Lucca or Zagreb?

Lucca has a real beach within easy reach. The Versilia coast starts at Viareggio, a short train ride away, with wide sandy beaches that shelve gently. You can choose between rows of umbrellas at the beach clubs or the free dunes and pine woods of the Lecciona.

Zagreb's options are Lake Jarun and the smaller Bundek, with pebbly shores and lifeguards. They are pleasant on a hot afternoon, but the sea is a two-hour drive away. Anyone who wants the Adriatic will need to plan a separate stay on the coast.

The two cities are about level on food, and both are plain and filling rather than refined. Lucca serves rustic Tuscan dishes in trattorias inside the walls: spelt soup, meat-filled tordelli, cecina from bakery counters and mild local olive oil, with Colline Lucchesi wines to drink.

Zagreb's cooking faces Central Europe: baked štrukli, turkey with mlinci, Zagorje sausages. Its centre of gravity is Dolac market and the café terraces rather than the dinner table. Neither city offers much international range, but Zagreb's coffee culture gives the day a more social rhythm.

Lucca has the stronger set of sights, and the town itself is the main one. You get complete Renaissance walls, the tiered marble arcades of San Michele in Foro, San Frediano's gold mosaic, and Ilaria del Carretto's tomb in the cathedral, all in a medieval street grid that is easy to read.

Zagreb's heritage is more spread out and more recent. The hilltop Upper Town has St Mark's tiled roof and the Stone Gate, and below it the Austro-Hungarian Lower Town is set around a chain of parks. Its museums cover more ground than Lucca's, from naive art to the Museum of Broken Relationships, and Mirogoj cemetery is a highlight. Still, it has nothing as striking as Lucca's churches.

Zagreb is the place for a night out. Tkalčićeva's terraces stay full on warm evenings, smaller cocktail and craft beer bars fill the courtyards around Flower Square, and in summer the lakeside clubs at Jarun take over. Students keep alternative venues going all year.

Lucca's evenings are an aperitivo in a piazza, a long dinner and a walk along Via Fillungo, and the centre is quiet by midnight. To dance in summer you have to drive or take a taxi to the Versilia coast.

Both cities have green country close by, but Lucca's is more varied. The marble peaks of the Apuan Alps rise within about an hour and offer serious hiking. Add the chestnut woods of the Garfagnana and the reed beds of Lake Massaciuccoli, which are good for birdwatching, and Lucca covers more kinds of landscape.

Zagreb's strength is access. A tram and a short bus ride take you to the beech forests and mountain huts of Medvednica, and Maksimir park is in the city. The countryside beyond is gentle hills, and Plitvice's lakes are a long day's drive away.

This is where Lucca pulls furthest ahead. Pisa is half an hour away by train and Florence just over an hour, and the same line serves Pistoia and Montecatini. Closer to town are the villa gardens at Marlia and Collodi, and up the coast are Pietrasanta's sculpture studios and the Carrara quarries.

Zagreb's excursions are pleasant but quieter: Trakošćan castle and the Zagorje hills, Varaždin's baroque centre, and Samobor's cream cake. Ljubljana is just possible as a long day out. None of these matches the pull of Pisa or Florence.

For families the two are about level, but in different ways. Lucca's appeal is its small, flat, mostly car-free centre: riding a family quadricycle around the walls is the classic outing, and Pinocchio Park and the beach are both close.

Zagreb has more for children to visit inside the city. There is the zoo in Maksimir, the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum with its trams and mock mine, the funicular, and the lakes to swim in during summer. Big trams that take pushchairs make moving between them easy.

Both are easy, in different ways. Lucca is a town for walking and cycling: inside the walls it is flat and mostly closed to traffic, with bike rental at every gate and the station just outside. The villas and hill villages, though, are much easier to reach by car.

Zagreb is a proper city with a dense blue tram network, a funicular up to the Upper Town and buses to Medvednica. You need to allow for steep cobbles at the top and slower trams at rush hour.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and the two are about level. Lucca has more character: the old Liberty shopfronts along Via Fillungo, delicatessens selling farro and olive oil, and a monthly antiques market around the cathedral, one of the oldest in Italy.

Zagreb offers more ordinary shopping, with chain stores on Ilica and malls on the edge of town. Its best souvenirs are painted licitar hearts, neckties and lace, and there is a Sunday flea market at Britanski trg.

Zagreb is clearly easier on the wallet. Central apartments, tram fares, museum entry and market food are all reasonably priced, and a coffee on a terrace counts as an everyday habit, not a treat.

Lucca is cheaper than Florence but still costs what you would expect in central Italy. There are few hotels inside the walls and they fill up in summer, so staying outside the walls often saves money.

Lucca's music belongs to one composer, while Zagreb's is the season of a capital. Puccini was born in Lucca, and for most of the year short recitals of his arias are held in a church in the centre. The Teatro del Giglio has its own season, and in summer there is open-air opera by the lake at Torre del Lago, plus big outdoor concerts in Piazza Napoleone.

Zagreb's calendar is wider but less focused. The Croatian National Theatre stages opera and ballet, the Lisinski hall is home to the Philharmonic, and there are jazz and rock clubs. Much of the spoken theatre, though, is in Croatian.

Lucca makes the better base for a spa day. By train, Montecatini's grand belle époque spa buildings are about half an hour away, as is the warm cave at Monsummano. Bagni di Lucca's steam grottoes in the Serchio valley take under an hour by road. In town, the car-free streets and shaded walls make the pace slow enough to relax.

Zagreb's spa options in town are mostly hotel wellness floors. The thermal resorts of Zagorje, such as Tuheljske and Stubičke Toplice, are about an hour away. Here, relaxing mostly means long café mornings and quiet lanes in the Upper Town.