Milan or Salzburg?

Neither city has a beach, so swimming means a lake in both cases. Salzburg has the edge because Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are only half an hour or so away, with clear green water you enter from lawns and wooden jetties.

From Milan, Como and Maggiore are about an hour by train, which makes them a full outing rather than a quick afternoon dip. In town you are left with the Idroscalo basin near Linate and the public pools.

Milan is much the better city to eat in. Its own kitchen runs on butter rather than olive oil, with saffron risotto, ossobuco and the breaded cotoletta, and cooks from every Italian region have settled here, so Neapolitan pizza and Sicilian pastry are nearly as good as in their home towns. Add high-end restaurants, old pastry shops and the early-evening aperitivo spread, and a week of meals barely repeats itself, though the cheap places near the Duomo are a letdown.

Salzburg's table is hearty but limited: schnitzel, Tafelspitz, cheesy Kasnocken and the soufflé peaks of the Salzburger Nockerl. Its best moments often come between meals, with cake in the old coffee houses and beer poured from the barrel at the monastery brewery in Mülln, whose garden lets you bring your own food. Skip the tour-group menus in the old town and eat in the inns on the outskirts. Within a few days you will have tried most of what the city offers.

Milan's few great sights carry slightly more weight. The Last Supper, the Duomo's rooftop among the spires, the Brera picture gallery and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà are of a rank Salzburg cannot quite match. They come in clusters, though, separated by modern, businesslike streets.

Salzburg offers the more complete picture. Its UNESCO-listed Baroque old town has the cathedral, the Residenz and the clifftop fortress within a few minutes of each other, plus the two Mozart houses. Two or three unhurried days see it all, while in Milan you need to book ahead for its handful of masterpieces.

Milan has a real night scene. There are bars spilling onto the Navigli towpaths, a smarter crowd in Brera, a relaxed mix and the gay scene around Porta Venezia, and clubs ranging from dressy Corso Como to warehouse nights on the outskirts. It is stylish rather than wild, and it goes quiet in August.

In Salzburg, an evening usually means a concert followed by a beer hall, with a few student pubs along Rudolfskai for later. Anyone who wants a club takes the train to Munich.

Salzburg wins clearly. The Mönchsberg and Kapuzinerberg are wooded ridges inside the city, the Untersberg cable car lifts you to limestone ridge walks at about 1,800m, and the Königssee and the Salzkammergut lakes are around half an hour away.

Milan sits on the flat, hazy Po plain, where Parco Sempione and the canal towpaths are the main green escapes. The lakes and the Grigne ridges are superb, but they start an hour's train ride away, and the ski areas are a full day out.

Both make good bases, but Milan's fast rail links give it more range. Verona, Turin, Bergamo and Lake Como are each about an hour away, and Bologna is not much further. The Certosa di Pavia, Mantua and Lugano widen the choice, all without a car.

Salzburg's outings are more about scenery and salt than cities: Hallstatt, the mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, and the fortress at Werfen, with Munich by train. Several of the lake villages are awkward to reach by bus, so a hire car helps.

Salzburg is the easier city with children. It is small, calm and mostly car-free, with the trick fountains and zoo at Hellbrunn, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the marionette theatre, and salt mines with wooden miners' slides. Cobbles and steep lanes are the main nuisance with a pushchair.

Milan is flat and simple to get around, and its science and technology museum is excellent on a wet day. Most of its big sights are aimed at adults, though, and summer is heavy going. Its advantage for older children is that the Leolandia and Gardaland theme parks are within reach, which Salzburg cannot match.

Milan's five simple metro lines and its dense tram network reach almost anywhere, and trains from three stations run straight to the lakes. The drawbacks are the summer heat underground and the long transfer from Malpensa.

Salzburg relies on walking and trolleybuses, which works well because its centre is tiny and largely pedestrianised. It is weaker beyond the city, where the regional buses to the lakes and Berchtesgaden are slow.

Milan is one of the world's fashion capitals. The flagships of the Quadrilatero della Moda, the old shops under the Galleria and the historic department store beside the Duomo make shopping a purpose of the trip. Design showrooms, Corso Buenos Aires and the vintage shops of Porta Ticinese add more.

Salzburg's strength is narrower and more local: made-to-measure Tracht, Getreidegasse with its wrought-iron guild signs, and the Advent market on Domplatz. There is almost no luxury shopping.

Both cities are expensive, and neither suits a tight budget. In Milan the cost is mostly the hotels, especially during trade fairs and fashion weeks. Aperitivo snacks and office-worker lunch menus help keep spending down.

Salzburg is pricey for a small city, and costs peak during the summer festival and the Advent markets. You save by eating in the beer halls and outer-district inns, and by buying the city card that combines transport with the museums.

Both are first-rate for classical music, but in different ways. Milan centres on La Scala's season, which opens each December, with support from the Piccolo Teatro, the symphony orchestra and big stadium concerts at San Siro. Summer is its quiet time for opera.

Salzburg peaks just as Milan slows down. The summer festival fills the Felsenreitschule and the Festspielhaus and stages Jedermann in front of the cathedral, while Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons. Chamber concerts keep music going most evenings, though jazz and contemporary music are thin.

Salzburg is the more restful city in its own right. It has quiet river paths, the Mirabell gardens, unhurried coffee houses and the Paracelsus Bad, with proper spa towns at Bad Reichenhall and in the Gastein valley.

Milan is a work-focused city, with a thermal spa complex, the 1930s Bagni Misteriosi pools in summer and some hotel spas. For real calm, most visitors head an hour north to the lakes.