Milan or Zurich?

Neither city has a coast, but in Zurich a swim fits into an ordinary summer day. There are wooden bathing houses on the lake at Utoquai and Mythenquai, and at the Limmat river baths at Letten you let the current carry you downstream. You swim from grass and decks rather than sand, and the season only runs from June to early September.

Milan has the Idroscalo basin and its public pools. For a proper swim you take the train for about an hour to Lake Como or Lake Maggiore, which makes a good outing but is not something you fit in after sightseeing.

Milan is the far stronger city for eating. Saffron risotto, ossobuco and cotoletta anchor a rich, buttery northern cuisine, and people from all over Italy have brought good Neapolitan pizza and Sicilian pastry with them. Aperitivo in the Navigli, Brera and Isola is part of every evening.

Zurich is dependable rather than memorable: veal in cream sauce with rösti, fondue in the Altstadt's guild houses, and chocolate and confectionery as its real strength. Neither city has much street food or market eating, but in Zurich every meal out is expensive.

Milan's great sights are few, but they carry more weight. There is the Duomo, with its rooftop among the spires, Leonardo's Last Supper, the paintings in the Brera and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà in the Castello Sforzesco. They come in clusters within a largely modern city, and you need to book the Last Supper well ahead.

Zurich offers a smaller, tidier set of sights. The Kunsthaus and the Swiss National Museum are worth your time, and the Altstadt has the Fraumünster's Chagall windows and the Grossmünster, where the Swiss Reformation began. Two or three days covers it.

The two are close for a night out, but the style differs. A Milan evening grows out of aperitivo, with canal-side bars along the Navigli, a smarter Brera, the gay scene of Porta Venezia and dressy clubs around Corso Como, where appearance counts.

Zurich is rougher and runs later. Electronic clubs in Kreis 4 and 5 and Zurich West go on until morning at weekends, Langstrasse mixes bars and kebab counters, and in summer people drink in the lake bathing houses. Milan empties in August, the same month the Street Parade fills Zurich's lake shore.

Zurich has the mountains on its doorstep. The Uetliberg is a short train ride from the centre, the Glarus Alps rise beyond the lake on clear days, and Rigi, Pilatus and a ski day at Flumserberg are all within about an hour.

Around Milan the plain is flat and often hazy, and in town there is Parco Sempione and the canal towpaths for cycling. Lake Como, Lake Maggiore and the Grigne ridges have fine walking, but every outing starts with a train ride, and skiing takes a full day.

Both cities are excellent rail hubs, and Milan has the edge for sheer range. Verona, Turin, Bergamo and Lake Como are each about an hour away, and Bologna, Mantua, Parma and the Certosa di Pavia add art, food and history. Lugano, across the Swiss border, is easy to reach too.

Zurich's days out lean more towards scenery and small towns: Lucerne's wooden bridges, Bern's arcades, the Rhine Falls with Stein am Rhein, and St Gallen's abbey library. All of them are easy by train.

Zurich is much easier with children. The zoo has its Madagascar rainforest hall, the lake lidos have shallow water, and boat trips and buggy-friendly trams make the days simple. The Technorama science centre in Winterthur is twenty minutes away.

Milan works with children, thanks to the submarine and trains of the science and technology museum and the playgrounds of Parco Sempione. But its main sights are for adults and its summers are humid. Its one advantage is the theme parks, Leolandia and Gardaland, which Zurich lacks.

You can walk both centres and need a car in neither, but Zurich is close to effortless. Trams, S-Bahn trains, funiculars and even the lake boats all run on one ticket, and the airport is a short train ride from the main station.

Milan's five metro lines and old orange trams are easy enough to use, though the metro is hot in summer and the transfer from Malpensa airport is long.

Milan is a reason to travel in itself. The Quadrilatero della Moda holds the flagships of Italian fashion houses founded in the city, and the Galleria and La Rinascente stand beside the Duomo. Corso Buenos Aires, Brera's vintage shops and the design showrooms widen the range.

Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse can match Milan for luxury, and it is the place to buy a Swiss watch. Beyond that and the design shops in the viaduct arches of Zurich West, the choice is narrow.

Neither city is cheap, but Milan is much easier on a budget. Aperitivo snacks can stand in for supper, office-worker lunch menus are good value, and staying near a metro stop outside the centre cuts the hotel bill. Trade fairs and fashion weeks push room rates up sharply.

Zurich is one of the most expensive cities anywhere, and a simple lunch costs what dinner does elsewhere. Supermarket picnics by the lake, the free lidos and the visitor card help, but only a little.

La Scala gives Milan the edge. It is one of the world's great opera houses, its season opens each December on the feast of Sant'Ambrogio, and gallery seats give determined visitors a way in. The Piccolo Teatro and the orchestra at the Auditorium add depth, and San Siro hosts big summer concerts.

Zurich's Opernhaus and Tonhalle are highly respected and the Rote Fabrik covers jazz and indie, but the Schauspielhaus performs mostly in German. In summer, Zurich's open-air festivals on the lake shore carry on while Milan's opera and classical season goes quiet.

Zurich is the easier place to unwind. The thermal baths in the vaults of the old Hürlimann brewery have a rooftop pool, the wooden bathing houses on the lake and river turn into saunas in winter with cold dips in between, and Baden's Roman-era hot springs are twenty minutes away.

Milan has its thermal spa complex and, in summer, the open-air pools of the Bagni Misteriosi, but it is a busy working city. For real rest, most visitors head out to the lakes.