Lucca or Rome?

Neither city is on the sea, and from both the beach is about half an hour away by train, so either way it is a half-day add-on. From Lucca you reach the Versilia coast: long, wide sandy beaches that shelve gently, mostly laid out in tidy rows of umbrellas, with the pine-backed dunes of the Lecciona if you want something wilder.

Rome's beach at Ostia has dark volcanic sand and water that is rarely clear, and Fregene is a little more relaxed. For prettier coves at Sperlonga or Sabaudia you need a full day out.

Rome eats far better and with much more range. It has the four classic pastas, artichokes fried the Jewish way in the Ghetto, Testaccio's offal dishes and serious street food in supplì and pizza al taglio, and Trastevere and Monti are full of trattorias worth the walk.

Lucca's cooking is honest and rustic: farro soup, tordelli, cecina and buccellato, with good olive oil and local wine. It is reliable, which helps when Rome's menus near the big sights need avoiding, but the dishes start to repeat after a few days.

This is the widest gap between the two. Rome has the Colosseum, the Forum and the Pantheon, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, the Borghese Gallery and Caravaggios above side altars, enough for a week with plenty left over.

Lucca is a fine walled town, complete and well kept. Its carved Romanesque façades at San Michele and San Frediano, Ilaria del Carretto's tomb in the cathedral and the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro reward a slow look. Still, two days cover the essentials, and its museums are modest.

Rome has real evenings out. You can drink in Trastevere's crowded lanes of wine bars, the small cocktail bars of Monti, student San Lorenzo or arty Pigneto, and there is some clubbing in Testaccio and Ostiense. Lucca winds down with an aperitivo in Piazza San Michele, a long dinner and a stroll on the walls, and it is quiet by midnight. If you want to dance there, it means the Versilia beach clubs in summer and a late drive back.

Lucca has the stronger landscape close by. The Apuan Alps, with their marble quarries and sharp limestone peaks, are about an hour away. The Garfagnana and the Orecchiella park offer chestnut and beech woods, and Lake Massaciuccoli has reed beds and birdlife. In town, the walls form a 4km tree-lined ring for running and cycling.

Rome's green spaces are gentler and more urban: the villa parks, the Appian Way ride past tombs and aqueducts, and the crater lakes of the Alban Hills. Its real mountains, the Simbruini and the Abruzzo peaks, are around ninety minutes away or more.

Both cities are excellent bases, so the choice comes down to what you want to see. From Lucca you cover Tuscany: Pisa in half an hour, Florence in a little over an hour, the villa gardens at Marlia and Collodi, the marble towns of Pietrasanta and Carrara, and the Cinque Terre if you start early.

Rome's day trips lean towards antiquity and the Etruscans. Ostia Antica, Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este at Tivoli are close, with the painted tombs of Tarquinia, Orvieto and Civita di Bagnoregio further out. Fast trains also put Florence and Naples within reach.

Lucca is the easier of the two with children, mainly because it is small, flat and largely car-free. Riding the walls on a family quadricycle, climbing the Torre Guinigi and a short trip to Pinocchio Park at Collodi or the beach fill the days well. Rome has more to fire young imaginations, with gladiators, catacombs and the Bioparco in Villa Borghese, but the queues, heat, cobbles and traffic make sightseeing tiring.

Lucca is much simpler. The centre is compact, flat and closed to most traffic, there are bikes for rent at every gate, and the station sits just outside the walls with trains to the coast and Florence. Only the villas and the Garfagnana villages really need a car.

Rome's centre is also best seen on foot, but the distances are longer, the cobbles and scooters wear you down, and the metro barely reaches the historic core. That leaves buses and trams, which get stuck in traffic.

Rome is the place to shop. The big Italian fashion houses line Via Condotti and the streets around the Spanish Steps, Monti has independent and vintage boutiques, Via dei Coronari has antique dealers, and Porta Portese holds its huge flea market on Sundays. Lucca has Via Fillungo's fashion and jewellery shops behind old Liberty-style fronts, good delicatessens and a historic monthly antiques market. It is pleasant, but it has nothing like Rome's depth.

Neither city is cheap, but Lucca is easier on the budget. Its rooms cost less than those in Rome's historic centre, although they fill up in summer and at festival time, so staying just outside the walls is often the better deal.

Rome's headline sights charge substantial entry fees, while Lucca's walls and many of its churches are free and its paid sights are modest. Everyday eating is fair value in both.

Rome offers more, and on a grander stage. There is opera and ballet at the Teatro dell'Opera, summer opera among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, the Santa Cecilia orchestra at the Auditorium Parco della Musica and a long-running jazz club scene.

Lucca's music centres on Puccini. Short recitals of his arias run in a church for most of the year, and the Teatro del Giglio has its own opera season. In summer the Puccini Festival stages open-air opera by the lake at Torre del Lago, and in July big outdoor concerts fill Piazza Napoleone.

Lucca is the more restful place to stay. Its streets are quiet and largely free of traffic, and an evening on the shaded walls is calm in a way Rome's centre, full of scooters, rarely is. It also has better spa days within reach: the belle époque baths at Montecatini, the cave pools of Monsummano and the steam grottoes of Bagni di Lucca.

In Rome, the options are hotel spas, a few hammam-style day spas and the sulphur pools at Bagni di Tivoli. Quiet is found mainly in the villa gardens and on the Aventine.