Piran or Zermatt?

Piran is a swimming town rather than a sandy one. You get into clear water from concrete platforms and ladders around the Punta, Fiesa offers a small pebble cove, and for sand you go along the shore to Portoroz or to the cliff-backed bay at Strunjan.

Zermatt has nothing to offer here. It is a high valley village with no sea or bathing lake, its mountain tarns stay icy even in August, and swimming means a hotel pool.

The two eat equally well, but in very different ways. Piran is grilled fish, squid and scampi buzara in simple konobas off Tartini Square, washed down with Malvazija or Refosk, and the menus along the harbour soon start to repeat themselves.

Zermatt's best meals are long lunches at chalet terraces above Findeln, Furi and Zum See, with raclette, fondue and Valais wines in view of the Matterhorn. The village also has a few ambitious kitchens that Piran lacks, though cheap meals are hard to find.

Piran's old town is the sight in itself: Venetian Gothic houses packed onto a peninsula, the oval Tartini Square, St George's campanile and the medieval walls on the ridge. Add a maritime museum and the Minorite cloister and you have a full, pleasant day.

Zermatt's heritage is narrower and all about the mountain. There is the Matterhorn Museum and the story of 1865, the mountaineers' cemetery, and the old larch barns of the Hinterdorf. It fills a morning before you head back up the lifts.

Neither is a party place, but Zermatt has more going on, at least in winter. Après-ski fills the slope-side bars from late afternoon, and a few bars and small clubs on the main street stay open past midnight on busy weekends. In summer, hikers with early starts are in bed after dinner.

Piran's evening is a glass of wine on Tartini Square or a sunset on the Punta, and then quiet. For a casino or a summer club, you go over to Portoroz.

Piran's outdoors is coastal and small in scale: a walk along the Strunjan cliffs, birds in the Secovlje lagoons, a paddle under the flysch, an easy ride inland on the Parenzana. It suits someone who wants an active morning before a swim, and it is best in spring and autumn, when the heat has gone.

Zermatt is on a completely different scale, because there the high Alps are the reason for the trip, not a side outing. Lifts from the village climb past 3,800m, so skiers, serious hikers and climbers going up with a guide could fill a whole season without running out of ground. The two places also peak at opposite times of year: Zermatt's outdoor season is winter snow and then high-summer walking, which is exactly when Piran is too hot for anything more than a dip.

Piran makes far the better base for days out, because three countries meet on its doorstep. Trieste is under an hour away, Rovinj, Porec and the hilltop towns of Motovun and Groznjan lie across the Croatian border, Ljubljana and Predjama Castle are within reach, and summer boats cross to Venice. A hire car opens most of it up.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with a long train ride down the valley. Sion's castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace are worth it, but most visitors would rather spend a spare day on the mountain.

Both work about equally well with children, and for the same reason: their car-free streets are calm and safe. The difference is in what children do there. In Piran it is a warm, gentle sea, the small aquarium and the shallow sand at Portoroz, though swimming from town means ladders and the lanes are steep.

Zermatt suits families who ski or hike together. It has ski schools and nursery slopes at Sunnegga, marmots to spot and the fun of riding cog railways, but rainy days are hard to fill and the highest viewpoints are too cold and thin-aired for small children.

Both are car-free and easy on foot, but Zermatt connects better. Its lifts, funicular and cog railway leave from within walking distance of the centre, electric taxis cover the edges, and the train runs smoothly into the Swiss rail network.

Piran takes a quarter of an hour to cross, and a shuttle runs to the car park and to Portoroz. With no railway and slow regional buses, though, the Istrian towns and the Karst usually mean hiring a car.

Zermatt has the slightly better shopping street. Its one main street has Swiss watch boutiques and outdoor outfitters that are truly worth it if you need kit, along with plenty of cowbells and chocolate. Piran is all small craft shops and harbour stalls, and the best things to take home are the local salt flower, olive oil and coastal wine.

This is where the two are furthest apart. Piran costs about what Western Europe usually does, with a summer premium on old-town rooms that you can avoid by staying in Portoroz or coming out of season, and swimming and walking are free.

Zermatt is expensive at every step: plain hotel rooms, terrace lunches, and the lifts and railways that are the whole point of being there. Self-catering, supermarket picnics and sleeping down the valley in Täsch help, but it remains a splurge.

Both are thin on live performance, and each depends on a few seasonal events. Piran honours Tartini with summer concerts in churches, the monastery cloister and on the main square, and its small theatre puts on occasional recitals. Zermatt has no theatre, but Zermatt Unplugged brings acoustic sets in spring and a chamber music festival fills the church in late summer.

Piran is the more restful choice, and its treatments are distinctive. You can lie in brine and salt mud outdoors among the Secovlje lagoons, use the seawater pools in Portoroz or the health resort at Strunjan, and spend slow evenings watching the light over the bay.

Zermatt's version is a hotel spa with mountain views after a day on the slopes. It has saunas and pools of high quality and clean, quiet air, but no thermal springs, and in peak weeks the mood is active rather than slow.