Milan or Rovinj?

Rovinj is a seaside town where swimming is part of every day. Limestone ledges, pebble coves and bathing platforms run for kilometres into the Golden Cape park. The water is very clear, and taxi boats reach quieter coves on St Catherine and Red Island. It is rock rather than sand, though, so you will want water shoes.

Milan has no coast. Swimming there means the Idroscalo basin, the city's open-air pools or a train of about an hour to the pebbly lidos of Lake Como or Lake Maggiore. Those are pleasant outings, but they can't match a sea you can walk down to every morning.

Milan gives you much more choice. Saffron risotto, ossobuco and cotoletta are cooked with butter in the northern style. People from all over Italy live there, so you can also find good Neapolitan pizza and Sicilian pastry, and there is a serious fine-dining scene. Aperitivo in the Navigli, Brera and Isola is a meal in itself.

Rovinj eats well but narrowly: grilled fish, scampi buzara, truffled Istrian pasta, peppery olive oil, and Malvazija and Teran wines. The best meals are often in country konobas. The harbourfront mostly serves menus aimed at passing visitors.

Milan has major works of art: Leonardo's Last Supper, the Pinacoteca di Brera and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà in the Castello Sforzesco. The Duomo's marble spires stand above them all. The heritage comes in clusters within a mostly modern city, but it fills several days.

In Rovinj the town is the sight. Venetian houses climb to St Euphemia, whose bell tower you can climb, and the Batana House tells the story of the local fishing boats. It is lovely and intact, but you will have seen it in an afternoon.

Milan has a real night out to offer. Bars spill onto the Navigli towpaths, Porta Venezia has a relaxed mixed crowd and is the centre of the gay scene, and the clubs range from dressy Corso Como to warehouse nights on the city's edge. Dress well, and expect it to be quieter in August.

A night in Rovinj means a drink on the rocks at sunset and a few cocktail and wine bars by the harbour. The old town is mostly quiet by midnight, and to go clubbing you have to travel along the coast.

There is little to choose between them overall, but the landscapes differ. Milan sits on a flat, hazy plain. Its real outdoors starts about an hour north, with the wooded slopes of Como and Maggiore, the Grigne ridges for serious hiking and via ferrata, and Alpine skiing on a long day out.

Rovinj's outdoors starts at the edge of town, with the gentle paths of the Golden Cape forest. You can kayak and dive among the islands of the archipelago, and the green channel of the Lim Fjord is close by. It has more water than Milan but no mountains.

Milan is one of the best bases in Italy for day trips, and you don't need a car. High-speed trains reach Verona, Turin and Bologna, and Bergamo, the Lake Como villages and Swiss Lugano are just as easy. The Certosa di Pavia, Mantua and Cremona are close as well.

Rovinj has good places nearby too: Pula's Roman amphitheatre, Porec's mosaics, the hill towns of Motovun and Groznjan, and the Brijuni islands. Most of them are only practical by car, however, and the range is regional rather than national.

Neither city is really built around children, and they suit different families. Milan works better with school-age children who like machines and museums. The science museum is a reliable answer to a wet afternoon, and a day at Leolandia or Gardaland gives older children a reward between the adult sights. Trams and the metro make the city easy to cross, though a humid July can wear small children out.

Rovinj is the better choice for a seaside week with toddlers or primary-age children, as long as a sandy beach doesn't matter. The days are spent on swims, island boat trips and bike rides under the Golden Cape pines, and the resorts and campsites provide the pools and playgrounds. The rocky shore needs an adult close by, and a pushchair is more use in the park than on the climb through the old town.

Milan is easier to get around without a car. The centre is flat and walkable, and the metro, the old orange trams and direct trains to the lakes cover everything else, though the transfer from Malpensa airport is long.

Inside Rovinj you can walk everywhere, along a car-free old town and a waterfront promenade. There is no railway, though, so the hill towns and wineries are reachable only by car.

Milan is a destination for shopping in its own right. It has the flagships of the Italian fashion houses around Via Montenapoleone, the historic Galleria and La Rinascente, everyday shopping on Corso Buenos Aires, and design showrooms and antique markets along the Navigli.

Rovinj has no fashion streets at all. What it does well is food and drink from the region, such as truffles, oil and wine, along with the artists' studios on Grisia.

Both are expensive, for different reasons. In Milan, hotels are dear all year and become very hard to find during the trade fairs and fashion weeks. In Rovinj, July and August are expensive, and harbour restaurants charge for the view and for fish sold by weight.

You save differently in each. In Milan, an aperitivo spread can stand in for a light supper, and the office lunch menus are good value. In Rovinj, private apartments, campsites and a trip in late spring or September do the work.

Here the two are furthest apart. Milan has La Scala, whose season opens each December on Sant'Ambrogio, as well as the Piccolo Teatro, a fine symphony orchestra, jazz rooms and big summer concerts at San Siro.

Rovinj offers summer concerts in St Euphemia, music on the squares and the occasional performance of bitinada singing. For anything larger you go to Pula's arena.

Milan is a city you leave to find calm. There is a well-known thermal spa with outdoor pools and saunas, a few good hotel spas and, in summer, the restored 1930s open-air pools of the Bagni Misteriosi. For real rest, though, most people take the train to the quiet lake villas about an hour away.

In Rovinj the pace itself is the attraction: long lunches, late swims off the rocks and evening walks in the pines. Spa treatments mean the resort hotels along the Golden Cape. In high summer the crowds on the harbour push the quiet out of the centre, so May, June and September suit a restful stay best.