Lucca or Lucerne?

Lucca has a real sea beach. The Versilia coast, from Viareggio up to Forte dei Marmi, offers wide, gently shelving sand, warm water through summer and wilder dunes at the Lecciona, all reachable as an easy afternoon trip.

Lucerne's swimming is a lake affair, from the Lido, the wooden lake baths and the lawns at Ufschötti. The water is clean, but it is cooler, there is no sand, and the season lasts barely two months.

Lucca eats noticeably better. Spelt soup, tordelli in ragù, chestnut dishes, cecina from the bakery and the local olive oil and wines give it a distinct provincial cuisine, served in fairly priced family trattorias.

Lucerne's tables offer Chügelipastete, fondue, rösti and lake perch. The quality is good, but the menus are narrow and expensive, and many of them are aimed at tour groups near the Chapel Bridge. Neither city has much range, but Lucca's limited choices are a great deal more rewarding.

Lucca has a little more depth. The entire walled town is the sight, with complete Renaissance ramparts, the carved façade of San Michele, San Frediano's mosaic, the cathedral with Ilaria del Carretto's tomb and the oval amphitheatre piazza.

Lucerne has fewer landmarks, but they are iconic: the Chapel Bridge, the Musegg towers and the Lion Monument. Its strongest single collection is the Rosengart, with its Picasso and Klee. In both cities, two days is enough to see the main sights.

Neither city is for a big night out, but Lucerne has a bit more going on after dark. It has cocktail bars and a small club scene in the Neustadt, student weekends, and the whole town stays up until dawn at Fasnacht.

Lucca's evenings are an aperitivo in Piazza San Michele, a long dinner and a stroll on the walls, and most streets are quiet by midnight. In summer, anyone who wants to dance has to go to the Versilia beach clubs and arrange a late ride back.

Lucerne's landscape is in a different league. A branching lake surrounded by peaks, cogwheel trains up Pilatus and Rigi, glacier snow on Titlis and steamers between trailheads make hiking simple and spectacular, and winter adds skiing.

Lucca's countryside is gentler: olive groves, villa gardens and the 4km ring of the walls for cycling. The marble peaks of the Apuan Alps and the Garfagnana chestnut woods are within an hour, but they are more work to reach.

Lucca is the stronger base. Pisa is about half an hour away by train, and Florence just over an hour. Pistoia, the Lucchese villas, Pietrasanta's sculpture studios and the Versilia coast are all within easy reach, and the Cinque Terre and San Gimignano are possible with an early start.

Lucerne offers fine outings too: Bern, Basel and Zurich are each under an hour away, and boats run to the Rütli meadow and the William Tell country. Even so, Tuscany packs more famous destinations into less travel.

Lucerne is a little better with children. The Swiss Museum of Transport can fill a whole day, and steamers, cogwheel trains and the summer toboggan run on Pilatus turn getting around into the fun part. Expect those trips to depend on the weather and to add up in cost.

Lucca's main draws for children are cycling the walls on a family quadricycle, Pinocchio Park at Collodi and the nearby beaches. Beyond those, most of what there is to see is churches and palaces.

Both centres are flat and walkable, but Lucerne's transport extends all the way into the scenery. Station, boat piers and Old Town are all side by side, and integrated tickets cover steamers, mountain railways and cable cars, so a car is never needed.

Inside its walls, Lucca is excellent on foot or by bike, and trains run frequently to Pisa and Florence. Buses to the villas and hill villages are sparse, though, so a car helps for days out into the countryside.

The two are about equal, but they shop for different things. Lucerne is all about Swiss watches and jewellery on Schwanenplatz, plus chocolate and army knives. Lucca offers fashion behind old Liberty-style shopfronts on Via Fillungo, delicatessens and one of Italy's oldest monthly antiques markets. Neither has much depth in fashion or design.

Lucca is far easier on the budget, though it is priced like central Italy rather than a bargain: noticeably cheaper than Florence, with modest entry charges at the sights that charge at all. Most of the bill is the room. There are few hotels inside the walls, and they fill up in summer and around the big festivals, so a B&B just outside one of the gates, a short walk or bike ride from the centre, usually gives better value.

In Lucerne, costs pile up over the day. A central hotel is a heavy expense before you have left the room, especially in summer or during the music festival, and each mountain excursion adds its own steep fare on top. A Swiss travel pass takes the edge off by covering the lake boats and some of the trips. Even a carefully planned stay still costs far more than the same number of days in Lucca.

Lucerne has the more distinguished classical stage. The Lucerne Festival brings leading orchestras to Jean Nouvel's lakefront hall, famous for its acoustics, which also has a year-round programme and its own symphony orchestra.

Lucca's music is centred on Puccini: short recitals of his arias in a central church through most of the year, the Teatro del Giglio's opera season, and open-air opera by the lake at Torre del Lago in summer. In July, Piazza Napoleone hosts big outdoor concerts.

Neither city has baths of its own, so the difference is where you go to soak. From Lucca, the train reaches the belle époque spas of Montecatini in half an hour, and the cave pools of Monsummano and the steam grottoes of Bagni di Lucca are close by. From Lucerne, the choice is hotel spas or a trip by boat and cogwheel train to Mario Botta's mineral bath on the Rigi, with its mountain view.

The calm differs in kind too. In Lucca it comes from car-free streets, long lunches and an evening walk on the shaded walls. In Lucerne it comes from lakeside promenades, slow steamer afternoons and the wooden lake baths in summer.