Pisa or Positano?

Positano is the better swimming place by some distance. The sea is the reason to be there: clear, deep water below the town at Spiaggia Grande and Fornillo, with boats running to Arienzo, Laurito and coves further along the cliffs. The catch is the shore itself, which is coarse grey sand and pebbles shelving steeply and crowded by mid-morning in high summer.

Pisa's beaches are softer underfoot but less of a draw. Tirrenia and Calambrone have long, wide sand backed by pine woods and shallow water for paddling, but they are 12km or more from the centre and the water near the Arno mouth is rarely clear. A seaside afternoon there is a break from sightseeing.

Pisa gives you more to eat and more ways to eat it. The streets around Piazza delle Vettovaglie mix a morning produce market with trattorias and wine bars, and the cooking is plain Tuscan: ribollita, wild boar, salt cod and hot cecina from wood ovens. It is honest rather than ambitious, and the menus by the tower are best avoided.

Positano's strength is narrower: seafood pasta, grilled fish and lemon desserts on a terrace above the sea, with a few hotel dining rooms aiming higher. The same dishes repeat from menu to menu, there is little everyday or market eating, and many kitchens close through the winter.

This is the widest gap between the two. Pisa has the cathedral, baptistery, Leaning Tower and Camposanto standing together on one lawn, and beyond them Piazza dei Cavalieri, Santa Maria della Spina on the river and the medieval collection at San Matteo.

In Positano the town is the sight: pastel houses stacked up a ravine, the majolica dome of Santa Maria Assunta and the painted rooms of a Roman villa beneath it, buried by Vesuvius. That is a pleasant morning, and anyone wanting museums heads to Naples.

Neither is a place to go out, but Pisa has more life after dark. In term time students fill the small squares around the old market until past midnight, and Borgo Stretto and the riverbanks draw the aperitivo crowd, though the city quietens early once term ends.

Positano's evenings are an aperitivo with a view and a long dinner, plus a few summer cocktail bars and one dressed-up cave club at the end of the main beach. Out of season even that fades.

Positano has the more dramatic landscape: the Lattari mountains fall straight into the sea, and the Path of the Gods runs along the cliffs above Nocelle with views to Capri. Steeper trails climb through chestnut woods to ridges over 1,000m, and kayaks follow the shore to grottoes and the Li Galli islets.

Pisa's outdoors is gentler and flatter. The San Rossore park of pine forest, wetland and dunes starts at the city's edge and suits bikes and horses, Monte Pisano has olive-terrace paths, and the Apuan Alps offer real mountain hiking further out.

Both are superb bases, and the difference is in how you travel. From Pisa the trains do the work all year: Lucca in under half an hour, Florence in about an hour, the Cinque Terre a little beyond, with Volterra, San Gimignano and Siena by car.

Positano's outings go by sea, to Amalfi, Ravello and Capri, with Pompeii and Herculaneum via Sorrento and the temples of Paestum further south. Most ferries run only from spring to autumn, and the coast road is slow, so winter trips take more patience.

Pisa is much easier with children. The centre is small and flat, the lawn by the tower is a place to run about, older children can climb the tower, and the shallow sand at Tirrenia and cycling in San Rossore fill the other days.

Positano is built of stairs, so pushchairs are useless, and its pebbly beaches drop off quickly. Older children who love boats and swimming will be happy, but families with toddlers struggle.

Pisa is simple: a flat walk of about half an hour links the station to the cathedral square, the airport is a short shuttle-train hop away, and the station is a rail hub for western Tuscany.

Positano is small but vertical, so every walk means hundreds of steps. Buses on the single coast road fill up and crawl in summer, a car is a burden with scarce parking, and the ferries that make life easier mostly run in season.

Positano has more reason to shop, because it sells a look you will not find in Pisa: loose white linen and printed resort wear, sandals cut to fit while you wait, hand-painted ceramics and lemon goods. It is all one style, though.

Pisa offers everyday Italian shopping on Corso Italia and the arcades of Borgo Stretto, plus the monthly antiques market by the river. For serious fashion, people take the train to Florence.

Pisa costs far less. Central rooms are mid-range, student trattorias are good value and you can walk everywhere, so the main expenses are the tower climb and the cafés right beside the monuments.

Positano is one of the most expensive places to stay in Italy, with sea-view rooms, loungers, terraces, boats and transfers all priced high. Staying in Praiano or Sorrento, or coming in May or October, softens it considerably.

Pisa has a real if modest season at the Teatro Verdi, its 19th-century horseshoe opera house, with opera, concerts, ballet and drama from autumn to spring, plus university chamber music and church recitals.

Positano itself offers little beyond occasional summer concerts. Its draw is nearby: the Ravello festival of classical music, played on a terrace above the sea, makes a fine summer evening, and Naples handles opera.

The two are about level for rest, but the calm comes from different places. Near Pisa there are thermal waters used since Roman times, at the bath palace of San Giuliano Terme and the larger public pool at Casciana Terme, and the city itself is quiet away from the tower.

Positano has no bathing tradition. Its rest comes from cliffside hotel spas and pools and from long afternoons on a terrace, though the summer crowds and the stairs make May, June and late September the restful months.