Naples or Trieste?

Neither city has a proper sandy beach on its doorstep, but Trieste makes swimming much easier. Barcola's long promenade of concrete platforms and pine-shaded lawns, with ladders into clear Adriatic water, is a bus ride from Piazza Unità, and the pebble coves at Sistiana and Grignano are close by.

In Naples you can swim off the rocks below the Lungomare or at the small Posillipo lidos, but the water near the port is not always clean and the sandy stretches are paid clubs. The best sea is a hydrofoil away on Procida, Ischia or Capri, so a swim there takes up a whole day.

Naples is the stronger food city by a distance. Pizza, fried street food, sfogliatelle and babà, plus markets like Pignasecca full of mozzarella and San Marzano tomatoes, make eating a reason to go in its own right.

Trieste eats in a different, more Central European way: boiled pork carved at the buffet counter, jota soup, strudel and a coffee culture with its own vocabulary, plus farmhouse osmize on the Karst. It is interesting, but there is less of it, and neither city offers much international food.

Naples has far more to see. The National Archaeological Museum's finds from Pompeii, the Veiled Christ in the Cappella Sansevero, the Greco-Roman tunnels and the churches packed along Spaccanapoli can fill a week.

Trieste's appeal is more about how the place looks: the Habsburg harbour front of Piazza Unità, the Borgo Teresiano grid, San Giusto hill and Miramare Castle. The Risiera di San Sabba and the Joyce and Svevo connections add depth, but you will see the main sights in two or three days.

A night out in Naples means a crowd in the street. In Trieste it means a glass of wine at a table, and Naples keeps going much later. Students drink on the steps by the old Greek walls around Piazza Bellini, and the small bars on the slopes of Chiaia spill into the alleys at weekends and right through summer. Clubs are few, though, and in summer the dancing moves out to beach clubs along the coast.

Trieste's evening revolves around the aperitivo: a spritz or a local white wine around Piazza Unità, along the Canal Grande or in the lanes of Cavana, plus a handful of student wine bars and pubs. Warm nights draw people out to the kiosks at Barcola. In winter the streets are quiet by midnight, so the city suits a long dinner better than a late night.

Naples has the more dramatic setting. You can walk to the crater rim of Vesuvius, explore the Phlegraean Fields with Astroni's wooded crater and Lake Avernus, and do the Path of the Gods above the Amalfi Coast on a long day out.

Trieste's outdoors is gentler but closer to the door. The Strada Napoleonica and the Rilke Path run along clifftops, there is hiking in the Val Rosandra gorge, and the Karst caves are nearby. Both cities have a marine reserve for snorkelling, at Gaiola and Miramare respectively.

Both are excellent bases, but Naples has the more famous list. Pompeii and Herculaneum are under an hour away on the Circumvesuviana, Capri and Procida are a ferry ride from Molo Beverello, and there are also Caserta's palace, the Amalfi Coast and the temples at Paestum.

Trieste's strength is variety across borders. Within about an hour you can reach Aquileia's mosaics, star-shaped Palmanova and Piran in Slovenia, with Ljubljana, Postojna and Venice further out.

Trieste is the easier city with children. It is calm and safe, and the Grotta Gigante, the aquarium and the Miramare gardens make good outings, though the swimming is off rocks and the old town is steep.

Naples welcomes children warmly in its pizzerias, but scooters in the lanes, broken pavements and summer crowds make it tiring. Many families stay in Sorrento or on an island and come into the city for the day.

Trieste is the simpler city to get around. Its main sights are close together on flat ground by the sea, buses run reliably to Barcola and up to the Karst, and boats cross to Muggia. The only real effort is the steps up to San Giusto.

Naples has a metro, with art-filled stations on Line 1, and four funiculars up to Vomero. Beyond those, buses get stuck in traffic, the Circumvesuviana is crowded and delay-prone, and crossing the road takes nerve.

Naples gives shoppers more reason to come. There is handmade tailoring in Chiaia, the iron-and-glass Galleria Umberto I, smart boutiques on Via dei Mille and the nativity workshops of San Gregorio Armeno.

In Trieste, the best finds are in the antique shops of the old town and the edible things: coffee from local roasters, Karst wine and presnitz. Beyond those, the high street is ordinary.

Naples goes further for a traveller watching costs. Pizza, street food and coffee at the bar are cheap, and there are plenty of modest B&Bs in the historic centre, though island ferries and Amalfi hotels cost resort prices.

Trieste is fairly priced rather than cheap. Buffet meals, buses and swimming at Barcola cost little, but seafood dinners and smarter hotels are at normal Italian city rates, and rooms get tight around the Barcolana regatta.

Naples has the grander stage. The red-and-gold Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest opera house in Europe still in use, is joined by concerts at the conservatory and Neapolitan song in trattorias and small theatres.

Trieste's Teatro Verdi runs a proper opera season and keeps up a Habsburg fondness for operetta that is rare in Italy, and there is also a Slovenian-language theatre. Outside the opera houses, both cities have only a thin live-music circuit.

Naples has real thermal water and Trieste has a slow pace, so the choice depends on which kind of rest you are after. The volcanic ground around Naples feeds the spa at Agnano, used since Roman times, and Ischia's terraced thermal parks are about an hour away by hydrofoil. The city itself is loud, though, and many who come to unwind stay on the island instead.

Trieste has only hotel spas and a few day spas, but the city is unhurried. A morning over a newspaper in an old coffee house and an evening walk out along the Molo Audace as the sun sets over the gulf make quiet days easy without leaving town.