La Spezia or Rovinj?

La Spezia's own waterfront is a port and a promenade, so a swim is always an outing. Out of town the choice is wide: sheltered sand and pebble at San Terenzo and Lerici, the coves of Fiascherino and Tellaro below the olive terraces, clear rocky water off Palmaria and the long sandy beach at Monterosso. Much of that shore is taken up by paid bathing establishments, though, and the free stretches fill early in August.

Rovinj is better for swimming because the sea starts at the edge of town. Flat limestone ledges, pebble coves and bathing platforms run for kilometres from below the old town walls into the Golden Cape forest, and taxi boats reach quieter coves on St Catherine and Red Island. The catch is rock and sea urchins, and families looking for sand and gentle shallows will find little of either.

La Spezia eats better day to day. Farinata from wood ovens, mesciua soup, testaroli with pesto and the rope-grown mussels of Portovenere make a cooking tradition that is cheap and easy to find, and the market on Piazza Cavour backs it up. Cinque Terre whites and Sciacchetrà complete it.

Rovinj has the higher peaks, with truffle pasta, scampi buzara and a few refined restaurants, and the Istrian konobas inland are worth the drive. Day to day, though, the harbour is lined with menus written for visitors, and there is little cheap everyday food in between.

Neither town is a major heritage stop, and they offer different kinds of sightseeing. La Spezia has the museums: early Italian painting at the Museo Amedeo Lia, the naval museum by the arsenal, and the prehistoric stele statues in Castello San Giorgio, all set in a nineteenth-century grid of Liberty facades. Rovinj's sight is the town itself, with Venetian houses climbing to St Euphemia's bell tower, the lane of Grisia and the small Batana House. You can see it in an afternoon, but it is much the prettier of the two.

Both are early-to-bed places where the evening is built around a drink and dinner. La Spezia's version is the aperitivo crowd on Via del Prione and around Piazza Verdi, and it carries on through the year because people live there. Rovinj's best moment is a glass on the rocks at sunset and then cocktail bars in the harbour lanes, with a couple of places to dance in high season. Outside summer it closes almost completely.

La Spezia has far more dramatic country on its doorstep. The Cinque Terre national park drops in terraces of vines and olives to the sea, with the Sentiero Azzurro along the coast and higher ridge and sanctuary paths above it. Palmaria and the Montemarcello promontory are close by, and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps offer serious hiking about an hour inland.

Rovinj's outdoors is gentler. There are flat gravel paths through the Golden Cape pines, sea kayaking and diving around the low islands of the archipelago, and the green channel of the Lim Fjord a short drive north. It is pleasant for cycling and paddling, but it has no mountains and no cliff walking.

La Spezia is the stronger base, and most of its trips need no car. The coastal train reaches all five Cinque Terre villages within minutes, buses and boats go to Portovenere and Lerici, and Pisa and Lucca are about an hour away by rail, with Genoa, Portofino and even Florence possible.

Rovinj has fine places around it: Pula's Roman amphitheatre, the mosaics of Porec's Euphrasian Basilica, the hill towns of Motovun and Groznjan, the Brijuni islands, and Piran or Trieste across the borders. Without a railway, though, most of these depend on a hire car.

Both are safe and relaxed with children, and the advantages differ. La Spezia has a flat centre for pushchairs and shallow, sheltered sandy beaches at San Terenzo and Lerici, but its main sights are steep villages and crowded trains. Rovinj's large campsites and resorts have pools and playgrounds, and the Golden Cape paths suit bikes. Its rocky shore and steep, polished cobbles are harder on toddlers.

La Spezia is the easier place to travel without a car. Its flat centre puts the station, market and seafront within a short walk, and trains, gulf buses and seasonal ferries reach the whole coast, so a car is more nuisance than help. The weak point is the crowding on summer trains.

Rovinj works well on foot as long as you stay in town, since the car-free old town and the shore promenade lead straight into the forest park. Beyond that it has no railway, and the hill towns, wineries and much of the coast are realistically reached only by driving.

Neither is a shopping destination, but La Spezia covers everyday needs better. Via del Prione and Corso Cavour have clothing chains, shoe shops and a few independent boutiques, and good edible souvenirs include pesto, Sciacchetrà and Monterosso anchovies. Rovinj has no proper shopping streets. What it has instead is the galleries and artists' studios along Grisia, plus truffle products, Istrian olive oil and Malvazija, and the range thins out once summer ends.

La Spezia is the cheaper of the two. Many visitors stay there because rooms cost noticeably less than in the Cinque Terre villages, and local trains, farinata and simple trattorias keep daily costs down. Trail passes, boat trips and bathing establishments still add up over a stay.

Rovinj in July and August costs what a sought-after Mediterranean resort costs, harbour restaurants charge for the view, and fish sold by weight soon adds up. Private apartments, campsites and bakery lunches help, and both towns are easier on the budget in spring and September.

La Spezia has a theatre season, and Rovinj does not. The Teatro Civico stages prose theatre, touring productions and concerts, Sarzana's small Teatro degli Impavidi adds a few more, and in summer a long-established jazz festival and open-air concerts in castle courtyards around the gulf join them. Opera still means a trip to Genoa or Pisa.

In Rovinj, live performance happens almost entirely in summer: concerts in St Euphemia, music on the squares and harbour, and now and then the bitinada, the unaccompanied singing tied to the batana fishing boats. Out of season there is very little, and for big summer concerts people go to Pula's Roman arena.

Rovinj is the easier place to unwind. The larger resort hotels along the Golden Cape have pools, saunas and treatments that outside guests can use, and a late swim off the rocks followed by a walk in the pines is restful in itself, at least away from the busy summer centre.

La Spezia has no spa culture of its own beyond hotel spas and the small thermal baths at Equi Terme, an hour inland. Its calm is found on Palmaria or over a long lunch in Tellaro rather than in the town.