Genoa or Ljubljana?

Genoa is a seaside city where you can swim without leaving town. There are pebble coves at Boccadasse, bathing establishments along the Corso Italia and rock platforms under the Nervi promenade, and the Riviera bays are a short train ride further on. Expect pebbles, rented loungers and full beaches at summer weekends.

Ljubljana is inland, and swimming means a river or a lake: the Sava on the city's edge, or Bled and the colder Bohinj an hour or more away. The Slovenian coast at Piran is mostly concrete platforms and takes a day to get to and back.

Genoa eats with more character and more variety. You can have pesto at its source, focaccia for breakfast, farinata and fried fish by the slice from the old-town friggitorie, and seafood in the harbour trattorias and coast villages, with Vermentino to drink alongside.

Ljubljana's cooking is hearty and regional, with sausage, štruklji and jota from the gostilna inns, and the produce stalls at Plečnik's Central Market are worth a morning. Where it does stand out is wine, especially the orange wines of the west poured by the glass along the river, but the menus get repetitive sooner than Genoa's do.

Genoa has far more to fill the days. There is the vast maze of shaded caruggi, the Rolli palaces of Via Garibaldi and Via Balbi with their painted halls and Flemish masters, the striped cathedral, the Palazzo Ducale and the marble of Staglieno, and many visitors are surprised by how much there is.

Ljubljana's appeal is the townscape as a whole. Plečnik's bridges, colonnades and library give the small baroque and Secession centre its look, the castle stands above it, and Metelkova adds a counter-cultural edge. Its museums are good, but none is a reason to come.

Both cities are made for a relaxed drink rather than a big night, and the difference is in the setting. Genoa's evenings revolve around aperitivo in the medieval squares around Piazza delle Erbe, and in summer they move out to the seafront and the coastal beach clubs.

Ljubljana's nights are spent on the terraces along both banks of the Ljubljanica. For something rougher and later there is Metelkova, whose small alternative clubs give the city a scene Genoa doesn't really have.

Both are excellent bases for the outdoors, but the landscapes are very different. Genoa's is sea and cliff: the fortress trail above Righi, the Portofino park paths down to San Fruttuoso, the Cinque Terre terraces, and boat trips to watch whales and dolphins in the Pelagos Sanctuary.

Ljubljana looks to the mountains. Triglav National Park, the Vintgar gorge, rafting on the Soča and the Postojna and Škocjan caves are all within reach, and in winter there is skiing at small resorts, which Genoa can't offer.

Both have a rich choice of outings, and what differs is the kind of trip. From Genoa, almost everything is a train ride along one coast line: Portofino and Camogli within an hour, the Cinque Terre a little further, and Milan and Turin close enough for a museum day.

From Ljubljana, the trips cover a whole small country: the island church at Bled, Predjama Castle in its cliff, the Lipizzaners at Lipica, the wine villages of Goriška Brda, and Trieste or Zagreb across the borders. A car makes the smaller places much easier.

Genoa has more to entertain children, mostly gathered at the Porto Antico. The large aquarium, the science centre, the biosphere and the walk-through submarine fill whole days. Away from the harbour, though, the steep, dark lanes and endless stairs are hard work with a pushchair.

Ljubljana is the gentler place to push a buggy, with a flat centre largely free of cars. What there is to do is modest: the castle funicular, the Dragon Bridge, Tivoli's playgrounds, a small zoo and the puppet theatre, all easily seen in a few days.

Ljubljana is simpler. Everything a visitor wants is within about 20 minutes' walk on flat, mostly pedestrianised streets, and the bike-share covers the rest.

Genoa is walkable too, but in a more tiring way, with a maze of lanes and a city that climbs steeply from the water. Its funiculars, rack railway and public lifts are fun, but the buses are slow. In its favour, the coastal railway puts the Riviera within easy reach without a car.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Genoa has more to offer. The arcades of Via XX Settembre and Via Roma carry the familiar Italian labels, and the old town has long-established shops for candied fruit and olive oil as well as workshops making silver filigree and coral.

Ljubljana's shopping is smaller and more homespun: pumpkin-seed oil, honey and salt from the Central Market, Idrija lace, a Sunday flea market on the embankment and a few design boutiques around Trubarjeva.

Overall the two cost about the same, but the money goes in different places. In Genoa, focaccia and farinata keep meals very cheap and central hotels are fair, but the smart Riviera towns and paid loungers push up the cost of summer beach days.

In Ljubljana, the set lunch menus at the inns and a centre you can walk keep daily spending low. Summer rooms in the old town are the expense, so staying a little further out or avoiding July and August makes a clear difference.

Both offer enough for an evening or two, and in both the theatre is in the local language. Genoa's strengths are opera and ballet at the Carlo Felice on Piazza De Ferrari and concerts in honour of Paganini, and its singer-songwriter tradition lives on in small clubs.

Ljubljana is stronger on summer music. The Ljubljana Festival brings orchestras to the open-air Križanke courtyard, and alongside it are the long-established Philharmonic, the opera house and the year-round programme at Cankarjev dom.

Neither city has a bathing culture of its own, but Ljubljana makes a spa day much easier to arrange. In Genoa, pampering mostly means a hotel spa, and real thermal water is a single option: Acqui Terme, across the hills in Piedmont and more than an hour away. On most days, the restorative part of a Genoa stay is a slow lunch in a Riviera village rather than a session in a pool.

Ljubljana has its own place for an afternoon of warmth: an indoor water park with a sauna complex on the city's eastern edge, which works in any weather. Beyond it there are several Slovenian spa towns with mineral pools and saunas, all within about an hour's drive, so you can pick the one that suits you rather than settling for the only one nearby.