Palermo or Trieste?

Palermo has the better swimming, mainly because of Mondello. It is a curve of pale sand with shallow turquoise water half an hour from the centre, and the sea stays warm well into October. For deeper water off rocks there is the coast towards Capo Gallo, and Cefalù's long sandy beach is an hour away by train.

Trieste has hardly any sand. People swim from the concrete steps and lawns at Barcola, from old bathing establishments, or in the pebble coves at Sistiana and Grignano. That is fine for confident swimmers, but anyone who wants to lie on soft sand is better off in Palermo.

Palermo is the stronger food city by a wide margin. Its markets are working street kitchens where you can eat spleen sandwiches, sfincione and arancine. Arab influences show up in the raisins, saffron and sweet-and-sour sauces of dishes like pasta con le sarde, and its pastry tradition, from cannoli to convent almond sweets, could fill a trip on its own.

Trieste's food is a Central European mix. You get boiled pork with horseradish at a buffet counter, jota soup, strudel, and coffee with its own local vocabulary. The osmize on the Karst plateau, where farms sell their own wine and cured meats, are a real pleasure, but the range of restaurants is narrower.

Palermo has more heritage of the first rank. The Palatine Chapel's gold mosaics under an Islamic wooden ceiling, the red domes of San Giovanni degli Eremiti and the rest of the UNESCO Arab-Norman route are things you cannot see anywhere else. On top of these come Serpotta's stucco oratories and two strong museums, the Salinas and Palazzo Abatellis.

Trieste's appeal lies in the cityscape as a whole. Its Habsburg squares and the Borgo Teresiano grid, Miramare Castle, San Giusto with its Roman theatre, and the sobering Risiera di San Sabba make a good few days, and its literary past adds atmosphere. It has fewer individual masterpieces.

Palermo has far more going on after dark. The Vucciria turns into an open-air bar of grills and cheap beer, and the streets off Via Maqueda fill up after late dinners. In summer the dancing moves to the beach venues at Mondello.

In Trieste the evening rarely goes beyond a spritz by the Canal Grande or the seafront kiosks at Barcola. On winter weeknights the streets are quiet by midnight.

There is little to choose between them, but the landscapes differ. Palermo has Monte Pellegrino above the city, the cliffs and coves of Capo Gallo and Zingaro, and the Madonie, with beech woods and peaks near 2,000m. Most of it is easier to reach with a car, and summer heat rules out walking in the middle of the day.

Trieste's outdoors starts at the edge of town. You can walk along the Strada Napoleonica above the gulf, hike the Val Rosandra gorge, visit the caves of the Karst, and sail on a gulf known for its autumn regatta. The Bora wind can make winter days harsh.

Both are excellent bases for day trips, and the difference is the kind of trip. From Palermo you visit Sicily's ancient past: Monreale's mosaics, the lone temple at Segesta, Erice above its salt pans, and Agrigento's Valley of the Temples, which takes a long day.

From Trieste you can cross borders. Aquileia's mosaic floor, star-shaped Palmanova and the Collio wineries are in Italy, Piran and Ljubljana are in Slovenia, and Venice is a long but realistic day out by train.

Trieste is the easier city with children. It is calm and safe, and the Grotta Gigante, the gardens at Miramare and a hands-on science centre keep older children busy, although the steep stepped streets and rock swimming are harder for toddlers.

Palermo welcomes children warmly at the dinner table and has Mondello's shallow sand. Beyond the beach and the puppet shows, though, the old town is a hard place for families, with scooters in narrow lanes without pavements, uneven stone streets and strong summer heat.

Trieste is the easier city to get around. Its main sights sit on flat ground by the water, and a dense bus network plus passenger boats to Muggia cover most of the rest. The real effort is the climb up the steps to San Giusto.

Palermo's centre is also walkable along Via Maqueda and the Corso. Beyond it, buses crawl through traffic and the trams mostly serve the suburbs. You will probably want a hire car for Segesta or Erice, and driving there is stressful.

Neither city is a reason to travel for shopping, but Palermo has a little more to offer. Via Libertà has Italian fashion shops and a few luxury labels, and the craft souvenirs are distinctive: painted moor's-head vases, puppet-workshop marionettes, and coral and filigree jewellery.

Trieste's best finds are in the antique shops in the old town's lanes and in edible souvenirs such as roasted coffee, Karst wine and presnitz.

Palermo goes further on a budget. You can make a full meal from several market stops, trattorie and pastries are cheap, and old-centre guesthouses are fairly priced. Costs rise in high summer around Mondello, and a hire car adds up.

Trieste is fair for northern Italy, with cheap buffets, coffee and buses and free pleasures like swimming at Barcola. Ordinary restaurants and hotels charge normal Italian city prices, so your money stretches less far than in Sicily.

Palermo has a little more to offer. The Teatro Massimo is one of Italy's largest opera houses and runs a full season, the Politeama is home to a symphony orchestra, and the Opera dei Pupi, with its armoured marionettes fighting Charlemagne's battles, is a tradition worth seeing in its own right.

Trieste's Teatro Verdi offers a proper opera season on the waterfront, and the city's love of operetta, a Habsburg legacy, is unusual in Italy. Beyond that, a Slovenian-language theatre and summer concerts on San Giusto make up a smaller programme.

Trieste is the more restful of the two. It moves at a slower pace, with long sittings in coffee houses over a newspaper and sunset walks along the Molo Audace. Neither city has real thermal baths, so spa treatments mean hotel spas in both.

Palermo is noisy, with scooters, market shouting and traffic. Calm there comes in small doses, in the Orto Botanico, quiet cloisters and evening walks along the Foro Italico. For proper thermal waters you need to take the train to Termini Imerese.