La Spezia or Piran?

These two are about level, but swimming feels different in each. In Piran the sea is at the end of the lane. You climb down ladders and off concrete platforms below the old walls into clear Adriatic water, with Fiesa's small pebble cove a short walk away.

La Spezia's own waterfront is a port, so every swim is an outing. In return you get proper beaches: sheltered sand and pebble at Lerici and San Terenzo, coves under the olive terraces at Fiascherino, and Monterosso's long sandy beach a train ride away. Much of that shore belongs to paid bathing establishments, though.

La Spezia gives you more to eat. Farinata from wood ovens, mesciua soup, pesto on testaroli from the Lunigiana, and mussels farmed off Portovenere make a cuisine with a clear local identity. The covered market on Piazza Cavour and the Cinque Terre whites and Sciacchetrà round it out.

Piran eats simply and well, with grilled fish and scampi buzara in harbourside konobas, Malvazija and Refosk from the hills, and salt from its own pans. But the menus repeat each other, and anything more ambitious means driving into Istria.

The two are about level, but they offer different things. In La Spezia the interest is in the museums: the early Italian paintings and ivories of the Museo Amedeo Lia, the naval collection by the arsenal, and the Lunigiana stele statues in Castello San Giorgio, all set in an orderly nineteenth-century naval town.

In Piran the town itself is the attraction. Its Venetian Gothic lanes lead to the oval Tartini Square, and from the walls on the ridge you look down over the red roofs to St George's campanile. Its museums are small, and a day of wandering covers it.

Neither is a place to go out, but La Spezia has a little more life after dark. The aperitivo fills Via del Prione and Piazza Verdi, a few bars stay open late, and in summer people drift round to the waterfront at Lerici. In Piran an evening means a sunset drink on the Punta and an early night. Portoroz's casino and summer clubs are the only real alternative.

La Spezia wins clearly here. The terraced cliffs of the Cinque Terre national park carry the famous Sentiero Azzurro and quieter ridge paths above it. Palmaria and the pine woods of Montemarcello are on the doorstep, and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps offer serious hiking an hour inland.

Piran's outdoors is gentler. There is the path above the flysch cliffs at Strunjan, wading birds on the Secovlje salt-pan lagoons, and cycling through olive groves on the old Parenzana railway. The Skocjan caves on the Karst are the big excursion.

La Spezia is the better base, mainly because it is so easy. The Cinque Terre villages are minutes away by train, Portovenere is a short boat ride, and Pisa, Lucca, Sarzana and Genoa can all be reached without a car.

Piran's range is broad in its own way, since three countries are in reach. Trieste is under an hour away, Rovinj, Porec and Motovun are across the Croatian border, Ljubljana and Predjama Castle are inland, and summer boats run to Venice. Most of it takes a hire car, though.

For families the two are level, and the difference is the age of the children. Piran suits the little ones. The old town has no cars, the seafront is flat, and the harbour aquarium is the right size for them. But you swim off ledges, and older children run out of things to do.

La Spezia has sheltered sandy beaches at San Terenzo and Lerici and boat trips round the islands. Its steep villages and crowded trains suit children old enough to walk.

La Spezia is easier to get around, because it works as a transport hub. Coastal and inland trains, buses round the gulf and seasonal ferries cover almost everything worth seeing, and a car would only get in the way. The weak spot is the crowded summer trains.

Piran is the easier place to walk: a car-free town you cross in a quarter of an hour, with a shuttle to Portoroz. Without a railway, though, exploring beyond it is slow by bus.

Neither is a shopping destination, but La Spezia has an ordinary town centre. Via del Prione and Corso Cavour have clothing chains, shoe shops and a few boutiques. Piran has only a few galleries, craft shops and souvenir stalls on the harbour. Both are best for food to take home: pesto, Sciacchetrà and anchovies from Liguria, or salt flower from the Secovlje pans and Istrian olive oil from Piran.

The two cost about the same, and both are cheaper outside July and August. In La Spezia, the city itself is the saving: rooms cost less than in the Cinque Terre villages, and the trains are cheap. Trail passes, boat trips and bathing establishments are what add up over a stay.

In Piran, the expensive part is a summer room in the old town. Staying in Portoroz brings costs down, and the swimming off the rocks and the walking cost nothing.

Both are quiet outside summer, but La Spezia has slightly more to offer. The Teatro Civico runs a season of drama and concerts, and a long-established summer jazz festival brings music into piazzas and castle courtyards around the gulf. Piran's music comes mostly from its links to Tartini, with summer classical concerts in churches, the monastery cloister and on the square. Opera means travelling to Genoa or Pisa in one case and to Trieste or Ljubljana in the other.

Piran is clearly ahead. Portoroz grew up as a spa resort, and you can float in brine and salt mud at the outdoor thalasso spa among the Secovlje lagoons or go to the seawater health resort at Strunjan.

La Spezia has hotel spas and the small thermal baths at Equi Terme, an hour inland. For rest, people there rely on a slow lunch in Tellaro or a quiet day on Palmaria.