La Spezia or San Marino?

Neither city has a beach of its own, but from La Spezia the sea is closer and more varied. The gulf has sheltered strips at Lerici and San Terenzo, small coves at Fiascherino and Tellaro, and rocky spots in clear water around Palmaria, while Monterosso's sandy beach is a train ride away.

From San Marino you drive down to the Romagna shore, where Rimini and Riccione offer long, shallow sand lined with rows of umbrellas. That makes for an easier beach day with toddlers, but it is one kind of coast only, with almost nothing wild about it.

La Spezia eats better. Farinata from wood ovens, mesciua, pesto on testaroli, rope-grown mussels from Portovenere and the Piazza Cavour market give a stay a genuine local flavour, along with Vermentino and Sciacchetrà.

San Marino's Romagna cooking of piadina, passatelli and grilled meats is honest food. The trouble is that the summit trades on its view, so the good meals mean heading down to trattorias in Borgo Maggiore or over the border.

The two are broadly level, but the culture comes in different forms. La Spezia offers museums inside a nineteenth-century naval city: the Amedeo Lia collection of early Italian painting, the naval museum and the Lunigiana stele statues in Castello San Giorgio. You go there for the collections, not the streets.

San Marino is the reverse. Its medieval town, the three towers on the cliff edge and the Palazzo Pubblico of an ancient republic are themselves the sight, and they are memorable, but half a day covers most of it.

Neither is a place for a night out, but La Spezia at least has an evening. Spritz and Vermentino on Via del Prione, around Piazza Verdi and along the promenade, and summer bars on the waterfront at Lerici, keep things going until fairly early. San Marino offers dinner and a glass of wine with the coast's lights below, and anyone wanting more has to drive down to the Riviera clubs at Rimini.

This is La Spezia's biggest advantage. Terraced cliffs fall into the sea along the Cinque Terre, with the Sentiero Azzurro and the quieter ridge paths above, and there are Palmaria's forts and sea caves, diving in the gulf and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps an hour inland.

Monte Titano offers fine views to the Adriatic and gentle paths between the towers and through the woods to Borgo Maggiore. The Montefeltro hills beyond are lovely for cycling or a drive, but there is nothing here to fill a week of serious walking.

Both make good bases, but La Spezia's outings are closer and need no car. The five Cinque Terre villages are minutes away by train, Portovenere and Lerici are a bus or boat ride, and Pisa, Lucca and walled Sarzana are easy to reach by rail.

San Marino's list is grand in its own way, with the fortress of San Leo, Renaissance Urbino, Ravenna's mosaics and the castle at Gradara. Most of the hill towns, though, really require a car.

For families the two are even, but they suit different ages. La Spezia has a flat centre that is easy with a pushchair, calm water at San Terenzo and boat trips round the islands, yet its main draws are steep villages and long walks, which suit older children. San Marino has towers and a cable car that children enjoy and steps that defeat pushchairs, but with a car the theme parks and shallow beaches around Rimini are an easy afternoon away.

La Spezia is much easier without a car. The flat centre puts the station, market and seafront within walking distance, and trains, buses and summer ferries fan out around the gulf and along the coast, although the summer trains get packed.

In San Marino the core is car-free but almost every street climbs or drops by steps. The bus from Rimini is the only regular link to the outside, so beyond the mountain a car is close to essential.

Neither city is worth the trip for shopping, but La Spezia comes out a little ahead because its shops serve the people who live there. Via del Prione and Corso Cavour work as an ordinary Italian high street, with familiar fashion names, footwear and the odd small boutique to browse on a walk through town. The best things to take home are from the kitchen: a jar of pesto, Ligurian olive oil or a bottle of Sciacchetrà.

San Marino's shops are shaped by the border rather than by local life. Italians come up the mountain for the tax savings on scent, watches and leather, and collectors look for the republic's own stamps and coins. Ceramics and ornamental crossbows for the coach parties fill the rest of the summit. You go there for a bargain or a keepsake, while La Spezia offers the everyday shopping of a provincial town.

Costs are much the same in both, and the savings come in different places. In La Spezia they come from staying in town rather than in the Cinque Terre villages and from cheap local trains, but park passes, boat trips and bathing establishments add up. In San Marino the advice is to sleep below the summit and eat in the lower villages, and lower taxes help with fuel and spirits.

La Spezia has the more regular calendar. The Teatro Civico runs a theatre and concert season, and summer brings a long-established jazz festival and concerts in castle courtyards around the gulf. San Marino has little beyond a small theatre and its summer Medieval Days, with costumed musicians, crossbow contests and flag-throwers, which is more pageant than performance. For opera, both send you elsewhere.

La Spezia offers a little more for unwinding: the small thermal baths at Equi Terme in the Lunigiana valley, a long lunch in Tellaro and the quiet paths of Palmaria. The summer crowds on the Cinque Terre work against it, so the calm belongs to the off-season.\n\nSan Marino's restful hour is the evening, when the day visitors have left and the walls are calm, with the plain spread out below. Spas are limited to a few hotels, and thermal baths mean a separate trip to the coast or the Apennine valleys.