Genoa or Lucca?

You can swim without leaving Genoa, from the pebble cove at Boccadasse, the bathing platforms along Corso Italia or the rocks below Nervi, and the bays of Camogli and Sestri Levante are close by train. The shores are pebbly and the loungers crowded, but the water is clear and a swim fits easily into a city afternoon.

From Lucca you have to travel to the sea, about 25 minutes by train to Viareggio, but you get a different kind of beach: long, gently shelving sand, with the pine-backed dunes of the Lecciona for a free stretch. It works as a half-day trip rather than a quick dip.

Genoa eats better and more distinctively. Pesto, focaccia dunked at breakfast, pansoti in walnut sauce, fried fish from the old town friggitorie and seafood in the harbour trattorias give it a range that Lucca cannot match.

Both sell chickpea flatbread by the slice, called farinata in Genoa and cecina in Lucca. Beyond that, Lucca's cooking is plainer and comes from inland: spelt soup, tordelli in ragù, chestnut flour in the colder months, mild olive oil and Montecarlo wines. It is reliable, but the menus repeat sooner.

Genoa has more to see and a deeper historic fabric. There is a vast medieval quarter, the UNESCO-listed Rolli palaces with Van Dyck and Rubens in their painted halls, the striped cathedral, and the marble sculpture of Staglieno cemetery. It fills several days, and most visitors underestimate it.

Lucca's appeal is the town as a whole: complete Renaissance walls, the carved Romanesque fronts of San Michele and San Frediano, and the oval piazza built into the Roman amphitheatre. Its museums are modest, and two unhurried days cover it.

Neither city is made for clubbing, but Genoa has the livelier evenings. Students and locals fill the small bars around Piazza delle Erbe and the university until late at weekends, and there are waterfront bars at the Porto Antico and beach clubs along Corso Italia in summer.

Lucca's evening is an aperitivo in Piazza San Michele, dinner and a walk on the walls, and the centre is calm by midnight. Dancing means the Versilia discos and a late taxi back.

Genoa's outdoors starts at the door. A funicular climbs to the trail linking the hilltop forts, the Portofino promontory and the Cinque Terre paths are on the coastal railway, and boats leave the harbour for whale and dolphin watching in the Pelagos Sanctuary.

Lucca's own green space is gentler: the tree-lined ring of the walls, cycle paths along the Serchio and olive-covered hills. The serious landscapes are the Apuan Alps' marble peaks and the Garfagnana woods, about an hour north, and they are much easier with a car.

Lucca is the stronger base, because it combines great art cities with the coast. Pisa is half an hour away, Florence a little over an hour, and Pistoia, the Montecatini spas, the villa gardens at Marlia, the sculptors' town of Pietrasanta and the Versilia beaches are all within easy reach.

Genoa's trips run mainly along one superb stretch of railway: Camogli, Portofino, Sestri Levante and the Cinque Terre to the east, with quieter Noli and Finale Ligure Borgo to the west. Milan and Turin are within range for a museum day, but there is less variety than Tuscany offers.

Genoa gives children more to do. The Porto Antico groups one of Europe's largest aquariums with a science centre, the tropical biosphere and the Galata museum's walk-through submarine, and the funiculars and public lifts are rides in themselves. The catch is the steep, stair-filled old town, which is hard work with a pushchair.

Lucca is physically easier: flat, small and mostly free of traffic, and a family quadricycle ride around the walls is a highlight. Add the Pinocchio Park at Collodi and the sandy beaches, but the town itself has little made for children.

Lucca is the simpler place to move around. Inside the walls everything is flat and close enough to walk or cycle, and the station just outside the southern gate has trains to Pisa, Viareggio and Florence. Only the rural villas and the Garfagnana call for a car.

Genoa takes more effort. The old town is a maze, the city climbs sharply from the water, and you rely on funiculars, lifts and slow buses, with a single short metro line. Its strength is the coastal railway, which reaches Nervi and the Riviera towns without a car.

Neither city is worth a dedicated shopping trip, but Genoa has a little more variety. There are the arcades of Via XX Settembre and Galleria Mazzini, plus long-established old town shops for candied fruit, pesto and olive oil, and workshops making silver filigree and coral.

Lucca's offer is smaller and more intimate: the Liberty shopfronts of Via Fillungo, delicatessens selling farro and buccellato, and, best of all, its monthly antiques market around the cathedral.

Genoa stretches a budget further. Focaccia and farinata make very cheap meals, central hotels cost less than in Italy's most visited cities, and the funiculars and lifts cost little. The expense comes on days in the smart Riviera resorts and on paid loungers.

Lucca is cheaper than Florence, and its walls and many churches are free. Rooms are the problem: there are few hotels inside the walls, and they fill up in summer and during festivals, so staying outside the walls is often the sensible choice.

There is little to choose between the two, though they differ in style. Genoa has a conventional season at the Teatro Carlo Felice, an established Italian-language drama company, Paganini concerts and small clubs that carry on the singer-songwriter tradition.

Lucca is easier for a short visit, with Puccini recitals in a central church most of the year. In summer it adds big outdoor concerts in Piazza Napoleone and open-air opera by the lake at Torre del Lago.

Lucca is far more restful. Its quiet, traffic-free lanes and the shaded walls at dusk set a slow rhythm, and Montecatini's belle époque baths, Monsummano's warm cave pools and the steam grottoes of Bagni di Lucca are all within an hour.

Genoa's centre is all port, traffic and crowded lanes. Calm means the villa gardens and promenade at Nervi or a long lunch in a Riviera village, and the nearest thermal waters, at Acqui Terme, are over an hour away.