Portofino or Stuttgart?

Portofino is plainly the place to swim, though on a small scale. Most people swim from the rock platforms and ladders on the path to the lighthouse, where the water is deep and clear. The only sand nearby is the sheltered bay at Paraggi, which is mostly taken up by beach clubs, and the pebble cove below the abbey at San Fruttuoso is reached by boat or on foot. Every spot is small and fills up in summer.

Stuttgart has nothing to compare. The Neckar is a working river with locks and barges, so a summer swim means one of the outdoor pools, some of them fed by mineral springs. Lake Constance, the nearest real open water, is more than two hours south.

Stuttgart is the better place to eat. Swabian cooking such as Maultaschen and Käsespätzle is served in wine taverns across the Bohnenviertel, the Art Nouveau Markthalle is good for browsing, and vineyards inside the city supply the Trollinger and Riesling. It also has a serious fine-dining tier.

Portofino's Ligurian dishes, such as trofie with pesto and Recco focaccia, are appealing, but the harbour restaurants charge for the yacht view more than they deliver on the plate. Keen eaters head to Camogli or the hill trattorie.

Stuttgart has far more to see. The two car museums are internationally important, the Staatsgalerie holds a strong run of European painting, and the Le Corbusier houses at the Weissenhof Estate are UNESCO-listed. All of that adds up to two or three full days.

In Portofino, the main sight is the village itself. There is the painted harbour, San Giorgio, Castello Brown and the walk to the lighthouse, plus the medieval abbey at San Fruttuoso. It is lovely to look at, but you will have seen it in a day.

Neither is a party destination, but Stuttgart at least has a night out. It has the bar strip along Theodor-Heuss-Strasse, basement clubs with an electronic following, and the huge beer tents of the Cannstatter Volksfest in autumn.

Portofino's evening is a dressed-up aperitivo facing the yachts, followed by dinner, and then quiet. Outside July and August the village goes to bed early, and anything later means a trip to Santa Margherita or Genoa.

Portofino's headland is the more dramatic setting. It is a regional park and marine reserve, where trails through holm oak and pine run above sea cliffs to San Fruttuoso and Punta Chiappa. Underwater there are red coral walls and the bronze Christ of the Abyss for divers.

Stuttgart's countryside is gentler but more extensive. Vineyard trails and deer forests start at the edge of the basin, and the Swabian Jura and the northern Black Forest are about an hour away for walking and cycling in any season.

Both make good bases, and the difference is in how you travel. From Portofino, much of the pleasure is the journey itself: ferries to Camogli, the Cinque Terre and Portovenere, plus Genoa's medieval centre less than an hour away. Out of summer, though, the boats stop and the trains take over.

Stuttgart works by rail all year. Ludwigsburg's palace and Esslingen are on the S-Bahn, Tübingen and Heidelberg are within an hour, and Maulbronn, Hohenzollern Castle and Ulm's spire fill longer days.

Stuttgart is much easier with children. Wilhelma, with its zoo and Moorish-style gardens, can fill a day, and there are the Killesberg park railway, the fairy-tale garden at Ludwigsburg, plenty of playgrounds and child-friendly beer gardens.

Portofino is safe, and children enjoy the boats and the climb to the castle. But it is built for adults: there are no playgrounds, the sand is mostly behind paid beach clubs, and the steps defeat a pushchair. Families usually stay in Rapallo instead and visit Genoa's aquarium.

In Stuttgart, one integrated ticket covers the Stadtbahn, S-Bahn, buses, a rack railway and a funicular. That reaches the museums, Wilhelma and the airport, and the Stäffele stairways take care of the hills on foot.

Portofino itself is a few minutes from end to end, but getting there and away is the problem. A single narrow coastal road leads to Santa Margherita, and in summer it is crowded with buses and jammed with traffic, so the seasonal ferries are often the better way in.

Stuttgart is the real shopping destination. Königstrasse is a long pedestrian high street, Breuninger is the place for designer fashion, and the Bohnenviertel has independent shops. The Metzingen outlet village is about half an hour away.

Portofino has a surprising number of luxury fashion and jewellery boutiques for its size, plus resort wear, lace and pesto. Still, it takes less than an hour to see it all, and there are no markets.

Portofino is by far the dearer of the two, and Stuttgart is no bargain either. In Portofino you pay for the place itself. There are only a handful of rooms, nearly all at the luxury end, and even the small pleasures of a day by the sea come at a premium: a spritz on the harbour, a lounger at Paraggi, an hour on a hired boat. The usual way round it is to sleep in Camogli or Rapallo and spend your days in the village on foot.

In Stuttgart, most of the big costs can be avoided. A plate of Maultaschen in a tavern and a day on the trams cost about what you would expect in a prosperous German city. Hotels are where the money goes, and you can soften that by coming at a weekend or avoiding the trade-fair weeks.

The gap here is about as wide as it gets. Stuttgart's state theatre is home to a bold opera company and the Stuttgart Ballet, one of Europe's most admired companies since the Cranko years. On top of that there is the Liederhalle's orchestral and Bach programme, long-running musicals and a well-known jazz scene.

In Portofino there is the odd summer concert in the piazzetta or at the castle. For anything more, you go to the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.

Stuttgart has an actual bathing tradition. Its springs at Bad Cannstatt and Berg are among the most productive in Europe and feed the Mineralbad Cannstatt and the Mineralbad Leuze, where you can soak in naturally fizzy warm water, indoors and out, and then use the saunas.

Portofino has no public spas, so treatments mean the hillside luxury hotels. What it offers instead is calm: quiet early mornings and shaded paths with the sea below. That calm is mostly found off-season, before the midday tour boats arrive.