Portofino or Venice?

Neither place is a beach resort, but swimming means something quite different in each. Portofino has no sand of its own. You swim from rock platforms and ladders towards the lighthouse in deep, very clear water, or take the bus to the small bay at Paraggi, which is mostly given over to beach clubs, or the boat to the pebble cove at San Fruttuoso.

Venice has the opposite: kilometres of fine sand on the Lido, a short vaporetto ride away, with shallow, gentle water that suits small children. The sea there is greenish rather than clear, though, and most visitors give it one hot afternoon at most.

Portofino keeps to Ligurian cooking: trofie with pesto, pansoti in walnut sauce and cheese focaccia from Recco, served on a handful of harbour terraces where you pay for the yachts as much as the plate. Anyone who cares about eating usually heads to Camogli or the hill trattorie.

Venice offers far more to explore. Standing at the counter of a bacaro in Cannaregio or Castello with sarde in saor and a glass of wine is one of the city's real pleasures, and the Rialto market supplies cuttlefish risotto and lagoon crab. The price is learning to avoid the picture-menu places on the routes around San Marco.

Portofino's sights are the village itself: the coloured houses around the harbour, the church of San Giorgio and Castello Brown above it, and the walk on to the abbey of San Fruttuoso. A day covers it comfortably, and it rewards people who come for atmosphere rather than a list.

Venice is in another league. Beyond the Basilica of San Marco, the Doge's Palace and the palazzi of the Grand Canal, the art runs from Titian and Tintoretto to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Biennale in the Arsenale. Even its smaller parish churches hold masterpieces, and a week barely scratches the surface.

Both places go to bed early, but Venice has a little more evening life. Portofino's night is a long aperitivo at the bars facing the moored yachts, where people dress up to be seen, followed by dinner and silence. Outside July and August even that fades early, and a real night out means going to Santa Margherita or Genoa.

In Venice the spritz hour fills the bacari along the Fondamenta della Misericordia, and the students around Campo Santa Margherita in Dorsoduro keep a few bars going later. There are no clubs in either place, but a midnight walk along the dark, silent canals is a fair consolation.

Portofino is the place for the outdoors. The whole headland is a regional park, with trails through holm oak and pine to the Semaforo Nuovo viewpoint, then down to San Fruttuoso along cliffs, with chained sections. Offshore, the marine reserve offers red coral walls, seagrass meadows and the bronze Christ of the Abyss for divers.

Venice's nature is the lagoon: herons, egrets and flamingos in the marshes around Torcello, explored by kayak or on a lesson in standing rowing. The land is flat, so serious walking means going to the Euganean Hills, or more than two hours each way to the Dolomites.

Both make excellent bases, and Venice has the edge. From Portofino the Riviera di Levante unfolds by boat: Camogli, Rapallo, Portovenere and, in summer, the Cinque Terre, with Genoa's medieval centre under an hour away. Out of season the ferries stop and the trains take over, which needs more planning.

Venice's fast trains reach Padua's Scrovegni Chapel in about half an hour and Verona's arena in little more than an hour, with Palladio's Vicenza in between. Murano, Burano and Torcello make a full day on the lagoon without boarding a train at all.

Neither is easy with small children, but Venice gives them more to enjoy. Portofino is calm and safe, and children like the boats and the climb to the castle. Still, it is built for adults with money, with no playgrounds and steep stepped paths, and most families stay in Santa Margherita and go to Genoa for the aquarium.

Venice gives children vaporetto rides, glass-blowing on Murano, dinosaurs at the natural history museum and the shallow Lido beach, with no cars to worry about. Its problem is the stepped bridges, which make a pushchair hard work, so it suits older children on a short stay.

Inside Portofino everything is a few minutes apart, and the difficulty is getting in and out. A single narrow coast road runs about 5km from Santa Margherita, with scarce parking and summer jams, so the bus and the spring-to-autumn ferries are the practical choices.

Venice is easier overall. Trains end at Santa Lucia, the centre can be crossed on foot in under an hour, and vaporetti and traghetto gondolas cover the water. The trade-off is the endless steps over bridges with luggage, and slow, packed boats on the main lines.

Portofino's shopping is a few lanes of big-name fashion and jewellery boutiques and resort wear for yacht guests, plus some lace and jars of pesto. You can see it all in under an hour.

Venice has a real craft tradition to shop for: Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and velvet furlane slippers, best bought from workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello. The fashion houses line Calle Larga XXII Marzo, but watch for imported fakes along the main routes.

Both are among the most expensive places to stay in Italy, and Portofino is the harsher of the two. Its few hotels are almost all luxury properties, and the piazzetta terraces, Paraggi loungers, boat hire and parking all cost a lot. Walking and the bus are the only cheap things, so many visitors sleep in Camogli or Rapallo and come over for the day.

Venice offers more ways to cut costs. You can eat cicchetti standing at the counter, stay in quieter sestieri or across the water in Mestre, and visit in late autumn or winter. Entry fees for sights and the visitor prices on water transport still add up.

Portofino has almost nothing to attend beyond the occasional summer concert in the piazzetta or at the castle. Opera and theatre mean an evening trip to the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.

Venice is a serious destination for music. La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini held premieres, runs full seasons of opera, ballet and concerts, Teatro Goldoni stages drama, and the Biennale adds contemporary festivals. On most nights there are also Vivaldi concerts in churches and scuole grandi, of mixed quality. Jazz and rock are thin on the ground.

The two are much alike here. Neither has its own bathing culture, so spas mean hotel spas, and calm depends on avoiding the midday crowds. In Portofino the rest comes from the setting: shaded paths with only birdsong and the sea, and long lunches by the water, best outside high summer.

Venice's calm comes from having no traffic, and you find it in early mornings in Castello, Cannaregio or on Giudecca. It also has something Portofino lacks: real thermal pools and mud treatments at Abano Terme and Montegrotto Terme, about an hour away.