Florence or Salzburg?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Salzburg gets you into the water more easily. Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are less than an hour away. You swim in clear green water from lawns, jetties and small pebble shores, so a swim fits into a summer afternoon.

From Florence the sea means a full day out to the long, sandy beaches of the Versilia, lined with loungers, about an hour and a half away by train. Otherwise you are left with a hotel pool or one of the city's outdoor pools. If you want sand and the sea, plan a few nights on the coast rather than counting on Florence.

Florence eats far better. It is good from street level to the table: lampredotto from the carts, the Mercato Centrale and Sant'Ambrogio market, bistecca and ribollita in the trattorie of the Oltrarno, Chianti poured by the glass and gelato taken seriously.

Salzburg's cooking is filling Austrian food: schnitzel, Kasnocken with mountain cheese and the Salzburger Nockerl. Its best moments are coffee and cake in the old coffee houses, or beer from wooden barrels at the monastery brewery in Mülln. The range is narrow and a few days covers it, while Florence can keep you eating well for a week.

Both have compact historic centres that you can walk, but Florence holds a weight of art that Salzburg cannot match. Brunelleschi's dome, the Uffizi, David in the Accademia, the sculpture of the Bargello and the Fra Angelico frescoes at San Marco could fill a week.

Salzburg's appeal lies more in the old town as a whole than in its collections. The prince-archbishops built a Baroque centre with salt money, the Hohensalzburg fortress stands on the cliff above, and there are the Mozart houses and the catacombs of St Peter. Two or three unhurried days see it all, a gentler pace than Florence's museums, which you need to book ahead.

Florence's evenings run later and spill outdoors. Aperitivo leads on to wine bars, people stand drinking across Piazza Santo Spirito on warm nights, and in summer outdoor bars set up along the Arno. Clubs are few, so expect a night of talk and wine rather than dancing.

A Salzburg evening is usually a concert followed by a litre mug at a long table in a beer hall, and the old town is quiet by midnight. A few student bars on Rudolfskai stay open later at weekends, but anyone who wants a proper night out takes the train to Munich.

Salzburg has the mountains on its doorstep. Wooded ridges with paths rise inside the city, and the Untersberg cable car climbs to about 1,800m for walks along limestone ridges. The Salzkammergut lakes and the Königssee in Berchtesgaden National Park are both within an hour.

Florence's countryside is gentler and more farmed: olive terraces at Fiesole, cypress-lined lanes in Chianti for cycling, and the beech forests of the Casentino further out. It is lovely in spring and autumn, but tame next to the Alps, and summer heat cuts long walks short.

Florence comes out well ahead because the towns around it are art cities in their own right. Siena has the Campo and its striped cathedral, Pisa and walled Lucca are an easy train ride away, and San Gimignano's towers and hilltop Volterra are close enough for a single outing. Bologna's arcades are under forty minutes away by fast train. Nearer still, Greve and Radda put the Chianti vineyards within reach of a morning.

Salzburg's outings swap frescoes for lakes and salt. Hallstatt sits on a narrow strip of shore below a prehistoric salt mine, Hallein and Berchtesgaden take you underground, and Werfen's fortress and the Kehlsteinhaus look down from a cliff and a summit. Munich is the one big-city day out. The list is good but shorter, and Florence still has Pienza, Montepulciano and Cortona in reserve after the obvious names are done.

Salzburg is the easier family city. It is small, calm and largely car-free, and its attractions suit children well: the trick fountains at Hellbrunn that spray visitors, the zoo beside the palace, Haus der Natur, the marionette theatre and the miners' slides in the salt mines nearby.

Florence welcomes children, but its main draws are paintings and churches. Climbing the dome, the secret passages of Palazzo Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens help. Still, narrow pavements, summer crowds and the July heat make it harder going, and the Pinocchio park at Collodi is the one classic family outing.

You see both cities on foot. The main sights are fifteen or twenty minutes' walk apart, and neither city has a metro. Florence makes things slightly easier for visitors: Santa Maria Novella station is right in the centre, and trains take you to most day-trip towns without a car, though a car is a burden inside the restricted historic centre.

Salzburg has trolleybuses rather than trams, and flat riverside paths that suit a bike. Its lakes and Berchtesgaden, however, depend on slow regional buses, so a hire car is more useful there than it is for most trips out of Florence.

Florence is the stronger shopping city, and its shopping is built on crafts. There is leather from market stalls and workshops, marbled paper, goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio and gilders and framers in the Oltrarno. The great fashion houses line Via de' Tornabuoni.

Salzburg's speciality is narrower but its own: made-to-measure dirndls and loden jackets from the Tracht workshops, Getreidegasse with its wrought-iron guild signs, and the Advent market on Domplatz. Beyond that the range is small, and there is little luxury shopping.

Both are expensive for their size, so neither is a budget choice. The difference is where you can save. In Florence, street food, market lunches, cheap house wine and walking everywhere keep daily costs down, and a winter visit makes the biggest difference to the bill.

Salzburg stays costly all year and gets dearer during the summer festival and the Advent markets. Its savings come from the beer halls and inns of the outer districts, and from a city card that covers transport, most museums and the fortress.

Salzburg is the music city. In summer the Salzburg Festival fills the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule, a riding school cut into the cliff, with opera and orchestral concerts, and Jedermann is played outdoors in front of the cathedral. Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons, and the Mozarteum and the Landestheater keep a programme going in between.

Florence can claim to be where opera was born, and its spring Maggio Musicale is one of the oldest music festivals in Europe. Outside the season at the Teatro del Maggio, though, most visitors hear concerts in churches and palaces put on for tourists. Neither city has much jazz or contemporary live music.

Salzburg is the calmer place to unwind. Once the day-trippers leave, its gardens and the wooded Mönchsberg are quiet, and the Paracelsus Bad has saunas and a pool in the city park. Bad Reichenhall's brine spas are twenty minutes away, and the thermal springs of the Gastein valley are further south.

Florence's crowded centre is less restful, and spas inside the walls come down to hotel spas and a few day spas. Its bathing culture lies outside the city, at Montecatini Terme or the open-air sulphur pools of Bagno Vignoni and Saturnia, which need a long day out or a night away.