Milan or Pula?

Here the gap is wide. Milan is landlocked, so a swim means the Idroscalo basin, a city pool, or a train of about an hour to the pebbly lidos of Lake Como or Lake Maggiore. It is an occasional outing.

Pula has the sea on its doorstep. The water is very clear off the rocks, platforms and pine-shaded coves of the Verudela and Stoja peninsulas, and Cape Kamenjak's wild inlets are about 10km south. There is no sand, so bring water shoes, and families with small children do best in the shallow bays of Medulin.

Milan eats better and more widely. Alongside saffron risotto, ossobuco and cotoletta, it serves cooking from every Italian region and has serious fine dining. Aperitivo in Brera, Isola and along the Navigli can be a meal in itself.

Pula's kitchen is narrower but distinctive: Istrian pasta with truffle, scampi buzara, pršut and local Malvazija. The choice in town is limited and the tables by the Arena lean towards tourist menus, so the best meals usually mean driving out to village konobas or coastal harbours.

Milan's heritage is richer and more varied. There is the Gothic Duomo with its rooftop terraces, Leonardo's Last Supper, the Brera paintings, the Rondanini Pietà in the Castello Sforzesco, and Sant'Ambrogio and the Ambrosiana besides. That is several days of sightseeing, even though it comes in clusters within a modern city.

Pula's story is mainly Roman. It has an Arena whose outer ring stands complete, the Temple of Augustus on the Forum and the Arch of the Sergii, with a Venetian fortress and Habsburg naval forts on top. It is remarkable, but you can cover it in a day or two.

Milan offers a proper night out. There are canal-side bars along the Navigli, a gay scene centred on Porta Venezia, dressy clubs around Corso Como and warehouse nights on the edges of the city, although it all thins out in August.

Pula is a low-key, summer-only affair: terrace drinks around the Forum, then cocktail and beach bars on Verudela and in Medulin. Out of season, most nights end early.

Both have good outdoors within reach, but of different kinds. The land around Milan is flat and hazy, so the rewards lie about an hour north by train. There you find Lake Como and Lake Maggiore with ferries and sailing, the Grigne ridges for hiking and via ferrata, and ski slopes in winter, which take a long day out.

Pula's outdoors is coastal and close at hand. The car-free Kamenjak headland has cliffs, wild flowers and dinosaur footprints, and you can go sea kayaking, windsurf at Premantura or dive on naval-era wrecks. Its nearest mountains, the Učka range, are further off, and summer heat pushes walking into spring and autumn.

Milan is one of the finest bases in Italy. Fast trains reach Verona, Turin, Bergamo and Lake Como in about an hour, and the Certosa di Pavia, Mantua, Parma and Lugano are also within range, none of them needing a car.

Pula has a good circuit of its own: Rovinj, the Byzantine mosaics of Poreč, the hill towns of Motovun and Hum, and the Brijuni islands. What differs is reach and ease, because buses are infrequent and most of these trips work best with a hire car.

Neither is built around children, and they suit different kinds of family trip. Milan works as a city break with older children: the science and technology museum with its submarine, the playgrounds of Parco Sempione, easy trams, and Gardaland or Leolandia for a day out.

Pula is a seaside vacation. There are shallow bays at Medulin and Premantura, the aquarium inside an old fort, the Arena's underground passages to explore and the animals on Brijuni. Rocky shores and the need for a car add some effort.

Milan is much easier to get around. Its flat centre is walkable, and five clear metro lines and a dense tram network cover the rest. Direct trains run out to the lakes and nearby towns, and the main nuisances are stuffy summer platforms and the long trip from Malpensa.

Pula's centre is just as easy on foot, and city buses reach Verudela. Beyond the city, though, the slow railway and infrequent regional buses make a car or scooter close to essential.

Milan is a reason to travel in its own right. You have the great Italian fashion houses in the Quadrilatero, historic shops under the Galleria's glass roof, design showrooms, Brera boutiques and antique markets along the Navigli.

Pula has a pedestrian street of chain stores and souvenir shops, and nothing in luxury or design. Its best buys are edible: olive oil, truffle products, wine and pršut from the market hall or straight from producers.

Pula is the cheaper of the two, especially in spring and autumn, when private apartments and simple konobas keep costs down. July and August narrow the gap, and car hire and boat trips add up quickly.

Milan is Italy's most expensive city, and hotel rates climb further during trade fairs and fashion weeks. Aperitivo snacks, lunchtime menus for office workers and a room near an outer metro stop all help.

Milan is one of Europe's great stages. La Scala's season of opera, ballet and concerts opens each December, and around it are the Piccolo Teatro, a fine symphony orchestra, jazz rooms and big summer concerts at San Siro.

Pula has one memorable setting: the Arena on summer nights, when it hosts touring concerts and the film festival screenings. For the rest of the year there is little beyond Croatian-language drama at the Istrian National Theatre.

Neither is a place for a spa vacation, but Milan offers a little more. It has a thermal spa complex with outdoor pools south of the centre and the restored 1930s Bagni Misteriosi in summer, and quiet lakeside villas an hour away for real rest.

Pula has no bathing tradition and relies on resort hotel spas on Verudela and in Medulin. Its calm comes instead from the unhurried pace outside high summer and evening walks on the pine-shaded coast.