Naples or Venice?

Venice has the easier beach. The Lido is a short vaporetto ride away, with kilometres of fine, shallow sand facing the Adriatic that suit children and waders, even if the water is greenish.

Naples has warm sea all around it but little sand near the centre. People swim off the rocks below the Lungomare and at small lidos in Posillipo, and the clear coves are a ferry ride away on Procida, Ischia and Capri. If clear water matters more to you than convenience, those islands are worth the trip.

Naples eats with more conviction. Neapolitan pizza in loud rooms with shared tables, fried pizza, cones of fried seafood, sfogliatelle and the produce at the Pignasecca and Porta Nolana markets make almost every meal worth having.

Venice does well in a narrower way: cicchetti with a glass of wine at the bacari around the Rialto, and lagoon dishes such as cuttlefish risotto. So many tourist restaurants crowd San Marco that a good sit-down meal takes some searching. Neither city offers much beyond its own regional cooking.

Both are first-rate, but Venice comes out ahead because the city itself is the sight. It has palaces standing on water, San Marco and the Doge's Palace, and painting that runs from Titian in the Frari to Tintoretto at San Rocco and modern art at the Guggenheim.

Naples answers with the ancient world. The National Archaeological Museum holds the Pompeii frescoes, the Greek street grid along Spaccanapoli is packed with churches, and beneath it lie tunnels and the catacombs of San Gennaro. Venice is the choice for painting and setting, Naples for antiquity and life on the street.

Naples is the place for a late night. Crowds drink on the steps of Piazza Bellini and in the alleys of Chiaia until well past midnight, though people gather in the streets rather than going to clubs.

Venice is liveliest at the aperitivo hour, with spritzes along the Fondamenta della Misericordia. Apart from the students in Campo Santa Margherita, the city is dark and silent by midnight.

Naples has far more to offer outdoors. Vesuvius rises behind the city with a trail to its crater rim, and the Phlegraean Fields hold crater lakes and the oak woods of Astroni. Gaiola is good for snorkelling, and the Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast is within reach for a long day.

In Venice the outdoors means the flat lagoon: salt marshes around Torcello with herons and flamingos, kayaking, and cycling along the sea walls of the Lido and Pellestrina. For real hills you have to travel out to the Euganean or Prosecco hills.

Both make superb bases, and Naples is the stronger. Pompeii and Herculaneum are each under an hour away on the Circumvesuviana, the palace at Caserta is close, and ferries run to Capri, Ischia and Procida, with the Amalfi Coast and Paestum further on.

From Venice the trips are to art cities instead of ruins: Padua, Vicenza and Verona by fast train, and the Palladian villas along the Brenta. Across the lagoon are Murano, Burano and Torcello.

Neither city is easy with small children, but the problems differ. Naples welcomes children warmly in its pizzerias but has scooters, broken pavements and few attractions made for them, and many families stay in Sorrento instead.

Venice has no traffic, boat rides that children love and the shallow Lido beach, but its stepped bridges defeat pushchairs. In both cities, short stays with older children work best.

Venice is easier to get around. There is no traffic, almost everything is within a forty-minute walk, and the vaporetti cover longer distances, though the stepped bridges are hard going with wheeled luggage.

Naples has a walkable centre, a useful Metro Line 1 and four funiculars. Slow buses, a crowded and delay-prone Circumvesuviana and scooters in the lanes make it more tiring.

Both are better for crafts than for shopping in general. Naples is strongest on men's tailoring in Chiaia, the nativity figures of Via San Gregorio Armeno and coral cameos from Torre del Greco. In Venice the crafts are Murano glass, Burano lace, masks and marbled paper, and the real workshops are worth seeking out among the imitations on the main routes.

Naples is far kinder to the wallet, as long as you sleep in the city itself. A room in the historic centre costs much less than one on Capri or along the Amalfi Coast, where hotels charge resort prices, so the cheapest way to see the region is to stay in town and visit the islands and Sorrento for the day. The spending then comes from the outings: hydrofoil fares, summer beach clubs and the entry tickets at Pompeii, Herculaneum and the other sites, which add up over a week.

Venice works the other way round. The bed is the biggest cost, especially around San Marco in summer and during carnival, and visitors also pay more than residents for the vaporetto and pay to enter most churches. You save by staying on the mainland at Mestre or in a quieter sestiere, travelling in late autumn or winter, and eating at a bacaro counter rather than at a table on the piazza.

Each city's musical life centres on a great historic opera house: the San Carlo in Naples, the oldest in Europe still in use, and La Fenice in Venice, where works by Verdi and Rossini were first performed. The difference lies in what else there is. Naples has Neapolitan song in small venues and trattorias, while Venice has Vivaldi concerts in its churches and the Biennale's festivals of contemporary music, theatre and dance.

For thermal water, both cities send you elsewhere. From Naples, Ischia's terraced thermal parks are about an hour away by hydrofoil, and the old springs at Agnano are on the edge of the city. From Venice, Abano and Montegrotto near Padua take about an hour, and in town there are only hotel spas.

The cities themselves differ more. Naples stays loud and crowded, so rest there means long lunches and an evening walk on the Lungomare. Venice has no traffic and is truly calm in its hushed early mornings and in Castello, Cannaregio and Giudecca, as long as you stay away from San Marco by day.