Genoa or Salzburg?

Genoa has real sea swimming inside the city limits: the pebble cove at Boccadasse, the bathing establishments along Corso Italia and the rock platforms at Nervi. Better beaches, including sand at Varazze, are a short train ride along the Riviera. Expect pebbles, rented loungers and crowded weekends, but you can swim most afternoons all summer.

Salzburg has no sea, and the Salzach is too cold to swim in. Swimming means a half-hour trip to Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee or Mondsee, where you get into cooler green water from lawns and jetties. That is a pleasant extra, but it is not a swimming vacation.

Genoa has much the stronger food scene. It is the home of pesto, and the old town's friggitorie sell farinata and fried fish by the slice. Seafood is fresh from the harbour, and the Mercato Orientale sets out the region's produce. The range stays Ligurian, but eating well takes no effort.

Salzburg's best food experiences are its coffee houses and the beer garden at the Augustiner monastery brewery in Mülln. The cooking is hearty Austrian food, and the old town is full of restaurants serving the same menus to tour groups. The good meals are mostly in the outer inns, and a few days is enough to try everything.

Both cities have a UNESCO-listed historic centre, but they feel very different. Genoa's sights are layered and sprawling: the shaded medieval caruggi, the painted palaces of the Rolli along Via Garibaldi, and the marble sculpture of Staglieno cemetery. It is a city to dig into, and it keeps surprising visitors who expected little.

Salzburg's centre is a single, compact Baroque set piece, with the cathedral, the Residenz, the Mozart houses and the Hohensalzburg fortress above it. It is easier to grasp and fits into two or three unhurried days, while Genoa rewards a longer stay.

Neither city is a party destination, but Genoa has more going on after dinner. Students and locals fill the bars around Piazza delle Erbe until late at weekends, and in summer people move on to waterfront bars and beach clubs along Corso Italia.

Salzburg's evenings usually mean a concert, a beer hall with long wooden tables and an early night, because the old town is quiet by midnight. There are a few student pubs on Rudolfskai, and serious clubbing means a train to Munich.

Salzburg has the bigger landscape. The Untersberg cable car climbs to alpine ridge walks at about 1,800m, the Salzkammergut lakes offer sailing and paddling, and Berchtesgaden National Park and the Königssee are half an hour away. The ski areas are close enough for winter days out.

Genoa's outdoors is about where the hills meet the sea. You can walk the ridge of old fortresses above Righi, take the cliff path to San Fruttuoso on the Portofino promontory or hike the Cinque Terre terraces. It also adds something Salzburg cannot: whale and dolphin trips into the Pelagos Sanctuary.

Both cities are excellent bases for day trips. From Genoa, most trips run along one railway line of seaside towns: Camogli, Portofino, Sestri Levante and the Cinque Terre to the east, and medieval Finale Ligure Borgo to the west. Milan and Turin are close enough for a museum day.

Salzburg's trips are about lakes, mountains and salt: Hallstatt, St Wolfgang, the salt mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, the clifftop fortress at Werfen and a day in Munich. The main practical difference is that Genoa's coast is easy by train, while some of Salzburg's lake villages are much easier to reach with a hire car.

Both cities work about equally well for families, in different ways. Genoa puts its best family day in one place, the Porto Antico, with the large aquarium, a walk-through submarine and the biosphere. Swimming coves and funiculars help, but the steep, dark lanes and lack of parks make the rest of the city harder going.

Salzburg is smaller, calmer and largely car-free. It has the trick fountains and zoo at Hellbrunn, the Haus der Natur and the marionette theatre, and the miners' slides in nearby salt mines are a highlight for many children. Cobbles slow pushchairs in both places.

Genoa's old town and Porto Antico are best explored on foot, but the lanes are a maze and the city climbs steeply from the water. Funiculars, a rack railway, public lifts and a single short metro line take the strain out of the hills, while buses crawl through the congested streets. The coastal railway is the most useful link, reaching Nervi and the Riviera towns without a car.

Salzburg is easier to manage. The old town, Mirabell and the Mozart houses are within about fifteen minutes' walk of each other, much of the centre is pedestrianised, and a funicular saves the climb to the fortress on its cliff. Trolleybuses cover the rest of the city and the riverside paths suit cycling. The weak spot is the lake villages, where slow regional buses lead many visitors to hire a car.

Shopping is modest in both cities, and the best buys are local specialities. In Genoa that means candied fruit, olive oil and pesto from long-established old-town shops, silver filigree and coral from small workshops, and the Mercato Orientale for food to take home.

Salzburg's speciality is Tracht: dirndls and loden jackets, often made to measure, sold around Getreidegasse. In Advent, the Christmas market on Domplatz adds a seasonal reason to shop.

Genoa is clearly the cheaper city. Focaccia and farinata make meals very cheap, trattoria lunches are fairly priced, and central hotels cost less than in Italy's most visited cities. Costs rise mainly in the Riviera resorts and with paid loungers on beach days.

Salzburg is expensive for its size. Old-town hotels are costly all year, and rooms get scarce and dear during the summer festival and the Advent markets. Staying across the river and eating in the beer halls and outer-district inns are the usual ways to keep costs down.

For music and theatre, Salzburg offers far more than Genoa. Genoa has a respectable programme for an evening or two: opera, ballet and symphonic concerts at the Teatro Carlo Felice on Piazza De Ferrari, concerts honouring Paganini, and small clubs keeping its singer-songwriter tradition alive. Drama at the Teatro Nazionale is in Italian.

Salzburg is somewhere people plan a whole trip around. The summer festival brings leading performers to the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule, Jedermann is staged outside the cathedral, and Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons. Between festivals, the Mozarteum, the Landestheater and the Marionette Theatre keep the programme going, though jazz and contemporary music are thin.

Salzburg is the more restful choice. The city is slow-paced once the day-trippers leave, and the Paracelsus Bad has saunas in the city park. Bad Reichenhall's brine spas are twenty minutes away and the Gastein valley's thermal springs are within reach.

Genoa has no bathing culture of its own, and its nearest thermal waters are at Acqui Terme, over an hour inland. Its calm comes from the villa gardens and promenade at Nervi and long lunches in Riviera villages, while the port-side centre stays noisy.