Lugano or Milan?

Neither city has a coast, but Lugano lives on its lake. The lido at the mouth of the Cassarate and the bathing spots towards Castagnola and Paradiso are a short walk from town, and boats take you to small lake baths in the villages around the shore.

In Milan, swimming means the Idroscalo basin near Linate or a public pool, and a proper swim in Lake Como or Lake Maggiore is about an hour away by train. In Lugano a swim fits into an ordinary day. In Milan it is a separate outing.

Lugano's own contribution is the grotto, a country inn dug into the hillside or tucked into a lakeside village, where lunch is polenta, slow-cooked meat and local cheese eaten outdoors with a glass of Ticino Merlot. It is a memorable way to eat once or twice. Beyond the grotti and the pastry shops there is little to explore, with hardly any street food, few cheap tables and not much cooking from outside the region.

Milan gives you far more choice. Alongside its saffron risotto, ossobuco and cotoletta, it cooks the food of the whole country, from Neapolitan pizza to Sicilian pastry, and has a serious tier of fine dining. Aperitivo in Brera, Isola or along the Navigli makes the early evening almost a meal in itself, so you can eat well for a week without repeating yourself.

Milan has the great names: the Duomo and its rooftop terraces, Leonardo's Last Supper, the Pinacoteca di Brera and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà in the Castello Sforzesco, with Sant'Ambrogio and the Ambrosiana as well. These sights sit in clusters within a modern city, but there is enough for several days.

Lugano makes a pleasant day: the arcaded old town around Piazza della Riforma, the cathedral of San Lorenzo, Luini's Passion fresco and the art collection at the LAC. The Hermann Hesse museum in Montagnola is worth an extra half day in the hills.

After dark the difference is large. Milan goes from aperitivo to the canal-side bars of the Navigli and the more mixed streets of Isola and Porta Venezia, which is also the centre of the gay scene. Its clubs run from dressy places around Corso Como to warehouse nights on the edge of the city.

In Lugano an evening means an aperitivo by the lake and a long dinner, with a few wine bars and lounges. Most nights the town is quiet well before midnight, and young locals who want a night out take the train to Milan.

Lugano has its scenery on the doorstep. Steep wooded mountains drop into the lake, funiculars climb Monte Brè and San Salvatore from the edge of town, and the path to Gandria starts on the shore. The green water of the Verzasca and Maggia valleys is about an hour away.

Milan sits on the flat Po plain. For green space there are Parco Sempione and the canal towpaths, which lead out into the rice fields. The lakes and the Grigne ridges above Lecco are within reach, but every trip out starts with about an hour on the train.

Because Lugano sits on the border, its days out reach into two countries. Bellinzona's castles and Locarno on Lake Maggiore are a short train ride north, the arcaded village of Morcote is a boat trip away, Milan is just over an hour south and Lucerne is about two hours through the Gotthard. Como, Bergamo and the Borromean Islands work from either city.

Milan still reaches further, because it sits on Italy's high-speed lines. Verona and Turin are around an hour away and Bologna is not much more, while Mantua's Gonzaga palaces, Cremona's violin-making and Parma's food culture add further options. Closer in, the Certosa di Pavia and Vigevano's Renaissance square make easy short outings.

Small children who love being outdoors do well in Lugano. Boat trips, slides at the lidos, funicular rides, the playgrounds of Parco Ciani and the miniature Swiss landmarks at Melide fill the days easily, though the steep streets are hard work with a pushchair.

Older children and rainy days point towards Milan. The science and technology museum with its submarine and trains, the small aquarium by Parco Sempione and the theme parks of Leolandia and Gardaland are its draws, and the flat centre is easy going. Its humid summer heat is harder on little ones.

Both are easy without a car, in different ways. Lugano is a small, walkable town whose main difficulty is the slope. A funicular links the station to the old town, buses serve the hillsides, and lake boats and mountain railways do the rest.

Milan is larger and flat, so the metro and a dense tram network carry you between neighbourhoods, some of them in the old orange trams. The drawbacks are the summer heat underground and the long transfer from Malpensa.

Milan is one of the world's fashion capitals. Its shopping runs from the historic shops under the glass roof of the Galleria and La Rinascente beside the Duomo to furniture and lighting showrooms, vintage shops in Porta Ticinese and the antique markets along the Navigli.

Lugano's shopping is mostly Via Nassa, an arcaded street of watchmakers, jewellers and Italian fashion for a wealthy clientele, with delicatessens and wine shops in the lanes nearby. It is pleasant for browsing but has little depth.

Lugano charges Swiss prices for everything a visitor pays for: hotels, meals, wine, boats and mountain railways. Grotti, set lunches and the free regional transport that comes with most hotel stays soften this a little, but there is no budget way to base yourself in the town.

Milan is expensive by Italian standards, and hotels get very hard to find at fair rates during trade fairs and fashion weeks. Even so, it leaves you more room to save. Aperitivo snacks can stand in for supper, office-worker set lunches are good value, public transport is fairly priced and a room near a metro stop outside the centre makes a real difference.

Milan has La Scala, one of the world's great opera houses, with a season that opens each December on the feast of Sant'Ambrogio. It also has the Piccolo Teatro, a fine orchestra at the Auditorium, jazz clubs and big summer concerts at San Siro.

Lugano's stage is the LAC, with a concert hall known for its acoustics, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, and drama mostly in Italian. Its best time is summer, when Estival Jazz puts on free concerts in Piazza della Riforma just as Milan's opera and classical season goes quiet.

The real difference here is mood. Lugano relaxes you through its pace: coffee under the arcades, afternoons at a lido or in Parco Ciani, and grotto lunches that run into the evening. For spas there are the big lakeside hotels and an indoor pool complex near Rivera.

Milan is busier, but it has better facilities within the city. There is a well-known thermal spa complex south of the centre, and in summer you can swim in the 1930s open-air pools of the Bagni Misteriosi. When Milan's visitors want real calm they go to the lakes, which is where Lugano already is.