Piran or Verona?

Piran has the sea at its door. You swim from concrete platforms and rocks below the walls or at Fiesa's small pebble cove, and sand and sunbeds are a short shuttle ride away at Portoroz. It is a swimming town rather than a beach town, but the water is part of every day.

Verona's swimming is at Lake Garda, about half an hour away at Peschiera, Lazise or Sirmione's limestone shelves. The lake is calm and nearly as warm in summer, but going there is an outing rather than a swim before breakfast.

Piran keeps to grilled fish, squid and scampi buzara by the harbour. The food is fresh and simple, but the menus echo one another, and anything more ambitious means driving inland into Istria.

Verona has a proper regional kitchen: Amarone risotto, bigoli with duck, and bollito with pearà, served in wood-panelled osterie around Piazza delle Erbe and in Veronetta. With the Valpolicella and Soave vineyards on the doorstep, eating and drinking become a reason to come rather than a pleasant extra.

In Piran the culture is the town itself: Venetian Gothic lanes, the oval Tartini Square, St George's above the bay and a few small museums. A day of wandering covers it.

Verona has far more to see. Its UNESCO-listed centre holds the Roman Arena and theatre, the squares of the della Scala lords, San Zeno with its bronze doors, and Castelvecchio's art in Scarpa's galleries. That is enough for two or three full days.

Neither city is a place for clubbing. Piran's evenings end with a glass of wine on the Punta at sunset, and anyone wanting more goes to the beach bars and casino at Portoroz.

Verona offers rather more. The aperitivo crowds fill Piazza delle Erbe, the university quarter of Veronetta has younger wine bars that stay open later, and in summer the opera audience leaving the Arena brings the centre back to life near midnight.

Piran's outdoors is coastal and gentle. There is the cliff path above the flysch at Strunjan, birdlife in the Secovlje salt pans, paddling below the cliffs, and the Parenzana cycle route heading inland, with the Skocjan caves about an hour away.

Verona has more variety because the Alps begin nearby. Vineyard walks in Valpolicella and the Adige cycle route are close at hand. Monte Baldo above Lake Garda adds ridge hikes and paragliding, and the northern end of the lake has the steady winds that sailors and windsurfers come for.

Both make good bases, but in different ways. Piran's advantage is the border: Trieste is under an hour away, Rovinj and the Istrian hill towns lie across in Croatia, and summer boats cross to Venice. Most of these trips need a car.

From Verona there is more to reach, and mostly by train. Venice, Vicenza, Padua and Mantua are all easy day trips, and the Garda towns and the Soave and Valpolicella wine country are closer still. You can visit a different art city each day without driving.

Piran is safe and calm for small children, with no cars in the old town, a flat seafront and a small aquarium. But swimming means ledges and ladders, and older children soon run out of things to do.

Verona keeps children busy for longer thanks to what lies around it: Gardaland, the water parks on Garda's southern shore and the safari zoo at Parco Natura Viva. You will need a car or transfers to reach them, and summer afternoons in town can be very hot.

Both centres are best seen on foot. Piran's car-free peninsula takes a quarter of an hour to cross, and in Verona's flat river loop the Arena, the squares and Castelvecchio are all a short stroll apart.

The difference shows once you leave town. Piran has no railway, so the Karst and Istria really call for a hire car. Verona's station has quick trains to Venice, Milan and the lake, and a car is needed only for the hills and some Garda attractions.

Piran has little beyond craft shops, galleries and harbour souvenirs. The best things to take home are sea salt and salt flower from the Secovlje pans, olive oil and coastal wine.

Verona has a real shopping street in marble-paved Via Mazzini, with Italian fashion labels, and smaller boutiques and jewellers along Corso Porta Borsari. It is smart rather than a shopping destination, but you can buy clothes and shoes there as well as Amarone and pandoro.

Costs are much the same in both, and in both it is the rooms that push the bill up. In Piran the expensive part is the old town in July and August, and staying in Portoroz or coming outside the peak brings it down.

In Verona it is central hotels on opera nights and during trade fairs, which you can avoid by staying near the station or across the river. Piran's main pleasures, swimming and walking, cost nothing, while Verona offers local wine by the glass that is good value.

Piran has summer concerts in honour of Tartini, held in churches, the monastery cloister and on the square, and a small theatre with occasional recitals. Outside summer there is little to attend.

Verona has opera in the Roman Arena, one of Europe's great summer spectacles, with Verdi and Puccini played to thousands on the ancient stone tiers. The Roman theatre adds Shakespeare, dance and jazz in the warm months, and the Teatro Filarmonico keeps opera and concerts going through the cooler ones.

Piran is the easier place to unwind, with a spa tradition right beside it. You can lie in brine and salt mud out among the Secovlje lagoons, use the seawater pools at Portoroz or visit the health resort at Strunjan, all a short hop from a quiet car-free town.

Verona's warm springs mean a trip out, to the lakeside thermal centre at Sirmione or the spring-fed lake near Lazise. In town, relaxing means long lunches and the terraces of the Giardino Giusti, though summer crowds gather around the Arena.