Padua or Rovinj?

Rovinj is far ahead for swimming, though there is no sand. The water is very clear, and the shore south of the harbour runs for kilometres of rock ledges, pebble coves and bathing platforms into the Golden Cape park. You can swim right below the old town walls. Taxi boats run to quieter coves on the islands. Pack water shoes.

From Padua the sea is a day out. Sottomarina and the Lido of Venice are each about an hour away. Both have long, flat beaches lined with umbrellas, and the shallow, calm water suits small children better than Rovinj's rocks do.

Padua is the better place to eat, mainly because its food is part of everyday life. The morning markets in Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta and the delicatessens under the Palazzo della Ragione supply Venetian home cooking such as bigoli with duck sauce and baccalà. The early-evening spritz in the squares and coffee at the historic Caffè Pedrocchi are rituals worth joining.

Rovinj is strongest on seafood and on what the Istrian hinterland produces, including scampi buzara, truffle pasta, peppery olive oil and Teran wine. The countryside konobas are worth the drive. In town, though, many menus are written for visitors, and there is little cheap everyday food.

The gap is wide. Padua has some of the most important painting in Europe in Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel, and several more fourteenth-century fresco cycles around the city. It also has a major pilgrimage basilica with bronzes by Donatello, and the university gives it an anatomical theatre and a botanical garden that go back to the Renaissance.

In Rovinj the old town is the main sight. Pastel Venetian houses climb to St Euphemia, whose bell tower you can climb, and the Batana House tells the story of the local fishing boats. It is very photogenic and can be seen in an afternoon.

Neither place is for a big night out, but Padua has more going on. Students and locals gather over spritz in the squares around the Palazzo della Ragione, and wine bars around the old ghetto stay lively on weekday evenings during term. The city goes quiet in high summer and during the university breaks.

Rovinj works the other way round. Its evenings are busiest in July and August, with a long dinner, cocktails on the waterfront and a drink on the rocks at sunset. The old town is mostly quiet by midnight, and outside summer there is very little going on.

There is little to choose between them, but the outdoors is different in each. Padua's is mostly on land. The volcanic Euganean Hills, about 15km away, have vineyards, chestnut woods and roads popular with road cyclists, there are level towpaths along the Brenta, and Monte Grappa and the Asiago plateau offer proper mountain walking.

In Rovinj the outdoors is on the water. The Golden Cape forest starts at the edge of town, and the islands of the archipelago are good for kayaking and diving around reefs and wrecks. Boats also go up the steep green Lim Fjord to the oyster farms.

Padua is one of the best bases in Italy for day trips, and you can do them without a car. Venice is under half an hour away by train, so you can go back on several days. Vicenza's Palladian buildings, Verona and Bologna are all easy too, and the Brenta villas and the walled towns around the Euganean Hills are closer still.

Rovinj also has good trips nearby, including Pula's Roman amphitheatre, the mosaics of the basilica at Porec, and the truffle-country hill towns of Motovun and Groznjan. You need a car for most of them.

Rovinj is the better choice for families, mainly because of what surrounds the town. The resorts and large campsites have pools and playgrounds, boat trips to the islands go down well with children, and the paths in the Golden Cape park are shaded and flat. Watch out for the rocky shore and the steep, polished cobbles of the old town.

Padua is easier to get around, since the centre is flat and largely pedestrianised and pushchairs are no trouble. However, there is little made for children beyond Prato della Valle and the botanical garden, so families tend to head out to Gardaland or Lake Garda.

Padua is the easier place to get around. The centre is flat, much of it is closed to traffic, and arcades give cover from sun and rain. A tram runs from the station to Prato della Valle. The main lines out of the station reach most of the region, so you only need a car for the hills.

Within Rovinj you can walk everywhere, but the lanes are steep and slippery. There is no railway, and buses only connect the larger towns, so the wineries and hill towns realistically need a car, and parking is tight in summer.

Padua has more to offer, though shopping is not a reason to go to either place. Its arcaded streets have Italian fashion and shoe shops, independent boutiques and university bookshops. The food markets are good for cheese and Euganean wine to take home, and a large antiques market fills Prato della Valle one Sunday a month.

Rovinj's shopping is mostly regional produce such as truffles, olive oil and brandy. The artists' studios and galleries along Grisia are the most distinctive part, and there is not much choice outside summer.

Padua is the cheaper of the two. Its prices are about normal for northern Italy, and many visitors to the region choose it as a base because rooms there cost less than in Venice. A standing spritz and trattoria meals are reasonably priced. Rooms get dearer during the big trade fairs and graduation season.

Rovinj is one of the more expensive places on the Croatian coast in July and August. Old-town rooms, restaurants on the harbour and fish sold by weight soon add up. Private apartments, the campsites and a trip in late spring or September bring the cost down.

Padua keeps a theatre and concert season going all year, modest in scale but real. Teatro Verdi, a nineteenth-century horseshoe house, stages prose theatre and some opera, and the city's chamber orchestra plays under the frescoes of the Sala dei Giganti and in the Basilica of Saint Anthony. For grand opera, the Fenice in Venice and the summer season at the Arena in Verona are an easy train ride away.

Rovinj's performances belong to summer: a few classical concerts in St Euphemia, open-air music on the squares and the harbour, and now and then the bitinada, the local unaccompanied singing tied to the batana boats. Out of season there is very little to attend, and the big summer concerts on this coast take place in Pula's Roman arena.

Padua is well ahead here. About 12km away, Abano Terme and Montegrotto Terme use mineral water that rises hot from the ground and mud that has been used for treatments since Roman times. Many spa hotels let day visitors use their pools, so you can easily combine a soak with a morning of frescoes.

Rovinj has no bathing tradition of its own, so you rely on the wellness areas of the resort hotels. What it does offer is a slow pace: swimming off the rocks and walking in the pines, best enjoyed outside the crowded peak summer weeks.