Ljubljana or Siena?

Neither city is a place for a beach trip, but Ljubljana has more water within easy reach. Locals swim in the Sava on the edge of town, and Lake Bled is about an hour away and warm enough in midsummer. The Slovenian coast is an hour and a half away, though it has concrete platforms and pebbles rather than sand.

In Siena, a swim usually means the pool at your hotel or agriturismo. The Maremma beaches around Castiglione della Pescaia are well over an hour away by car and take up a whole day.

Siena eats a little better. Hand-rolled pici, cinta senese pork, wild boar stews and an old baking tradition of panforte and ricciarelli give it more depth. Chianti Classico, Brunello and Vino Nobile are all grown within a short drive. The best meals are in family osterie in the contrade, away from the Campo.

Ljubljana's strengths are its Central Market under Plečnik's colonnades, hearty gostilna dishes such as štruklji and jota, and orange wines from the west of the country. Neither city offers much beyond its own regional cooking.

Siena is in another league here. The Campo and the Palazzo Pubblico, Lorenzetti's Good and Bad Government, and the Duomo with its library and pulpit are major works of European art. Duccio's Maestà, Santa Maria della Scala and the Pinacoteca add more. The seventeen contrade give each district a living identity of its own.

Ljubljana's appeal is its townscape as a whole: Plečnik's bridges, embankments and library, the baroque old town and the castle on its hill. Its museums are pleasant but not famous, and its best surprise is the murals at Metelkova rather than any single masterpiece.

Ljubljana has more going on after dinner. Its students fill the terraces on both banks of the Ljubljanica on warm nights, and Metelkova's scruffy clubs keep going late at weekends.

Siena's evenings are a long meal, a glass of wine on the Campo and a quiet walk home, with the streets largely still before midnight. Only the Palio nights, with their open-air contrada dinners, turn it into a late town.

Ljubljana has real mountains on its doorstep. Šmarna Gora is a climb before breakfast, and the Kamnik-Savinja Alps and Triglav National Park are under an hour away. Add the Vintgar gorge, the emerald Soča and the caves of the karst, and the range is far wider than anything around Siena.

Siena's countryside is gentler and more pastoral. The bare clay hills of the Crete Senesi, the cypress lanes of the Val d'Orcia and the strade bianche gravel roads make it excellent for cycling and easy walking. It has no high peaks and no wild country.

Both cities sit at the centre of rewarding country, but Siena has more to choose from. Florence, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Volterra, the Chianti villages, Pienza, Montalcino and Montepulciano are all close. The abbeys of Sant'Antimo and San Galgano fill further days. Most of the smaller places need a car.

From Ljubljana the highlights are Bled, Škofja Loka, Predjama Castle, Lipica and Piran on the coast. Trieste and Zagreb across the borders are each about two hours away. The list is good, but shorter and more spread out.

Ljubljana is the gentler choice with small children. The centre is flat and largely free of cars. The funicular, the dragons on the bridge, Tivoli's playgrounds, the hillside zoo and the puppet theatre fill two or three easy days.

Siena is safe and welcoming in its trattorias, and older children may enjoy climbing the Torre del Mangia or watching the contrada drummers. But the streets climb steeply, there is nothing built for children, and most families are happier at a farmhouse with a pool.

Both are towns you explore on foot, and neither has a metro, but Ljubljana is far less tiring. Its centre is flat and pedestrianised, nothing is more than about 20 minutes' walk away, and bike-share and electric shuttles fill the gaps.

Siena stands on three ridges, so walking means stepped lanes and steep climbs, and escalators carry you up from the station in the valley. Regional trains are slow, so buses are the better link to Florence. To reach the wine country, most visitors hire a car and park it outside the walls.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and what differs is mostly the kind of thing you bring home. In Ljubljana that means pumpkin-seed oil, salt from the coastal pans and honey from the Central Market, Idrija lace, and a browse at the Sunday flea market on the embankment or the small design boutiques of Trubarjeva.

Siena is better for Italian shoes, leather and stationery along Banchi di Sopra. Its local specialities are majolica ceramics, contrada scarves, panforte and pecorino, and there is a large weekly market around the Fortezza Medicea.

Ljubljana is easier on the wallet. Set lunch menus at the inns, cheap entry to most sights and a centre you can walk across keep daily spending down, although central hotels in July and August cost as much as in Western Europe.

Siena has few rooms inside its walls and they are in demand, so prices climb in summer and around the Palio. Separate entry charges for the cathedral and the civic museums add up over a visit. A simple osteria lunch or a base in the countryside helps.

Ljubljana has the fuller programme. It has a national opera and ballet company, the Slovenian Philharmonic with its roots in 1701, and a year-round mix of concerts and dance at Cankarjev dom. In summer the Ljubljana Festival brings orchestras to Plečnik's Križanke courtyard.

Siena's music is more specialised. It has summer concerts and masterclasses from the Accademia Chigiana in its palaces and churches, performances from the Siena Jazz school, and winter seasons at the Rinnovati and Rozzi theatres. For opera or a major orchestra you have to go to Florence.

Siena has the hot springs. Rapolano Terme's travertine pools are about half an hour away. Further south are the steaming medieval bath at Bagno Vignoni, the free limestone pools of Bagni San Filippo and Petriolo's sulphur river, and a farmhouse stay makes the most of all of them.

Ljubljana is the calmer city day to day, with its green, car-free centre and long café afternoons by the river. For proper bathing, though, you rely on a water park on the edge of town or Slovenia's spa towns about an hour's drive away.