Hallstatt or Piran?

Neither place has a long sandy beach, but Piran gives you a real sea to swim in. Hallstatt's swimming is a cold plunge in a deep mountain lake that only reaches about 20°C in high summer, from a small lawn and jetty in the village or the lido at Obertraun. It is bracing after a hike, but not something to plan days around.

In Piran the Adriatic is about five degrees warmer in August, and people swim straight from the ladders and rocks below the old walls and around the Punta. Fiesa's pebble cove is a short walk away, and Portoroz and Strunjan add sunbeds and sand when you want to stretch out.

Piran eats better, though neither place is a food destination. In Hallstatt a few guesthouse dining rooms serve schnitzel, goulash and dumplings, the lake char and whitefish are the one local speciality, and kitchens can close early once the day visitors leave.

Piran's harbour menus repeat one another too, but they are built on grilled fish, squid and scampi buzara, with Istrian olive oil, truffles and Malvazija or Refosk wine from the hills behind. That gives meals more variety and more of a sense of place.

Hallstatt's sights are fewer, but they are strange and very old. The village itself, painted houses on a ledge between cliff and lake, is the heart of a UNESCO landscape. Salt has been mined in the mountain above for some seven thousand years, and the Iron Age graves found here gave the Hallstatt culture its name. The Museum Hallstatt tells that story well, and the painted skulls of the Beinhaus have no counterpart anywhere on the Adriatic. Together they fill half a day or so.

Piran gives you more to see over a day of wandering. Its whole peninsula is the attraction: Venetian Gothic lanes, the oval Tartini Square, St George's campanile above the bay, the walls on the ridge and a quiet Minorite cloister, with a maritime museum for a wet hour.

Once the day visitors leave, Hallstatt goes completely quiet, and the evening is a long dinner and a dark walk by the lake.

Piran offers a little more, though still not a real night out. You can have wine on Tartini Square or watch the sunset from a bar on the Punta, and Portoroz, a few minutes away, has beach bars, a casino and some summer clubs.

This is Hallstatt's great strength. The Dachstein massif rises straight from the lake, and the Krippenstein cable car takes you to the Five Fingers platform and the giant ice caves. The Echerntal climbs past waterfalls towards the glacier, and there are hut-to-hut routes, via ferratas and winter ski touring. Few places in the Alps put that much serious mountain country this close to the door.

Piran's outdoors is softer and lower. You can kayak below the Strunjan flysch cliffs, watch wading birds in the Secovlje salt pans or cycle the Parenzana through olive groves, and the Skocjan caves on the Karst are about an hour inland.

Both are good bases, but Piran's setting where three countries meet gives it more range. Hallstatt has the Salzkammergut lake towns around it: Bad Ischl's Kaiservilla, St Wolfgang's altarpiece, Gmunden's lake castle and, further off, Salzburg as a long day out.

From Piran you can reach Trieste's Habsburg squares in under an hour, then Rovinj, Porec and the Istrian hill towns across the Croatian border, Predjama Castle, Ljubljana, and in summer a boat to Venice. Both places reward having a car.

Piran is the easier place with children. The car-free seafront is flat, the sea is calm and warm, the harbour aquarium suits small children, and Portoroz has a shallow sandy beach.

Hallstatt has the single best outing, the salt mine with its funicular, wooden slides and underground lake, and the ice caves thrill older children. But the village is one steep, narrow lane, crowded at midday and hard going with a pushchair, so families usually base themselves in Obertraun.

Getting around is much the same in both: small, car-free centres you cross on foot in minutes, with cars left at the edge. Leaving is where they differ. Hallstatt has a railway station across the lake, reached by a small boat, but its buses thin out after summer. Piran has no railway at all, only a shuttle and a seafront promenade to Portoroz and slow regional buses, so a hire car makes more sense there.

Shopping is a short browse in both, and in both the thing to take home is salt. Hallstatt sells it from the mine in grinders and bath mixes, alongside carved wood, dirndl trimmings and schnapps. Piran's salt flower comes from the Secovlje pans and sits beside Istrian olive oil, coastal wine and a few galleries, and Trieste is close by for proper shops.

Piran is noticeably easier on the wallet. Hallstatt has only a handful of rooms for a worldwide audience, so prices sit well above the Austrian norm, and the salt mine, funicular and Dachstein cable car add up quickly. Many visitors sleep in Obertraun or Bad Goisern instead.

Piran charges a premium in July and August, but simple konobas, local wine and rooms in Portoroz or outside high season bring it down to a fair level. Its main pleasures, swimming and wandering, cost nothing.

Piran has a modest but real summer programme, and Hallstatt has almost none. Piran honours its native violinist Tartini with concerts in churches, the monastery cloister and the square, and the small Tartini Theatre hosts the odd recital. In Hallstatt live music means the brass band on feast days, so for an evening of music you would go to Bad Ischl's operetta or to Salzburg.

Piran is better for a restful stay, mainly thanks to the spa culture next door. Portoroz offers seawater pools and brine baths, you can lie in salt mud out among the lagoons of the Secovlje pans, and Strunjan has a seawater health resort. The car-free town and slow seafront evenings complete it.

Hallstatt has hotel saunas only, with Bad Ischl's historic brine baths half an hour away. Its calm comes at dawn and dusk, when mist sits on the lake, but at midday the lane is anything but peaceful.