Lucca or Zurich?

Lucca gives you a real beach, even if you have to travel to it. Wide, gently shelving sands run along the Versilia coast from Viareggio to Forte dei Marmi, less than half an hour away by train, with warm summer sea and the wild dunes of the Lecciona for anyone avoiding the rows of umbrellas.

Zurich swims well but differently. You go in from lawns, wooden bathing houses and concrete decks on the lake, or float down the Limmat from the river baths, right in the middle of town. The water is clean, but there is no sand and the season is short, so it is a cool dip after sightseeing rather than a beach day.

The two are close for eating, but the style could hardly differ more. Lucca cooks plain, rustic provincial food: spelt soup, meat-filled tordelli, chestnut dishes in the colder months and cecina by the slice, in family trattorias at fair prices, though the menus repeat themselves after a few days.

Zurich is polished and wider in range, with veal in cream sauce and rösti in panelled guild-house dining rooms, international places around Langstrasse and outstanding chocolate. What it lacks is markets and street food, and every meal is expensive.

In Lucca the town itself is the sight: complete Renaissance walls, a medieval grid of towers and the carved Romanesque façades of San Michele and San Frediano, plus the oval piazza built into a Roman amphitheatre. Walking it is the whole pleasure, even if its museums are modest.

Zurich has the stronger museums, with the Kunsthaus, the Swiss National Museum and the Rietberg's world art, and a tidy old town with the Grossmünster and Chagall's windows in the Fraumünster. As a place to wander, though, it is less memorable than Lucca's walled centre.

Here Zurich is far ahead. Electronic music is part of the city's character, clubs in Kreis 4 and 5 and the old industrial halls of Zurich West run until morning at weekends, and in summer the bars move into the lake bathing houses.

Lucca's evenings are an aperitivo in Piazza San Michele, a long dinner and a walk on the walls, and the centre is calm by midnight. Anyone wanting to dance has to head to the Versilia coast in summer and find a way back late.

Zurich has the grander outdoors on its doorstep. The lake with snowy peaks at its far end, the forest trails of the Uetliberg a short train ride away, and high Alpine hiking or a day on the slopes at Rigi, Pilatus or Flumserberg within about an hour, all reachable without a car.

Lucca's landscape is gentler: the tree-lined ring of the walls, cycle paths along the Serchio and olive-covered hills. The marble peaks of the Apuan Alps and the chestnut woods of the Garfagnana are impressive, but they mostly need a car and suit spring and autumn more than the hot summer.

Both are excellent bases, and Lucca has the richer list. Pisa is half an hour away and Florence a little over an hour, with Pistoia, the formal gardens of the Lucca villas, Pietrasanta's sculpture studios and even the Cinque Terre or San Gimignano within reach.

Zurich's strength is the ease of it. Lucerne, Bern, Basel, St Gallen and the Rhine Falls are all around an hour away on punctual trains, whereas some of Lucca's villas and hill villages are much easier with a car.

Zurich is the easier city with children. The zoo with its Madagascar hall and elephant park, the shallow lidos with lawns, lake boats and the Technorama and Lucerne's transport museum give plenty to do, and the clean, orderly streets and buggy-friendly trams make it all simple.

Lucca is pleasant with children too, thanks to its flat, mostly car-free centre and family bikes on the walls, with Pinocchio Park and the beaches close by. Beyond those, its sights are mainly churches and palaces, which younger children tire of quickly.

Inside its walls Lucca is ideal on foot or by bike, and the station just outside links it to Pisa and Florence. Beyond the town, though, buses to villas and hill villages are sparse and a car becomes useful.

Zurich has no such gap. Trams, S-Bahn trains, funiculars and lake boats run on one ticket, the airport is minutes from the main station, and nobody needs a car for the city or for days out across the country.

Zurich is the stronger shopping city, built around Bahnhofstrasse with its watchmakers, jewellers and old department stores, plus design shops in the viaduct arches of Zurich West. The prices match the setting.

Lucca's Via Fillungo has fashion behind old Liberty shopfronts and delicatessens selling olive oil and buccellato, but it is small-town shopping. Its real draw is the monthly antiques market around the cathedral, one of the oldest in Italy.

Lucca is by far the cheaper of the two. Meals, trains and sights are fairly priced for central Italy, and accommodation, the main cost, is easier to manage outside the walls.

Zurich ranks among the most expensive cities in the world to visit, from hotel rooms to a casual lunch. The travel pass, supermarket picnics by the lake and the free lidos help, but a week in Zurich costs far more than a week in Lucca.

Zurich offers more serious stage life, with the Opernhaus on the lake shore for opera and ballet, the Tonhalle Orchestra, the Schauspielhaus for German-language theatre, and jazz and indie at the Rote Fabrik.

Lucca's music is about Puccini. Recitals of his arias run through most of the year, the Teatro del Giglio has its season, and in summer there is open-air opera beside the lake at Torre del Lago and big concerts in Piazza Napoleone. It is charming, but much narrower than Zurich.

Zurich edges ahead because you can soak without leaving town: a thermal bath in the stone vaults of an old brewery with a rooftop pool, and winter saunas in the wooden lake bathing houses with cold plunges between. Baden's Roman hot springs are twenty minutes away.

Lucca has no baths of its own, so its calm comes from car-free streets and slow evenings on the walls. For a proper soak you take a day out to the belle époque spas of Montecatini, the cave pools at Monsummano or the steam grottoes of Bagni di Lucca.