Lucerne or Venice?

Venice has an actual beach: the Lido's kilometres of fine sand on the open Adriatic, with shallow water that is warm enough for paddling children in high summer, and quieter Pellestrina beyond it. The sea is greenish rather than clear, and few people give it more than an afternoon.

Lucerne's swimming is lake swimming, from lawns, jetties and old wooden bathhouses rather than sand. The water is cleaner and calmer, with mountain views, but it is cooler and only really swimmable in July and August.

Venice eats far better. A round of cicchetti and wine at the counter of a Rialto or Cannaregio bacaro, then cuttlefish risotto or bigoli in salsa, is cooking with a real sense of place, supplied by the Rialto market. You do have to steer away from the picture-menu places around San Marco.

Lucerne's table is hearty Swiss fare: Chügelipastete, fondue, rösti and lake perch in panelled guild houses. It is well made but narrow, and a terrace coffee by the Reuss is often more memorable than dinner.

These two are not close. In Venice the whole city is the monument: the Basilica and Doge's Palace, Gothic palazzi along the Grand Canal, and great paintings in small parish churches as well as in the Accademia, the Frari and San Rocco. Modern art at the Guggenheim and Punta della Dogana adds a further layer.

Lucerne has a handful of famous images, the Chapel Bridge, the Water Tower and the Lion Monument, plus a fine Picasso and Klee collection at the Rosengart. They are well worth seeing, but they take a day or two, where Venice takes a week.

Neither city is for a big night out, and both go quiet around midnight. The difference is in the timing. Venice's best hour comes early, at aperitivo with a spritz on the Fondamenta della Misericordia, and Campo Santa Margherita keeps a student crowd out a little later.

Lucerne leans on wine bars by the river and a small cluster of cocktail bars and clubs near the station on weekends. Its one exception is Fasnacht, when the whole town stays out in costume until dawn.

Lucerne is one of the best bases in Europe for mountain scenery. Pilatus and Rigi rise straight from the lake, Titlis has glacier snow all year, and a single day can join a paddle steamer, a cogwheel railway and a ridge walk. The only catch is low cloud, which can hide the views for days.

Venice's nature is flat and watery: salt marshes around Torcello with herons and flamingos, kayaking or rowing on the lagoon, and cycling along the Pellestrina sea walls. Real hills are an hour away, and the Dolomites are more than two.

Both are well placed, but Venice has the richer choice of towns close by. Padua's Scrovegni Chapel is half an hour away, Verona and Palladio's Vicenza are an easy train ride, and Murano, Burano and Torcello make a lagoon day without any train at all.

Lucerne's strength is Switzerland's dense rail network: Bern, Basel and Zurich are each under an hour away, and the lake steamer to the Rütli meadow and Altdorf follows the William Tell story. The trips are scenic, but the towns are fewer and less varied than the Veneto's.

Lucerne is the easier city with children. The Swiss Museum of Transport fills a whole day, the Glacier Garden and Goldau wildlife park add more, and the flat riverside centre and lakeside lawns make pushchairs and picnics simple. Wet days can run short of ideas, though, and the mountain trips cost a lot.

Venice delights children in theory, with boats for buses and no cars, plus glass-blowing on Murano and a sandy beach. In practice, the stepped bridges, packed summer routes and lack of parks make it hard work, especially with small children.

Lucerne's station, boat piers and Old Town all sit together on the lakefront, and one integrated ticket system carries you onwards by steamer, train and cable car into the mountains. Most sights are a short, level walk apart.

Venice is all walking and water. It is car-free and compact, but its maze of alleys gets everyone lost, hundreds of stepped bridges punish wheeled luggage, and the vaporetti along the Grand Canal are slow and crowded. It is charming, but it takes far more effort.

Venice offers more, and it is mostly made locally: Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and velvet furlane slippers from workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello. The fashion houses line Calle Larga XXII Marzo. The catch is the imported glass and masks sold as local along the main routes.

Lucerne's shopping is dominated by watches, with large houses on Schwanenplatz aimed at tour groups, alongside army knives, chocolate and cuckoo clocks. Away from that trade there is little fashion or design.

Neither is a cheap trip, but Lucerne is the harder one on a budget. Meals, hotels and especially the mountain railways and cable cars that make the stay worthwhile all come at Swiss prices, and supermarket picnics only go so far.

Venice gives you more ways to cut costs. You can eat cicchetti standing at the bar, sleep in Mestre or a quiet sestiere, and come in late autumn or winter. The historic centre is still expensive, and water transport and church entry add up.

Both are serious classical music cities. Lucerne's peak is the late-summer Lucerne Festival, when the world's top orchestras play in Jean Nouvel's lakefront hall, famous for its acoustics. Outside those weeks its programme is modest.

Venice has La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini premiered works, and it runs a full opera and ballet season all year. Nearly every evening there are Vivaldi concerts in churches, ranging from excellent to routine. Opera lovers lean towards Venice, orchestral fans towards Lucerne in festival time.

Neither has its own bathing tradition, so spa time in both means hotel spas. Lucerne edges ahead on calm: quiet evenings, unhurried steamer trips and Mario Botta's mineral bath high on the Rigi, with its mountain view.

Venice's restful side is its traffic-free hush early and late, in Castello, Cannaregio and on Giudecca. Real thermal pools are an hour away at Abano Terme. The daytime crowds around San Marco are much harder to escape than Lucerne's midday tour groups.