La Spezia or Saint-Tropez?

La Spezia's own waterfront is a port, so swimming means a bus or train out to the sand and pebble of Lerici and San Terenzo, the rocky spots on Palmaria and at Portovenere, or Monterosso's beach up the coast. The water is lovely, but the beaches are small and much of the shore is taken up by paid bathing establishments.

Saint-Tropez is by far the stronger beach destination. Les Graniers and La Ponche, just below the town, are fine for a quick dip. The real draw is Pampelonne's long stretch of pale sand a few kilometres out, with public sections between the clubs, and the wilder coves of Escalet, Cap Taillat and Gigaro beyond it. Here the beach is the point of the stay, not an outing.

La Spezia is the better place to eat for most visitors. There is farinata from wood ovens, mesciua soup, pesto on trofie and testaroli, and mussels farmed on ropes in the gulf, plus the covered market on Piazza Cavour and crisp Cinque Terre whites. It is homely cooking of steady quality, though fine dining and foreign food are scarce.

In Saint-Tropez it is the other way round. The best hotel dining rooms and harbourside restaurants are polished, and long lunches of bouillabaisse, aïoli and rosé are a pleasure. Good everyday meals are harder to find, though, and many quayside tables are selling the view. The tarte tropézienne is the one cheap local treat.

Neither is a heritage destination, and each has a day or two of sights at most. La Spezia is a planned naval city with arcaded Liberty-style streets. Its sights are the Museo Amedeo Lia's early Italian paintings and ivories, the naval museum, and the Lunigiana stele statues in Castello San Giorgio.

Saint-Tropez is smaller and prettier. It has one fine museum, the Annonciade, with its pointillist and Fauvist paintings from Signac's time, along with the maritime museum in the citadel and the ochre lanes of La Ponche. La Spezia has more museums, and Saint-Tropez has the more charming old quarter.

In La Spezia the evening revolves around the aperitivo: a spritz or a glass of Vermentino on Via del Prione, around Piazza Verdi or on the waterfront at Lerici. After that most people go to bed early, ready for the trails in the morning.

In summer, Saint-Tropez is a reason to go out in its own right. Afternoon beach-club parties at Pampelonne lead to champagne on the harbour terraces and then to a few famous clubs that stay open until dawn. It is moneyed and dressy rather than varied, and by October it has gone quiet.

Both have fine coastal walking, and La Spezia has the edge. The terraced cliffs of the Cinque Terre are the main reason people come, with the Sentiero Azzurro along the coast and quieter ridge and sanctuary paths above it. Palmaria, Montemarcello and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps add variety.

Saint-Tropez's Sentier du Littoral is gentler, running through pine and maquis to the capes of Camarat and Taillat. Inland are the Maures forests, and the national-park islands of Port-Cros and Porquerolles are within reach. It is the better place for sailing, while La Spezia suits keen walkers.

La Spezia is an exceptional base for day trips. The five Cinque Terre villages are minutes away by train, Portovenere and Lerici are a short bus or boat ride, and Sarzana, the Roman ruins of Luni and the Carrara quarries are close inland. Pisa and Lucca are about an hour away.

Day trips from Saint-Tropez are pleasant but smaller in scale. There are the hilltop villages of Ramatuelle, Gassin and Grimaud, the canals of Port Grimaud, the wine estates, and Porquerolles for a full day. Nearly everything is reached by road, and in July and August that means long traffic jams.

Neither town is built for children, but La Spezia is a little easier. The flat centre and seafront gardens are fine with a pushchair, boat trips round Portovenere make a good day out, and San Terenzo and Lerici have shallow, sheltered beaches. The steep villages and crowded trains still suit older children best.

Saint-Tropez has better sand for toddlers at Pampelonne and Gigaro. The rest of the town is aimed at adults, though, the cost makes long stays hard, and summer traffic wears families out. Neither has a zoo or theme park nearby.

La Spezia is far easier to get around. The flat centre is walkable, regional trains run through the Cinque Terre and on to Genoa, Pisa and Florence, and buses and seasonal ferries cover the gulf, so a car only gets in the way. The one weak point is the summer crowds on the coastal trains.

Saint-Tropez is lovely on foot within the town but awkward beyond it. There is no railway, the buses are slow and the main beaches are several kilometres out, so most visitors rely on cars, scooters or taxis. The gulf road jams for hours in high summer, and the passenger boats from Sainte-Maxime and Port Grimaud are the best way in.

La Spezia has the everyday shops of a provincial city: chains and a few boutiques on Via del Prione and Corso Cavour. The best things to take home are pesto, olive oil, Sciacchetrà and anchovies.

For a town its size, Saint-Tropez has a remarkable choice of upmarket shops. Luxury fashion houses fill the lanes behind the port alongside resort wear and jewellery, Tropézienne sandals are hand-stitched in small workshops, and the Place des Lices market sells linen, baskets and pottery. Much of it closes for the winter.

The gap here is wide. La Spezia is mid-priced: simple trattorias and street snacks are fair value, trains and buses are cheap, and rooms in town cost noticeably less than in the Cinque Terre villages. Trail passes, boat trips and bathing establishments still add up.

Saint-Tropez is one of the most expensive places to stay on the Mediterranean, from rooms and sunloungers to a coffee on the port, with taxis or parking on top. Visitors on a budget usually stay across the gulf or inland and come in for the day.

Neither is a place to plan a trip around the stage, but La Spezia offers more. The Teatro Civico has a season of theatre and concerts, Sarzana's Teatro degli Impavidi adds a few more, and in summer there is a long-established jazz festival and concerts in piazzas and castle courtyards.

Saint-Tropez has only open-air summer concerts and live sets at the beach clubs. Its May Bravade, a centuries-old procession with muskets in honour of the patron saint, is a spectacle La Spezia has nothing to match. For opera, La Spezia means a trip to Genoa or Pisa, and Saint-Tropez a long drive to Toulon or Nice.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, and in both how restful it feels depends on the season. In La Spezia, wellness means a hotel spa or the small thermal baths at Equi Terme, about an hour inland. The calm comes from quiet off-season evenings on the seafront, long lunches in Tellaro and the stillness of Palmaria.

Saint-Tropez's spas are more polished but belong to the luxury hotels and villas. In May, June and September, games of pétanque under the plane trees and slow morning walks to the citadel make it a calmer place than its reputation suggests.