Lausanne or Venice?

Neither is a beach destination, but Venice at least has real sand. The Lido is a short vaporetto ride away, with a long, shallow Adriatic shore that is warm enough for children in high summer, and Pellestrina beyond it is quieter and wilder.

Lausanne has lake bathing instead, from the lawns, piers and shingle at Vidy and Bellerive, and an afternoon at the old Bellerive lido is the local classic. The season is short and there is no sandy shore to lie on.

The two eat about equally well, in very different styles. Lausanne's cooking is Vaudois and Alpine: lake perch, papet vaudois, and fondue when it turns cold. Its real strength is Chasselas tasted at the growers' caveaux in Lavaux, and the area has some outstanding high-end tables.

In Venice you eat standing at the bar, with cicchetti and a spritz in the bacari of Cannaregio and Castello, followed by lagoon seafood such as cuttlefish risotto. Venice's trap is the picture-menu restaurants around San Marco. In Lausanne the weakness is a dull middle range with little cheap food.

Culture is where Venice pulls far ahead. The city itself is the monument, from the Basilica of San Marco and the Doge's Palace to the palazzi along the Grand Canal. The art goes deep too: the Accademia, Titian at the Frari, Tintoretto at San Rocco and the Biennale in the Arsenale and Giardini. A week is not too long.

Lausanne has a fine Gothic cathedral and a steep, compact old town. Its best museums are the Olympic Museum, the art, photography and design collections at Plateforme 10, and the Collection de l'Art Brut. That fills two or three pleasant days, but it is not a city to plan a culture trip around.

Lausanne has the livelier evenings, thanks to its large student population. At weekends the Flon fills its old warehouses with clubs and late bars, and the Ouchy waterfront is busy on summer nights, though weeknights are quiet.

Venice is at its most sociable at aperitivo time, in the bacari by the Rialto and along the Fondamenta della Misericordia, and Campo Santa Margherita stays up a little later. There are no clubs, and by midnight the canals are silent, which makes for a lovely late walk but not a late night.

Lausanne is far stronger outdoors. The Alps rise straight out of the lake opposite, and the Lavaux terraces offer vineyard walks between Lutry and Saint-Saphorin. Within about an hour you can ski or hike in the Vaud Alps or on the Jura ridges, and in the warmer months there is sailing and paddleboarding on the lake.

Venice's nature is flat and quiet: the salt marshes of the northern lagoon around Torcello, where herons and flamingos can be watched from a kayak, and cycling along the sea walls of the Lido and Pellestrina. Real mountains are more than two hours away.

Both are first-rate bases with fast trains, but the outings are quite different. From Lausanne you can visit lake towns and castles such as Montreux and Chillon, alpine Gruyères, Bern and Geneva, or take a boat across to Évian on the French shore.

From Venice the draw is the Italian art cities: Padua for Giotto, Verona, and Palladio's Vicenza. On top of those come the lagoon islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello, which are reached by boat rather than by rail.

Lausanne is the easier city with children. The hands-on Olympic Museum, the aquarium-vivarium, the animal park and pedal boats at Sauvabelin and the lakeside pools at Bellerive fill the days, and the metro takes the strain out of the hills. Eating out as a family is costly.

Venice delights children at first sight, with vaporetto rides, glass-blowing on Murano and the shallow Lido beach. In practice, stepped bridges defeat pushchairs, summer crowds and humidity wear everyone down, and playgrounds are scarce. It works best as a short stay with older children.

Lausanne is easier to get around despite its slopes. The m2 metro climbs from the lakeshore at Ouchy to the upper town, and from the main station Swiss trains reach the whole country. Venice depends on walking and on slow, crowded vaporetti, with steps on hundreds of bridges, though with no cars every walk is calm and getting lost in the maze is half the pleasure.

Venice is the better place to buy something actually made there. Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers come from workshops in Dorsoduro, Castello and on Murano, and the fashion names line Calle Larga XXII Marzo. The catch is the cheap imported copies along the main routes.

Lausanne's shopping is narrower. It centres on the watchmakers and chocolatiers of Rue de Bourg, with chains in the Flon, and chocolate, a watch or a bottle of Lavaux wine are the things to take home.

Neither is cheap, but Lausanne is the harder on the wallet, with Swiss prices for every meal, glass of wine and taxi ride. To make money stretch there, picnic, use the free lakeside promenades and drink a glass of Chasselas at a village caveau.

Venice is expensive mainly for hotels and water transport. It becomes more manageable if you eat cicchetti at the counter, stay in a quieter sestiere or at Mestre, and avoid the festival periods.

Both have more stage life than their size suggests, with different strengths. Lausanne leads with dance, as home to the Béjart Ballet and the Prix de Lausanne, adds contemporary theatre at Vidy, and has the Montreux Jazz Festival just along the lake in July.

Venice centres on opera at La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini premiered works, and on Vivaldi concerts in churches and scuole. These vary in quality but are hard to resist in the city where he worked. Independent music is thin in Venice, while Lausanne's student audience keeps a few clubs going.

Lausanne is the more restful choice. It has lakeside promenades at Ouchy and Vidy, quiet lanes through the Lavaux vines and spas in the grand hotels, and thermal springs at Yverdon-les-Bains and Lavey-les-Bains are within an hour by train.

Venice has hotel spas in palazzi and on Giudecca. Its calm comes from having no traffic, and you feel it early and late in Castello and Cannaregio. Thermal bathing means a trip out to Abano Terme near Padua, and the daytime crowds around San Marco work against any idea of rest.