Florence or Zermatt?

Neither place is for swimming, but Florence at least has a sea within reach. The sandy, umbrella-lined beaches of the Versilia around Viareggio take about an hour and a half by train, which makes a full day out.

Zermatt has no sea and no lake you can bathe in. Its mountain tarns are for photographing the Matterhorn, not for swimming, so a hotel pool is the only option.

Florence is the far better place to eat. It has bistecca, ribollita, tripe rolls from street carts, the Sant'Ambrogio and San Lorenzo markets, and Chianti poured by the glass, with the best meals in Oltrarno trattorie rather than around the Duomo.

Zermatt's high point is a long lunch at a chalet in Findeln or Zum See, reached on skis or on foot. Otherwise there is raclette, fondue and good Valais wine, a few expensive fine-dining kitchens, and not much choice once the seasons end.

This is the widest gap between the two. Florence is where the Renaissance took shape, and Brunelleschi's dome, Botticelli at the Uffizi, Michelangelo's David and the Pitti Palace are only the start of a list that keeps going.

Zermatt's heritage is the story of climbing: the Matterhorn Museum on the 1865 first ascent, the mountaineers' graves by the church, and the old Hinterdorf granaries standing on their stone slabs. It is interesting, but it is a morning's sightseeing, not the reason to go.

Neither is a party town, and Florence's evenings are the fuller of the two. Aperitivo leads into wine bars, crowds gather with drinks in hand around Piazza Santo Spirito, and in summer there are bars along the Arno, although the clubs are few.

Zermatt's night out is winter après-ski: noisy slope-side bars at dusk, then a handful of late spots on the main street. In summer the hikers are in bed early.

Zermatt is one of the great Alpine bases. The Matterhorn, the Gorner Glacier and a ring of four-thousand-metre peaks are reached by lift. There is skiing across the Italian border, summer glacier pistes, the Five Lakes walk and the Europaweg bridge, all with marmots and ibex along the way.

Florence's countryside is gentle and cultivated: olive terraces at Fiesole, cypress-lined lanes in Chianti, and the Casentino forests further out. It is lovely in spring and autumn, but it is a backdrop to the city rather than the main event.

Florence may be the best base in Italy for day trips. Siena, Pisa and Lucca are easy by train or bus, San Gimignano and the Chianti villages by car, and Bologna is under forty minutes by high-speed train.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion's castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace are pleasant, but most visitors would rather spend a spare day higher up the mountain.

The two are about as good as each other for children, in very different ways. Florence suits older children who will enjoy climbing the dome, Palazzo Vecchio's secret passages and the Boboli Gardens, but summer heat and crowded narrow pavements are hard on small ones.

Zermatt's car-free streets feel safe and easy. It works best for families who ski or hike together, with nursery slopes at Sunnegga and marmots in summer, though rainy days are hard to fill and the highest viewpoints are too cold and too high for toddlers.

Both are places you explore on foot, and neither needs a car. In Florence the Duomo, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace are all within about twenty minutes' walk, there are trams to the airport, and Santa Maria Novella station is the hub for rail day trips.

In Zermatt the effort goes upwards. Cars stop at Täsch, electric taxis cover the village, and the cog railway, the funicular and the gondolas carry you into the mountains.

Florence has much more to buy. There is leather from San Lorenzo stalls and workshops, marbled paper, goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio, artisans in the Oltrarno and the fashion houses of Via de' Tornabuoni.

Zermatt is a single main street of watch boutiques, souvenir cowbells and very good mountain outfitters. It is useful if you need gear, but there is little to browse beyond that.

Florence is not cheap, with expensive central hotels and museum tickets that add up quickly. Still, it gives you real ways to save: street food, market counters, house wine and walking everywhere.

Zermatt is expensive on a different scale. Plain hotel rooms, terrace meals and the lifts every visitor uses all cost well above most of Europe, and self-catering or staying down in Täsch only softens the bill.

Florence has a real musical life. Opera was more or less born here, the Teatro del Maggio has its own orchestra, and the spring Maggio Musicale festival is one of Europe's oldest, even if most visitors only catch the church concerts staged for tourists.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Its evenings of music come from two festivals: Zermatt Unplugged in spring and a late-summer chamber series in the village church.

Zermatt is the more restful of the two. It has excellent hotel spas, some of them open to day visitors, along with clean air and streets without traffic, although the mood in the main seasons is active rather than lazy.

Florence's centre is crowded and has few spas, so finding calm means early mornings in the Bardini or Boboli gardens. Its real bathing culture lies outside the city, at Montecatini Terme or the sulphur pools of Saturnia.