La Spezia or Palermo?

Neither city swims from its own waterfront. From La Spezia a beach day means heading out to the small, mostly pebbly coves of Lerici, San Terenzo and Tellaro, the rocks of Portovenere and Palmaria, or taking the train to Monterosso. Much of that shore is taken up by paid bathing establishments.

Palermo has the better beach in Mondello, a sheltered bay of pale sand and shallow turquoise water half an hour away by bus. On quieter days you can swim off the rocks into deep water at Capo Gallo and Sferracavallo. Mondello does get crowded at weekends, but for a sandy beach within easy reach of the city, Palermo is well ahead.

La Spezia eats well in a modest Ligurian way: farinata from wood ovens, mesciua soup, pesto on trofie and testaroli, and mussels grown on ropes off Portovenere, with crisp Cinque Terre whites to drink. It is a good provincial table rather than a reason to travel.

Palermo is one of Italy's great street-food cities, and that is the difference. A morning in Ballarò or the Capo brings panelle, arancine and pani ca' meusa, the cooking carries Arab flavours of saffron, raisins and pine nuts, and the cannoli, cassata and brioche with granita make the pastry shops worth a visit in their own right. Neither city has much fine dining.

La Spezia is a nineteenth-century naval town of arcaded avenues and Liberty facades. Its sights fill a day or two: the early Italian paintings of the Museo Amedeo Lia, the naval museum and the Lunigiana stele statues in Castello San Giorgio.

Palermo is in another league. The gold mosaics of the Palatine Chapel, the red domes of San Giovanni degli Eremiti and the rest of the Arab-Norman route are some of the most unusual monuments in Europe. Add the Salinas and Palazzo Abatellis museums, the baroque oratories and the Capuchin catacombs, and the old centre, crumbling in places, can easily fill a week.

In La Spezia the evening is an aperitivo on Via del Prione or the seafront, in summer perhaps at the bars in Lerici, and then an early night before the trails. Palermo stays out much later: the Vucciria turns into a street party of grills, cheap beer and small bars, and the wine and cocktail bars of the Kalsa fill up after a late dinner. Neither is a clubbing city, though in summer Palermo's dancing moves to the beach venues around Mondello.

La Spezia has the edge because its landscape starts on the doorstep and you can reach it on foot or by train. The terraced cliffs and paths of the Cinque Terre, the loop past old forts on Palmaria and the pine woods of Montemarcello are all close, the gulf is good for kayaking and diving, and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps are about an hour inland.

Palermo's setting is wilder and on a bigger scale, from Monte Pellegrino above the city to the Zingaro coast and the beech woods and peaks of the Madonie, close to 2,000m. Beyond the city's own mountain, though, most of it needs a car.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is in what you go out to see. Trips from La Spezia are short and coastal: the five Cinque Terre villages by train, Portovenere by boat, Lerici and Tellaro across the gulf, and Pisa, Lucca or Portofino when you want to go further.

Trips from Palermo are longer and centre on ancient sites. Monreale's mosaics, Bagheria's villas and Cefalù are easy, but Segesta, Erice, Selinunte and the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento each take a full day and are much simpler with a hire car.

With a pushchair, La Spezia is the easier of the two. Its flat centre and seafront gardens are simple to get around, and boat trips round Portovenere and the islands make good days out. The catch is everything beyond town: steep villages and packed summer trains are hard work with toddlers.

Palermo makes children welcome in other ways, with restaurants that take them in late into the evening, puppet shows of knights and Saracens, and gelato and granita on every corner. Day to day it is tougher going, with uneven stone lanes, few pavements and hot summers, and many families do better staying by the sea outside the old town.

La Spezia is the easier place to get around. The station, the market and the seafront are a short, flat walk apart, and trains, buses and summer ferries cover the gulf and the Cinque Terre, so you will not need a car, though the coastal trains are packed in summer.

Palermo's centre is walkable along Via Maqueda and Corso Vittorio Emanuele, but the side lanes lack pavements and the buses crawl through traffic. Reaching the inland sites usually means hiring a car in a city where driving is stressful.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Palermo gives you more to browse. Via Libertà has Italian fashion and a few luxury labels. The local crafts are distinctive too: painted ceramics and moor's-head vases, marionettes from the puppet workshops, coral jewellery and the flea market near the cathedral. La Spezia offers chains and a few boutiques on Via del Prione, and its best buys are edible ones such as pesto, olive oil and Sciacchetrà.

Palermo is the cheaper stay. Several stops at the market stalls make a full meal, trattorie and pastries cost less than in the north, and guesthouses in the old centre are fairly priced outside July and August. The main extra cost is a hire car for day trips.

La Spezia is mid-priced. It is good value next to the Cinque Terre villages it serves, but summer rooms cost what they do elsewhere in Western Europe, and trail passes, boat trips and bathing establishments add up over a stay.

Palermo has a real musical life. The Teatro Massimo runs a full season of opera and ballet, the Politeama is home to the Sicilian symphony orchestra, and the family-run theatres of the Opera dei Pupi stage armoured marionettes in a tradition you will not find in Liguria.

La Spezia has prose theatre and touring shows at the Teatro Civico, plus a long-established summer jazz festival and concerts in castle courtyards around the gulf. For opera you have to go to Genoa or Pisa.

The calm La Spezia offers is the quiet of the coast: Palmaria's paths, the seafront out of season and a long lunch in Lerici or Tellaro. For thermal waters you go to the small baths at Equi Terme, about an hour inland in the Lunigiana.

Palermo is noisier, with scooters and market shouts, so its restful moments are smaller ones: the long afternoon lull, the shade of the Orto Botanico and the cloisters, and the evening walk along the Foro Italico. Its spa towns are Termini Imerese, a short train ride east, and Sciacca, with its older tradition, on the south coast.