Naples or Rovinj?

Rovinj is the place to come for swimming. The water is very clear, and you can get in off the limestone ledges right below the old town walls or along kilometres of shaded rock in the Golden Cape. Taxi boats run to quieter coves on St Catherine and Red Island.

In Naples the sea is close but takes more effort. Locals swim from the rocks below the Lungomare and at small Posillipo lidos, but the water near the port is not always clean. The clear coves are a boat ride away on Procida, Ischia or Capri. Neither place has much soft sand, so pack water shoes for both.

Naples is the stronger food city by a wide margin. It is where pizza comes from, and you can eat on the move from the fried seafood and frittatine to sfogliatelle from the pastry shops. The Pignasecca and Porta Nolana markets are full of buffalo mozzarella and San Marzano tomatoes, and trattoria ragù comes with Falanghina or Aglianico.

Rovinj eats well in a narrower way: scampi buzara, truffled fuži, Istrian olive oil and Malvazija, with the best meals often at konobas inland. Its harbour menus are aimed at passing visitors, and it has none of the cheap street eating that makes Naples so easy to graze through.

There is a great gap here. Naples has a historic centre laid out by the Greeks, with churches on almost every block of Spaccanapoli, along with the National Archaeological Museum's Pompeii frescoes, the Cappella Sansevero, the catacombs of San Gennaro and the Capodimonte gallery. It is enough for a week.

Rovinj's main sight is the town itself: the Venetian houses climbing to St Euphemia, the bell tower to climb, the Balbi Arch and Grisia. Add the town museum and the Batana House, and an unhurried afternoon covers it all.

Naples has far more going on after dark, though it happens in the street rather than in clubs. Students crowd the steps of Piazza Bellini beside the Greek walls, and the bars behind Piazza dei Martiri in Chiaia stay busy well past midnight.

In Rovinj the evening means a long dinner and then a drink on the rocks at sunset. A few waterfront bars and a couple of dance venues come alive in high season, but the old town is mostly quiet by midnight. Out of season it is quieter still.

Naples has the more dramatic landscape: you can walk up to the crater rim of Vesuvius, explore the old craters of the Phlegraean Fields with the oak woods of Astroni and Lake Avernus, and take the Path of the Gods above the Amalfi Coast. Snorkelling at Gaiola adds the sea.

Rovinj's outdoors is gentler and starts at the edge of town. There are flat paths through the cedars of the Golden Cape, kayaking and diving among the archipelago's islets and reefs, and boat trips up the green Lim Fjord. It is easier walking than the volcanic slopes of Naples, but there are no peaks.

Naples has one of the strongest sets of day trips in Europe. Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae are all on one local train line, and Caserta's palace is about forty minutes away. Ferries leave from Molo Beverello for Capri, Ischia and Procida, and Sorrento opens the way to Positano and Amalfi.

Rovinj has a good range nearby, from Pula's amphitheatre and Poreč's Euphrasian mosaics to the hill towns of Motovun and Grožnjan and the Brijuni islands. The difference is that most of it needs a car, while from Naples you can get almost anywhere by train or boat.

Rovinj is the easier of the two with children, though not by much. It is small and safe, and the flat Golden Cape paths suit pushchairs and bikes. The campsites and resorts around town have pools and playgrounds. Against that, the shore is rock and concrete and the steep cobbles of the old town are hard going.

Naples welcomes children in every pizzeria, but scooters in the lanes and broken pavements wear parents out. Older children will love Pompeii, the tunnels under the city and the funiculars, and many families stay in Sorrento and come into the city for the day.

Getting around is about as easy, or as awkward, in both places, but in different ways. Naples is a big city with transport: Metro Line 1, with stations decorated like galleries, and four funiculars up to Vomero and Posillipo. On the other hand, the buses are slow and the Circumvesuviana is crowded and often late.

Rovinj needs no transport within the town at all. The old town is closed to cars, and a promenade leads straight to the swimming rocks. Outside the town there is no railway, so the hill towns and wineries are effectively reached only by car.

Naples offers much more. There are handmade suits, shirts and ties from long-established Chiaia tailors, Via Toledo and the Galleria Umberto I for everyday shopping, and the nativity-figure workshops of San Gregorio Armeno. Coral and cameos come from Torre del Greco nearby.

Rovinj is mainly for taking the region home with you: truffle products, olive oil, Teran and local brandies. Add to that the small galleries and studios along Grisia. There are no fashion streets, and outside summer the choice is thin.

Naples is clearly the cheaper stay. Pizza, coffee at the bar, trattoria meals and public transport all cost little, and modest B&Bs are easy to find in the historic centre. Your spending rises mainly once you head out to Capri or the Amalfi Coast.

Rovinj is one of the dearer towns on the Croatian coast. Old town rooms in July and August cost resort prices, and harbour restaurants charge for the view, with fish sold by weight. You can save with private apartments, campsites, market lunches and a trip in late spring or September.

For an evening at the opera, the Teatro di San Carlo puts Naples far ahead. It is the oldest opera house in Europe still in use, with a red-and-gold horseshoe auditorium and a full season of opera, ballet and concerts. The San Pietro a Majella conservatory and the churches of the historic centre add concerts, and Neapolitan song turns up in small theatres and from musicians moving between trattoria tables.

Rovinj's live music is mostly a summer affair: occasional classical concerts in St Euphemia, music on the squares and the harbour, and now and then the bitinada, the local unaccompanied singing. Out of season there is almost nothing, and for big concerts people go to Pula's Roman arena.

Neither place is a natural retreat, and they fall short in opposite ways. Naples has the real thing for bathing, with volcanic hot water at the old spa of Agnano on the city's edge and, above all, on Ischia, where gardens of thermal pools step down towards the bay. What it can't give you is quiet in town, beyond an unhurried lunch or the cloisters of Santa Chiara. A restful trip there usually means sleeping on the island and visiting the city by day.

Rovinj works the other way round. There are no hot springs, and for treatments you rely on the pools and saunas of the bigger hotels. The town itself does the relaxing for you, though: it is small enough that a day drifts between a swim, a meal and a stroll with nothing pulling at you. That ease belongs to May, June and September, because in July and August the crowds around the harbour take much of it away.