Lucerne or Trieste?

Neither city has a sandy beach, but only Trieste has the sea. You swim from the stepped concrete platforms at Barcola or the pebble coves below the cliffs at Sistiana and Duino, in clear Adriatic water. The swimming season runs from June to September, and Piran across the Slovenian border makes a change of scene.

Lucerne's lake bathing at the Lido, the old wooden baths and the lawns of Ufschötti is clean and framed by mountains. But it is limited to July and August and works as a break between excursions rather than a reason to come.

Trieste is much the better place to eat. Its buffet counters carve boiled pork and sausages with horseradish and sauerkraut, and menus mix jota, fried or marinated sardoni and presnitz. On top of that come a coffee culture with its own vocabulary and the farmhouse osmize on the Karst, where you drink Vitovska and Terrano at the source.

Lucerne serves Chügelipastete, fondue, rösti and lake perch in wood-panelled guild houses. It is good, but narrow and expensive, and the restaurants around the Chapel Bridge are geared to coach tours. Neither city is a fine-dining destination, but only Trieste has a food culture worth travelling for.

Trieste has a little more to see and more history behind it. Piazza Unità opens onto the sea, the Borgo Teresiano runs along the Canal Grande past San Spiridione, and San Giusto hill holds the cathedral, the castle and a Roman theatre below. Then add Miramare Castle, the great synagogue, the Revoltella museum and the Risiera di San Sabba memorial.

Lucerne's sights are fewer but iconic: the Chapel Bridge and Water Tower, the climbable towers of the Musegg Wall, the Lion Monument and the Picasso and Klee works at the Rosengart. You can see them in a day or two, whereas Trieste's past as an imperial port fills a longer stay.

Both cities go quiet by midnight, and neither suits a clubbing trip. The difference is in the setting. In Trieste, evenings mean spritz and local white wine around Piazza Unità and the Canal Grande, and on summer nights people move to the kiosks along the Barcola seafront. Lucerne offers riverside pubs and wine bars, with a few cocktail bars and a small club scene near the station. Its one big night is Fasnacht, when the whole town stays out in costume until dawn.

Lucerne wins on scenery by a wide margin. Pilatus and Rigi rise straight from the lake, the Stanserhorn has its open-top cable car, and the Titlis glacier is about an hour away. Paddle steamers connect it all for hiking in summer, and winter adds skiing and sledging.

Trieste's outdoors is coast and limestone. There is the Strada Napoleonica high above the gulf, the Rilke Path near Duino, the Val Rosandra gorge and the vast Grotta Gigante. Sailing and snorkelling in the Miramare marine reserve add a sea side that Lucerne lacks, but for real mountains you have to travel on to the Julian Alps.

Both are excellent bases, in different ways. Lucerne's trips are Swiss and easy by train. Bern, Basel and Zurich are each under an hour away, and the lake itself is an outing, with boats to the Rütli meadow and Altdorf, the heart of the William Tell story.

From Trieste you can reach three countries. There are Aquileia's mosaics, Cividale and star-shaped Palmanova in Friuli, Piran and Ljubljana in Slovenia, Istria by car, and Venice about two hours away by train. Lucerne's outings run more smoothly by rail, while Trieste's offer more variety in language and history, though some need a car.

Lucerne is the easier choice with children, mainly because of the Swiss Museum of Transport, which fills a whole day. Cogwheel trains, paddle steamers and the summer toboggan run on Pilatus add to it, and the flat, safe centre and lakeside lawns make the days easy. Rainy spells and the cost of excursions are the weak points.

Trieste is calm and safe but offers less for children: the Grotta Gigante, the Miramare gardens, a small aquarium and a science centre. Swimming from rocks and the steep, stepped streets make it harder with toddlers, and older children will get more out of it.

Lucerne is about as simple as a city gets. The station, the boat piers and the Old Town sit together on the lakefront. One integrated ticket system takes you by steamer, train, cogwheel railway and cable car into the mountains with no car needed.

Trieste's seafront centre is just as flat and walkable, but San Giusto and the districts behind it mean long flights of steps. Buses and passenger boats cover the coast and the Karst. For the wine country, the Karst villages and trips across the border, a car helps.

Lucerne has the stronger shopping, but almost entirely in one area: the watch and jewellery houses on Schwanenplatz and the lakefront, along with army knives and chocolate. For clothes or design, there is little.

Trieste has ordinary Italian clothing shops around Corso Italia and no luxury scene. It is more fun for browsing, though, thanks to the antique and second-hand shops in the old town lanes. The best things to take home are coffee from local roasters, Karst wine and presnitz.

The gap here is wide. In Lucerne the hotel room is only the start: rates climb further in summer and during the festival weeks, and even a plain lunch in the Old Town is dear by international standards. The real cost is the mountains. A Swiss travel pass covers the lake steamers and some excursions but not every summit ride, so a stay built around Pilatus, Rigi and Titlis adds up fast.

Trieste is fairly priced rather than cheap, and much gentler on the wallet than Venice or Florence. Rooms are reasonable for most of the year and only tighten in high summer and around the Barcolana regatta in autumn, so spring and the weeks either side of the regatta give the best value. Here the money goes on the table rather than the journeys, since a seafood dinner or a smarter hotel costs what it would in any Italian city.

Lucerne is the place for classical music. In late summer the Lucerne Festival brings leading orchestras to Jean Nouvel's lakefront concert hall, which is famous for its acoustics, and the hall and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra keep a programme going all year.

Trieste's strength is opera. The Teatro Verdi on the waterfront runs a full season with a rare Habsburg-era love of operetta. The Politeama Rossetti, a Slovenian-language theatre and summer concerts in the San Giusto castle courtyard add to it. In both cities, live music in bars on an ordinary weeknight is scarce.

Neither city has thermal baths of its own, so in both you are mostly left with hotel spas. Lucerne has a slight edge thanks to the Mario Botta mineral bath high on the Rigi, reached by boat and cogwheel train, with a mountain view. A slow steamer afternoon is restful too, though the Old Town fills with tour groups at midday.

In Trieste the calm comes from its pace: long sittings over a newspaper in the old coffee houses and a sunset walk along the Molo Audace pier.