Positano or Rome?

Swimming is a large part of a trip to Positano. Spiaggia Grande and Fornillo are a walk from your room, and boats carry you to Arienzo, Laurito and coves further along. The water is clear and deep, though the shore is steep and pebbly and gets packed in high summer.

Rome's sea means a half-hour train to Ostia, where the dark sand is mostly divided into paid lidos, or a trip north to Fregene's calmer shore. The water is warm in summer but seldom clear, so a swim there is an escape from the city's heat rather than a reason to come.

Rome is one of Italy's great places to eat. It has its own pasta canon, fried artichokes from the Ghetto, the offal dishes of Testaccio, pizza al taglio and supplì in the street, and neighbourhood markets, as long as you walk away from the menus near the big sights.

Positano offers something narrower: seafood pasta, grilled fish and lemon desserts eaten on terraces above the sea. The setting is unforgettable, but menus repeat one another, there is almost no street food or market life, and many kitchens close in winter.

In Positano the sight is the town itself: stacked pastel houses, the majolica dome of Santa Maria Assunta and the painted rooms of a Roman villa beneath it. A morning covers it.

Rome is the reverse, with the Forum, the Pantheon, St Peter's, the Sistine Chapel and Caravaggios in side chapels all inside one walkable centre. A week there still leaves things unseen, so anyone travelling for history and art should choose Rome.

Neither is a clubbing destination, but Rome gives you far more to do after dinner. Trastevere's lanes stay crowded with wine bars until late, Monti has small cocktail bars, and San Lorenzo and Pigneto add student and arty crowds.

Positano's evening is aperitivo with a view, a long dinner and perhaps the cave club at the end of the main beach. That suits a couple in summer and goes quiet once the season ends.

Positano sits in far wilder country. The Lattari mountains drop straight into the sea, and the Path of the Gods runs high above terraced lemon groves, with steeper trails to ridges over 1,000m and kayaks along the cliffs to grottoes and the Li Galli islets.

Rome's outdoors is gentler and more spread out: villa parks such as Borghese and Pamphili, a bike ride down the Appian Way past tombs and aqueducts, and the crater lakes of the Alban Hills. The Apennines are a longer trip away.

Both make excellent bases, but the trips are different in character. From Positano most outings go by boat, to Capri, Amalfi, Ravello and Sorrento, with Pompeii and Paestum further off. The catch is that most ferries stop in winter and the coast road crawls in summer.

From Rome, trains and short drives lead to Ostia Antica, Tivoli's villas, Etruscan tombs, Orvieto and the Castelli Romani. High-speed lines put Florence and Naples within reach, and they run all year.

Rome is the easier of the two with children, though it is not built around them. Villa Borghese has a zoo, rowing boats and space to run, there is a children's museum, and gladiators and catacombs hold young interest between gelato stops.

Positano is mostly stairs, which rules out pushchairs, and has nothing for children beyond the sea. Older children who love swimming and boats do well there, but toddlers really don't.

Positano is small enough to cross on foot, but nearly every walk is a climb, and the stairs tire you more than the distances do. Beyond the town you depend on slow, crowded coast buses or on ferries that mostly stop outside the season, so even a short trip along the coast needs planning.

Rome is the easier place to get around because most of the sights are close enough together to reach on foot, and you can walk from the ancient ruins to the Baroque squares and across the Tiber in a morning without a ticket. Public transport is still weak. The metro mostly skirts the old centre and buses get stuck in traffic, so cobbles and summer heat will tire your feet. Even so, it asks far less of you than Positano's steps and ferry timetables.

Positano sells one look and does it well: loose white linen, printed resort wear, sandals cut to fit and painted ceramics along the lanes to the beach. Beyond that look there is little to buy.

Rome covers much more ground, from the fashion houses around Via Condotti and the chains on Via del Corso to Monti's independent and vintage boutiques, the antique dealers of Via dei Coronari and the sprawling Porta Portese flea market.

Positano is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Sea-view rooms, loungers, terrace dinners and boat transfers all cost a lot, and many visitors save by sleeping in Praiano or Sorrento.

Rome is far from cheap, with costly central rooms and high museum fees, but everyday life is kinder. Standing espresso, pizza by weight, trattoria lunches, free fountain water and free churches full of art keep daily costs well below the coast's.

Rome has a proper classical calendar. You get winter opera and ballet at the Teatro dell'Opera, summer performances among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, the Santa Cecilia orchestra at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, and jazz clubs and church concerts as well.

Positano itself offers only the odd summer concert. Its best musical evening means travelling along the coast to Ravello's festival terrace above the sea.

Rest feels different in each, though neither town has a bathing culture of its own. Positano relies on cliffside hotel spas, pools and the plain calm of a terrace over the sea, best in May, June or late September, when the lanes are quieter.

Rome is noisier day to day, but it has more ways to unwind: hammam-style day spas in the city, the thermal pools of Bagni di Tivoli and the free hot springs near Viterbo. The Aventine and the villa gardens offer quiet in the centre.