Monaco or San Marino?

Neither is a beach resort, but Monaco is at least on the water. Larvotto gives you a short, sheltered city beach with clear, calm sea. Private beach clubs, hotel pools and rocky platforms fill the gaps, and the coves of Cap d'Ail are a short walk over the border.

San Marino has no shore of its own. A beach day means going about half an hour down to Rimini or Riccione, with their long sand, rows of numbered umbrellas and shallow water. That suits children, but it is an outing, not a swim before breakfast.

Monaco eats better, though mostly at the top end. Its grand hotel dining rooms and polished Italian places cook Riviera and Ligurian food, and the Condamine market sells barbagiuan and socca for a cheaper bite.

San Marino offers honest Romagna cooking: tagliatelle, passatelli in broth, piadina and the Tre Monti wafer cake, with wine from its own small vineyards. The summit terraces tend to trade on the view, so the better meals are in family trattorias in Borgo Maggiore or over the Italian border.

Both are compact, and each can be seen in a day or two at most. Monaco offers a little more. On the Rock are the palace guard ceremony, Grace Kelly's cathedral and the Oceanographic Museum, and across the harbour stand the Casino, the Belle Époque hotels and the national museum's villas.

San Marino's appeal is the whole town as a single sight: three towers on the crest of Monte Titano, the Palazzo Pubblico and the history of one of the oldest surviving republics. It is atmospheric, but most visitors finish it in half a day.

Monaco has a real night out, if a formal one. People dress up for the hotel bars around the Casino square and the glossy clubs on the Larvotto seafront and the port, and the scene peaks in summer and on Grand Prix weekend.

San Marino has almost nothing after dark. A few wine bars and terraces stay open for a quiet drink with the coast lights below, and anyone wanting clubs drives down to Rimini.

Monaco's surroundings are far more dramatic. Limestone mountains rise straight from the sea, old mule paths climb to Èze, and coastal paths circle Cap d'Ail and Cap Martin. The clear water is good for snorkelling and diving, and the Mercantour is within driving distance.

San Marino offers a single ridge of about 740m with cliffs, woodland paths between the towers and wide views to the Adriatic. The Montefeltro hills beyond are good for gentle drives and cycling, but there are no long trails or sea to explore.

Both make good bases. Monaco is easier because the train does the work: Nice and Villefranche lie to the west, Menton to the east, and Antibes, Cannes, Grasse and Sanremo in Italy are all reachable without a car.

San Marino's list is just as rich in history: the fortress of San Leo, Renaissance Urbino, Ravenna's mosaics and Rimini's Roman bridge. The only regular public link, though, is the bus down to Rimini, so the hill towns really need a hire car.

Monaco is easier with children. It is spotless and small, and lifts take the strain off the climbs. The aquarium has sharks and turtles, and Larvotto's sheltered water suits young swimmers, though formal restaurants soon wear thin.

In San Marino, children enjoy the battlements and the cable car, but steps and summer crowds make pushchairs hard work. The real family attractions, Italia in Miniatura, Fiabilandia and the waterparks, are down on the coast and need a car.

Free public lifts, escalators and stairways do most of the climbing in Monaco, a town only about 3km long that rises steeply from the sea. Local buses and the little solar ferry across the harbour fill the gaps. The station in the hillside puts the whole Riviera within reach by train, so you never need a car.

San Marino's car-free centre takes under half an hour to walk, but almost every street is a slope or a flight of steps. Only the cable car down to Borgo Maggiore makes the climb easier. Without a car you depend on the bus up from Rimini, and buses between the villages are infrequent.

The Carré d'Or gives Monaco the better shopping, as long as luxury is what you want. Fashion houses, high jewellers and watchmakers fill a few streets around the Casino gardens, and a covered mall below adds a handful of mainstream labels. For anything more ordinary, people go to Nice.

San Marino's old town mostly sells souvenirs: ceramics, decorative crossbows, and the republic's stamps and coins, which collectors seek out. Lower taxes make perfume, watches, leather goods and spirits cheaper than in Italy, and an outlet centre on the valley floor adds fashion brands. There is little independent design or serious craft.

This is the one area where San Marino wins clearly. Hotels are moderate outside August, trattorias in the lower villages are fairly priced, and the sights cost little. Only the summit terraces carry a premium.

Monaco is priced for the very wealthy, from hotel rooms to a café coffee. Its free pleasures are the lifts, the gardens and walking the Rock, and many visitors stay in Nice or Beausoleil and come in for the day.

The gap here is wide. Monaco has its own opera company, orchestra and ballet, and the opera plays in the gilded Salle Garnier inside the Casino, the hall where Massenet and Puccini saw works first performed. That gives this tiny principality a real season from winter to spring, with shows by the sea in summer and jazz in autumn.

San Marino has nothing on that scale. It has a small theatre, the odd concert by local players and music in the squares on summer evenings. Its one big occasion is the Medieval Days festival, which is more street pageant than stage performance, so anyone wanting a night at the opera drives to Pesaro or Bologna.

Monaco offers more for a pampering stay. Its large seawater thalassotherapy centre beside the Casino and the grand hotel spas make a polished treatment day easy, and the Japanese Garden is calm in the morning.

San Marino has only a few hotel spas. Its restfulness is the quiet summit in the evening, walking the walls once the day visitors have gone. The nearest thermal baths are a separate trip into the Apennine valleys or down to the coast.