Padua or Zermatt?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Padua can at least reach one. Sottomarina and the Venice Lido are about an hour away, with shallow, calm water warm enough in summer for children to paddle. Zermatt has no sea and no lake for bathing. Its tarns are fed by glaciers and are only good for reflecting the Matterhorn, so swimming means a hotel pool.

Padua is the better place for everyday eating. Meals follow the morning markets in Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta and the Venetian home cooking that comes from them, such as bigoli with duck sauce or salt cod done the Vicenza way. Wines come from the Euganean Hills just outside town, and coffee at the grand old Caffè Pedrocchi is a ritual of its own. There is little fine dining, but good, fairly priced food is easy to find in any month.

In Zermatt the food that stays in the memory is up on the mountain. Long lunches of raclette or air-dried beef on chalet terraces at Findeln or Furi come with the Matterhorn in view and a glass of Valais white. It makes a great outing rather than a varied week of eating. Choice in the village is narrow, cheap meals are hard to find, and between the ski and hiking seasons many kitchens close, while Padua's markets trade every morning.

Padua offers days of serious art and history, while Zermatt's heritage fills a morning. Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel is the centrepiece, and it sits among a UNESCO-listed group of fourteenth-century fresco cycles in the Eremitani, the Baptistery and the Oratory of Saint George. Beyond them are the pilgrim Basilica of Saint Anthony, the frescoed hall of the Palazzo della Ragione, the university's anatomical theatre at Palazzo Bo and a Renaissance botanical garden still on its original site.

Zermatt's history is about climbing. The Matterhorn Museum tells the story of the 1865 first ascent and the deaths on the way down, the mountaineers' cemetery lies beside the parish church, and the old larch-wood barns of the Hinterdorf recall the farming village that came before the hotels. The Gornergrat cog railway, running since the late nineteenth century, is a period piece too, but the peaks themselves are what people come to see.

Padua's evenings are livelier, and they run through the whole university term. Students and locals fill Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori for the aperitivo, then move on to wine bars around the old ghetto and the Bo. Zermatt is loud in a different way, with après-ski in ski boots on the runs into the village and a few bars and small clubs on the main street on winter weekends. In summer, though, evenings there end after dinner.

Zermatt is in another league here. The Matterhorn rises straight above the village, lifts climb to over 3,800m at the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise and the skiing reaches across into Italy. In summer there are hundreds of kilometres of trails, such as the Five Lakes walk and the Europaweg.

Padua's outdoors is gentler and starts outside town. There are vineyard and chestnut trails in the Euganean Hills, flat bike rides along the Brenta towpaths and birdwatching on the lagoon. For real mountain walking, Monte Grappa and the Asiago plateau are about one and a half hours away.

Padua makes an exceptional base. Venice is under half an hour away by train and Vicenza a quarter of an hour. Verona, Treviso, Bologna and Ferrara are around an hour away, and the Brenta villas and walled towns such as Este and Montagnana are closer still.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion, with its castle hills and vineyards, and the old centre of Brig are worth the trip, and Saas-Fee is close by bus. Even so, most visitors spend their spare days back up in the mountains.

Zermatt has the edge with children, though both have limits. Padua is flat, compact and welcoming, with Prato della Valle to run about in and the botanical garden's glasshouses for older children. The main sights are frescoes and churches, though, so families tend to rely on day trips to Gardaland, Lake Garda or the Adriatic.

Zermatt's car-free village is calmer and safer, with ski schools and nursery slopes at Sunnegga. In summer children have marmots, lakeside walks and the fun of cog railways and gondolas. Rainy days and the thin air at the highest viewpoints can be hard, so it works best for families who ski or hike together.

Both are easy on foot, but in different ways. In Padua's flat centre, the Scrovegni Chapel and the Basilica of Saint Anthony are within a twenty-minute walk under the arcades, and a tram runs from the station to Prato della Valle. Trains leave on main lines in every direction, so day trips need no car.

Zermatt bans ordinary cars altogether. You arrive by train via Täsch and then walk a compact strip along the river, with electric taxis and ski buses out to the further lift stations. Most of the real travelling goes uphill, by cog railway, underground funicular and cable car, and leaving the valley takes over an hour.

Padua is the better place to browse. It has arcaded streets of Italian fashion and shoe shops, university bookshops, daily food markets, delicatessens under the Palazzo della Ragione and a monthly antiques market on Prato della Valle. Zermatt's one main street is mostly Swiss watches, jewellery and souvenirs, though its ski and mountaineering shops are genuinely good if you need gear.

The gap here is huge. Padua is moderately priced for northern Italy, cheap enough that many visitors sleep there and spend their days in Venice. Standing spritzes, market food and fairly priced trattorias keep daily costs down.

Zermatt is one of the most expensive places in the Alps. Rooms, meals on mountain terraces and the lifts everyone uses all cost far more than in most of Europe. Self-catering or staying down the valley in Täsch helps, but a trip there is still a splurge.

Padua has a steady if modest programme. There is theatre and some opera at the horseshoe-shaped Teatro Verdi, a chamber orchestra with a regular season, and concerts in the Sala dei Giganti and the Basilica, with La Fenice in Venice and the Verona Arena within easy reach. Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Outside Zermatt Unplugged in spring and the late-summer chamber music festival in the village church, live music there means a band in an après-ski bar.

Padua has the stronger hand, thanks to Abano Terme and Montegrotto Terme about 12km away. Together they form one of Europe's largest thermal districts, with hot mineral pools and mud treatments used since Roman times. Many spa hotels take day visitors, so a soak after a morning of sightseeing is easy.

Zermatt has no thermal springs, but it does have many excellent hotel spas with saunas and mountain views, some of them open to non-residents. The quiet streets without cars and the clean air are restful in themselves, although the mood is active, built around the day's skiing or walking.