundings are flatter. There are level towpaths along the Brenta, the volcanic Euganean Hills about 15km away and the lagoon for birdwatching. For real mountain walking, the Asiago plateau and Monte Grappa are within reach by car. Florence gives you hill views from the edge of town, while Padua gives you easier cycling.

Both cities are exceptional bases, so the real choice is which region you want to explore. From Florence it is Tuscany: Siena, Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano and the Chianti and Val d'Orcia hill towns. Many of these are much easier with a car.

From Padua it is the Veneto, almost all reachable by fast train. Venice is under half an hour away and Vicenza a quarter of an hour, with Verona, Treviso and Ferrara not far behind. Bologna is within easy reach of both. Padua is the easier base by rail, while Florence has the richer hill-town country.

Neither city is built for children, since both centres are mostly frescoes and churches. Florence has the more engaging sights for kids, such as climbing the dome, the secret passages of Palazzo Vecchio and the globes at the Museo Galileo. But its summer heat, crowds and narrow pavements are hard work.

Padua is flat, calmer and largely pedestrianised, and Prato della Valle is a good place for children to run about. Its family outings are also more varied: Gardaland and Lake Garda, or the shallow Adriatic. Florence's main equivalent is the Pinocchio park at Collodi.

Both are walking cities without a metro, and the main sights are within about twenty minutes of each other on foot. Florence's stone paving, narrow pavements and summer crowds make it the more tiring of the two. Padua is flat, its arcades give shelter from sun and rain, and cycling is a normal way to get about.

Each has a central station that makes day trips by rail easy. In both, a car only earns its keep in the countryside, especially among Tuscany's hill villages.

Florence is a real shopping destination for craft. There is leather from workshops and the San Lorenzo stalls, marbled paper, goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio, and gilders and framers in the Oltrarno. The fashion-house boutiques are on Via de' Tornabuoni. Look closely at the leather, as some of it is mass-produced.

Padua is pleasant for browsing under its arcades, with Italian fashion and shoe shops, university bookshops and a monthly antiques market on Prato della Valle. Its best buys are food, such as cheeses and Euganean wine from the delicatessens under the Palazzo della Ragione.

Padua is the cheaper stay, and that is much of its appeal. Moderately priced hotels make it a sensible base for the region, many visitors sleep there and spend their days in Venice, and a standing spritz with market food costs little. Rooms do get dearer around the big trade fairs and graduation season.

Florence is expensive for its size. Central hotels are pricey from spring to autumn, and museum entry fees add up over a few days. Street food, market lunches and house wine help, and so does staying across the river or near the station, or coming in winter.

Florence has the deeper classical life. Opera was more or less born here, and the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino stages opera, concerts and ballet with its own orchestra. Its spring festival is one of Europe's oldest, though many visitors only see the church concerts staged for tourists.

Padua's programme is smaller: theatre and some opera at the Teatro Verdi, a chamber orchestra season in the frescoed Sala dei Giganti, and small student venues. For major opera, people from Padua take the train to the Fenice in Venice or to Verona's summer Arena.

This is Padua's biggest advantage. Abano and Montegrotto Terme, about 12km away, form one of Europe's largest thermal districts, where the local mud has been used for treatments since Roman times. Many spa hotels accept day visitors, so a soak fits easily after a morning of sightseeing.

In Florence itself there are only hotel spas and a few day spas. For thermal bathing you need a day out, either to Montecatini Terme, under an hour by train, or to the outdoor pools at Bagno Vignoni and Saturnia. The crowded centre is also less restful than Padua's unhurried pace.