Lausanne or Turin?

Lausanne at least has swimming on its doorstep. From late June to early September Lake Geneva is warm enough to swim in, from grassy shores and shingle at Vidy and the old lido at Bellerive, though it remains lake bathing on narrow banks rather than a beach.

Turin has nothing comparable. The Ligurian Riviera is nearly two hours away, and in summer locals settle for small lakes such as Avigliana. Neither city is a beach destination, but only in Lausanne does a swim fit into an ordinary afternoon.

Turin is the stronger table by some way. Piedmontese cooking brings vitello tonnato, agnolotti del plin and autumn white truffles from the Langhe, with Barolo and Barbaresco on every list, and the city invented both vermouth and the aperitivo. Add gianduja, bicerin in the arcade cafés and the vast Porta Palazzo market, and food can easily be the whole reason to go.

Lausanne eats well at the top and in the wine cellars: lake perch, papet vaudois, and Chasselas tasted straight from the growers in Lavaux caveaux. Between its celebrated restaurants and the Saturday market, though, the everyday choice is ordinary.

Turin offers far more to see. The Museo Egizio alone justifies a trip, and around it stand the Royal Palace, Palazzo Madama, the Shroud cathedral and the ring of UNESCO-listed Savoy residences, with the Mole's cinema museum and the Lingotto adding the city's industrial story. It fills a week without strain.

Lausanne is a smaller, steeper affair: the Gothic cathedral, where a night watchman still calls the hours, a compact old town of covered stairways, the Olympic Museum at Ouchy, the Plateforme 10 museums and the singular Collection de l'Art Brut. Two or three days are enough.

Turin has the livelier evenings. The aperitivo sets things off around seven, then the crowd spreads through the wine bars of the Quadrilatero Romano, the pavements of San Salvario and, in summer, the Murazzi by the Po. It is sociable rather than wild.

Lausanne goes out more than its size suggests, thanks to its students, but the scene is squeezed into the Flon's clubs on Friday and Saturday, plus summer evenings at Ouchy. Weeknights are quiet and every round is expensive.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, but the landscape sits differently. In Lausanne it starts at the waterfront: sailing and paddleboarding on the lake, the Lavaux terrace path from Lutry to Saint-Saphorin, and the Vaud Alps and the Jura each about an hour away by train.

Turin lies on a flat plain, so its wilder ground needs a trip out, but that ground is big: the ibex and high trails of Gran Paradiso, the Via Lattea ski area and Monviso. Closer in, there are the Superga hills and the deer forest of the Mandria park.

Both make first-rate bases, and the difference is in the kind of day out. From Lausanne, trains take you to Swiss towns and lakes: Montreux and the Château de Chillon, Gruyères and its cheese dairies, Bern's arcaded old town, Geneva, or a boat across to Évian, and almost none of it needs a car.

From Turin the pull is wine country and Italian cities: the Langhe hills, Alba, Barolo and Bra, the Monferrato, then Milan by fast train, Genoa's port, and the Sacra di San Michele abbey on its rock above the Susa valley.

Lausanne has more aimed at children. The Olympic Museum is hands-on, the aquarium-vivarium shows freshwater life, and Sauvabelin has an animal park, pedal boats and a wooden lookout tower, with lake swimming and paddle steamers in summer. The steep streets and the cost of family meals are the price.

Turin is easier with a pushchair, being flat and arcaded, and older children enjoy the glass lift in the Mole and the Egyptian mummies. But there is no zoo or aquarium in the city, the main animal park needs a car, and summers are hot.

Lausanne is the easier city to get about, though not on foot alone. Its problem is height: the m2 metro climbs over 300m from Ouchy to the upper town and does most of the work, and the Swiss trains are fast and punctual for everything beyond.

Turin's centre is flat, gridded and arcaded, so most sightseeing is a simple walk from Porta Nuova to the river. Outside that core it gets harder, with a single metro line and trams and buses that are slow and take some working out.

Turin gives a shopper more to do. Via Roma's arcades hold the big fashion labels, Via Garibaldi the mainstream shops, and the Quadrilatero smaller boutiques, while antique dealers on Via Maria Vittoria and the Saturday Balon flea market add character. Its delicatessens, selling truffles, cheese and wine, are the best reason to bring an empty bag.

Lausanne is narrower: watches, jewellery and chocolate on Rue de Bourg, chains in the Flon, and a bottle of Lavaux wine to take home.

Nowhere do these two differ more than on cost. In Lausanne the hotel room is the heaviest item, and restaurant meals, wine and taxis all push the bill well beyond most of Europe. The efficient metro barely helps, because the centre is small enough that transport was never the big expense. The free lakeside promenades and parks soften it, and so does a glass of Chasselas poured by the grower in a Lavaux village caveau.

Turin costs noticeably less at almost every turn. Central hotels are fairly priced for most of the year. The exception is the big trade fairs and events, when rooms fill up and prices rise, so the dates of a trip matter more here than in Lausanne. Trams and buses are cheap. The real spending goes on museum tickets, fine dining and anything with white truffle on it in autumn. In Turin the expense is in the treats you choose, while in Lausanne simply eating and sleeping costs a lot.

The two are closely matched, with different strengths. Lausanne is defined by dance, as home of the Béjart Ballet and the Prix de Lausanne, and the lakeside Théâtre de Vidy produces contemporary work that tours Europe. Montreux Jazz is a short train ride away in July.

Turin has the broader year-round programme: opera and ballet at the Teatro Regio, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, concerts in the Lingotto auditorium, and jazz clubs in the centre. Its theatre is almost entirely in Italian, though.

Lausanne is the better place to unwind. The grand lakeside hotels have extensive spas, the Lavaux vineyard lanes are made for slow walks, and real thermal water is close, at Yverdon-les-Bains in under half an hour and at Lavey-les-Bains in under an hour.

Turin's calm comes from its pace rather than its facilities: long sessions in historic cafés, evening walks under the arcades and along the Po. Its nearest thermal baths, at Acqui Terme or in the Aosta valley, are close to two hours away.