Ljubljana or Venice?

Venice has the edge simply because the Lido is a short boat ride away, with long stretches of fine sand and shallow, warm water that suit children, even if it is greenish and lined with cabanas. Ljubljana has no sea at all. Swimming there means the Sava, Lake Bled or the colder, clearer Bohinj.

Ljubljana's nearest coast, at Piran and Izola, is about an hour and a half away and offers mostly concrete and pebbles. Neither city is a beach destination, but in Venice a beach afternoon fits easily into a sightseeing day.

The two are close, with Venice slightly ahead, but they eat in very different ways. Venice is at its best standing at a bacaro counter with cicchetti and a spritz, or over lagoon seafood such as cuttlefish risotto. It also has a long trail of mediocre tourist restaurants around San Marco to avoid.

Ljubljana is heartier and more inland: Carniolan sausage, štruklji and jota at gostilna inns, Alpine cheeses at the Central Market, and a strong wine list from Vipava and Brda, including orange wines. It is more reliable than Venice but narrower, and a week exhausts it.

This is where Venice pulls far ahead. The whole city is a monument, from the Basilica and Doge's Palace to the palazzi of the Grand Canal, and its art runs from Titian in the Frari to the Guggenheim and the Biennale. Even its small parish churches hold masterpieces.

Ljubljana's appeal is a single coherent cityscape: Plečnik's bridges, colonnades and library, a baroque and Secession old town and the castle on its hill. It is charming to walk, but its museums are modest, and it fills two or three days where Venice could fill a fortnight.

Neither is a party city, but Ljubljana keeps going later. Students fill the terraces along both banks of the Ljubljanica, and Metelkova's scruffy clubs run into the small hours at weekends. Venice peaks at aperitivo time on the Fondamenta della Misericordia and Campo Santa Margherita, then falls quiet around midnight. Its compensation is a silent late walk along dark canals.

Ljubljana wins easily. Forested hills start at Tivoli Park, locals climb Šmarna Gora before work, and the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, with the herders' huts on Velika Planina, are about 40 minutes away. The Julian Alps, Triglav National Park and the Vintgar gorge are about an hour out and the Postojna and Škocjan caves lie in the karst to the south-west. Rafting on the Soča is further west, a drive of closer to two hours.

In Venice the outdoors means the lagoon: herons and flamingos around Torcello, kayaking or Venetian rowing, and flat cycling along the Pellestrina sea walls. The Euganean and Prosecco hills offer gentle walks, but real mountains are more than two hours away.

Both are excellent bases, and Venice is slightly the richer. Fast trains reach Padua in half an hour and Verona and Vicenza soon after, and Murano, Burano and Torcello make a day out without leaving the lagoon.

Ljubljana's trips are more about landscape and small towns: Bled, Škofja Loka, Predjama Castle built into its cliff and the mining town of Idrija, with Piran, Trieste and Zagreb as further options. A car helps more here, since Slovenia's trains are slow.

Ljubljana is the easier choice with small children. Its flat, car-free centre works with pushchairs, Tivoli Park has playgrounds, and the castle funicular, the Dragon Bridge and the puppet theatre all appeal to young children. It runs out of attractions within a few days, though.

Venice thrills children with boats and glass-blowing on Murano, and the Lido is a gentle beach. In practice, stepped bridges, summer crowds, heat and a lack of parks make it better suited to a short stay with older children.

Both are walking cities, and Ljubljana is the simpler of the two. Everything in its pedestrianised centre is about 20 minutes apart on flat ground, with bike-share and electric shuttles if needed.

Venice is also car-free, but its alleys twist and dead-end at canals, and its many stepped bridges are hard work with luggage. The vaporetto adds slow but scenic travel along the Grand Canal and out to the islands, which Ljubljana's buses cannot rival.

Venice offers much more to shop for. Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers come from real workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello, and the big fashion names line Calle Larga XXII Marzo. You need an eye for the imported fakes on the main routes.

Ljubljana is small-scale: honey, pumpkin-seed oil and coastal salt from the market, Idrija lace, gingerbread hearts, a Sunday flea market on the embankment and a few boutiques on Trubarjeva.

Ljubljana is much the cheaper stay. Inns serve set lunch menus, local wine is fairly priced, sights cost little and you will barely spend on transport. Its old-town hotels do get expensive in July and August.

Venice is among the dearest places to sleep in Italy, and water buses, café tables on the piazza and church entries all add up. Cicchetti at the bar, a room in a quieter sestiere or in Mestre, and a winter visit soften the cost.

Venice has the bigger name in La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini premiered works and which runs a full season of opera, ballet and concerts. The Biennale festivals and Vivaldi concerts in churches add to that, though many of those concerts are routine.

Ljubljana's offer is solid for its size: the Philharmonic, the National Opera and Ballet, Cankarjev dom, and the summer festival in Plečnik's Križanke courtyard. It also has more rock, jazz and alternative music, much of it at Metelkova.

The two are level, and in both cases calm comes from the city's pace rather than its spas. Ljubljana's quiet streets and riverside cafés sit within about an hour of Slovenia's many thermal spa towns. Venice relies on palazzo hotel spas and on Abano Terme's hot mud near Padua, and its stillness depends on staying in Castello, Cannaregio or Giudecca, away from the crowds at San Marco.