Padua or Salzburg?

Neither city is a beach destination, and the swimming on offer is quite different. From Padua you go to the sea: Sottomarina or the Lido of Venice, about an hour away, where the Adriatic is shallow, calm and warm, and the beaches are long, flat rows of umbrellas.

From Salzburg you go to the mountain lakes. Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are closer, with clear, cooler water that you get into from lawns and wooden jetties. The scenery is lovely but the season is short.

Padua eats better. Its cooking is Venetian and market-driven: bigoli with duck sauce, baccalà, risotto with spring peas, bought fresh from the stalls and the arcaded shops under the Palazzo della Ragione. Wine from the Euganean Hills and the daily spritz ritual turn eating and drinking into the life of the squares.

Salzburg's strengths are narrower: hearty Austrian dishes, a fine coffee-house tradition and the Augustiner monastery brewery's beer garden. In the old town, many places serve the same menu to tour groups at high prices, so the better cooking is out in the suburbs and on the hills.

The two are about equally rich, but what you go to see is different. In Padua the treasures are mostly inside: Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel, which needs a timed booking, the other fourteenth-century fresco cycles, Donatello's work at the Basilica of Saint Anthony, and the university's anatomical theatre and botanical garden.

In Salzburg the town itself is the sight. The Baroque old town, the Hohensalzburg fortress on its cliff, Mirabell's gardens and the Mozart houses work as one townscape you take in on foot. Both cities can be seen properly in two or three days.

Padua has more going on after dark, mainly because of its university. During term, crowds stand over spritz glasses across Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori until late, and there are wine bars and small pubs in the old ghetto. It does go quiet in high summer and during the university breaks.

A Salzburg evening is more often a concert, dinner and a litre mug in a beer hall, and the old town is quiet by midnight. Clubs are scarce in both cities, and for a big night out from Salzburg people go to Munich.

Salzburg is far ahead. The wooded Mönchsberg and Kapuzinerberg ridges rise right in the centre, a cable car climbs the Untersberg to limestone ridge walks, and the Salzkammergut lakes, Berchtesgaden National Park and the ski areas are all within an hour or so.

Padua sits on a flat plain, so its outdoors is gentler. The Euganean Hills, 15km away, have vineyard trails and roads for cyclists, and the Brenta towpaths make easy bike rides. For proper mountain walking you face a drive of about one and a half hours to the pre-Alps.

Padua is the stronger base, mainly because of its trains. Venice is under half an hour away, Vicenza a quarter of an hour, and Verona, Treviso, Bologna and Ferrara are all within about an hour, so you need no car. Closer still are the Brenta villas and the walled towns around the Euganean Hills.

Salzburg's list is shorter but has more variety: Hallstatt and the lake villages, salt mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, Werfen's fortress, and Munich across the border. Many of these places are much easier by car, as the buses to the lakes are slow.

Salzburg does more for children. The trick fountains at Hellbrunn, the zoo next to them, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the fortress funicular and the marionettes fill several days. Out of town, the salt mines add wooden slides and boat rides on underground lakes.

Padua is flat, safe and easy for pushchairs, and children are welcome in any trattoria, but its sights are mostly frescoes and churches. Families there tend to rely on outings, such as Gardaland and Lake Garda about an hour and a quarter away. Salzburg's cobbles and steep lanes are its main drawback with small children.

Both centres are compact, pedestrianised and easy on foot, so the difference is in how you get beyond them. Padua is flat and arcaded, with a tram from the station, and its place on the main rail lines makes a car unnecessary for almost everything.

Salzburg relies on trolleybuses rather than a tram and has steeper lanes in the old town. Trains go to Munich and Vienna, but the lakes are served by slow regional buses, which is why many visitors hire a car.

Neither is a shopping destination, but they are good for different things. Padua's best buys are edible: cheeses, cured meats and Euganean wine from the markets and delicatessens. It also has university bookshops and a large antiques market in Prato della Valle one Sunday a month.

Salzburg's speciality is Tracht. Workshops make dirndls and loden jackets to measure, Getreidegasse is lined with guild signs, and the Advent market on Domplatz is famous. For serious fashion you would go from Padua to Milan or Venice.

Padua is clearly the cheaper stay. Prices are moderate for northern Italy, which is why many people sleep there and visit Venice by day, and a standing spritz or a trattoria lunch costs little.

Salzburg is expensive for a small city. Old-town hotels and restaurants cost a lot all year, and they get scarcer and dearer during the summer festival and the Advent markets. A city card helps, as does staying across the river or in the suburbs. Padua's own price peaks come with trade fairs and graduations.

This is Salzburg's great strength. The summer festival fills the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule with opera and orchestral concerts by leading performers, Jedermann is played in front of the cathedral, and Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons. Between festivals, the Mozarteum, the Landestheater and the Marionette Theatre keep going, and there are chamber concerts nearly every evening.

Padua offers a modest programme: the Teatro Verdi, a chamber orchestra playing in the frescoed Sala dei Giganti, and student venues. For major opera, people go to the Fenice in Venice or the Arena in Verona.

Padua has the advantage of a real thermal district on its doorstep. Abano and Montegrotto, about 12km away, have hot mineral springs, mud treatments and many spa hotels that take day visitors, so you can have a soak after a morning of frescoes.

Salzburg's own offer is the Paracelsus Bad and its quiet riverside and ridge walks. Bad Reichenhall's brine spa is twenty minutes away, while the Gastein springs need a longer trip. Both cities have a slow, unhurried pace.