Positano or Trieste?

Positano is the better place to swim. Spiaggia Grande and Fornillo are real beaches of dark sand and pebble, and boats run to Laurito, Arienzo and coves further along the coast. The water is a touch warmer at the height of summer too, though the shore is steep and every spot is taken by mid-morning.

Trieste's sea is just as clear, but you get into it differently. You lay a towel on the concrete steps or the pine-shaded lawns at Barcola and climb down a ladder, or use one of the old bathing establishments with changing cabins. The pebble coves at Sistiana and Duino are prettier, but neither city offers soft sand or shallow water for small children.

Trieste gives a curious eater much more to try. There are buffets carving boiled pork with horseradish and sauerkraut, jota and sardoni, presnitz and strudel, and a coffee culture with its own vocabulary, all showing a city where Italy meets Austria and the Slavic world. Up on the Karst, the osmize add farmhouse wine and cured meats.

Positano's cooking is lovely but repetitive: clams, grilled fish, scialatielli and lemon desserts on a terrace over the sea, then a limoncello. There is little everyday eating or market life, and many kitchens close from November to Easter.

Trieste is the place for sightseeing, while Positano's main sight is the town itself. Its pastel houses climb a ravine to the sea around the green and gold majolica dome of Santa Maria Assunta. Beneath the church lie the rooms of a Roman villa whose painted walls survived Vesuvius. A morning covers it, and for museums you go to Naples.

Trieste has far more to see. Piazza Unità opens onto the sea, the Borgo Teresiano runs along the Canal Grande past the domes of San Spiridione, and San Giusto hill carries a mosaic-lined cathedral and a castle above a Roman theatre. Add Miramare Castle, the Revoltella museum, the great synagogue and the Risiera di San Sabba memorial, and several days are filled.

Neither suits a big night out, but Trieste has a little more going on, and it lasts all year: aperitivo around Piazza Unità and in Cavana, student wine bars and pubs, and kiosks along Barcola on summer nights. Positano's evenings are a drink with a view, a long dinner and one dressed-up cave club at the end of Spiaggia Grande, and even that fades when the season ends.

Positano has the more dramatic landscape. The Lattari mountains fall straight into the sea, the Path of the Gods runs high above terraced lemon groves, and kayaks follow the cliffs to grottoes and the Li Galli islets.

Trieste's outdoors are gentler but more varied. You can walk the Strada Napoleonica and the Rilke Path along the Karst edge, climb in Val Rosandra, go down into the Grotta Gigante, sail on the gulf or snorkel in the Miramare marine reserve. The Julian Alps are within reach for longer days, though the winter Bora can keep you indoors.

Positano edges ahead because its excursions are among the best known in Italy: Capri, Amalfi, Ravello, Sorrento, Pompeii, Herculaneum and Paestum. The catch is that most ferries stop outside the season and the coast road crawls in summer traffic.

Trieste's day trips spread across three countries rather than along one coastline. There are Aquileia's mosaic floor and Palmanova's star-shaped fortress in Friuli, Piran and Ljubljana in Slovenia, Istrian towns in Croatia, and Venice by train. None of it depends on a ferry timetable.

With children, Positano asks a lot more of a family than Trieste does. Getting to the beach and back means long flights of steps, with a child carried rather than pushed, and the shore drops off quickly, even if the summer sea is usually calm and warm. Trieste's waterfront centre is flat, so you can push a pushchair along it, and the aquarium and the hands-on science centre are there for a rainy day.

The outings differ too. Positano's best moments for children are on the water, such as a boat to the coves or across to Capri, which suits confident swimmers of school age. Trieste spreads its outings across land and sea: the gardens at Miramare, the vast chamber of the Grotta Gigante and summer afternoons among local families on the Barcola promenade. Toddlers are hard work in both because of the stairs and steep streets, but older children get more variety in Trieste.

Trieste is far simpler to move around. The main sights sit close together on flat ground by the sea, a dense bus network reaches Barcola, Miramare and the Karst, and boats cross the bay to Muggia. Only the climb up to San Giusto takes real effort.

In Positano almost every walk means hundreds of steps. Buses on the single road fill up and crawl in summer, and the ferries that make life easy run mainly in season. A car is little help in either town.

Positano is the better place to shop, though only for one look. Its lanes are full of white linen and printed resort wear in the moda Positano style, sandal makers will cut a pair to fit while you wait, and there are hand-painted ceramics and lemon soaps.

Trieste has ordinary Italian clothing shops around Corso Italia, and more character in the antique and second-hand shops of the old town. Its best things to take home are edible: coffee from the city's roasters, Karst wine and honey, and presnitz.

In Positano the cost starts with the bed. A sea-view room in summer costs more than in most European capitals, and loungers on Spiaggia Grande, transfers and boat trips keep adding to the bill. The real way round it is to sleep in Praiano or Sorrento and come in by bus or ferry, or to go in May or October, when prices ease.

Trieste is fairly priced rather than cheap. Seafood dinners and smarter hotels cost what they would in any Italian city, and rooms get scarcer around the Barcolana regatta and in high summer. Day to day, though, coffee at the bar and everyday meals keep spending low, so a modest budget goes a long way without having to stay out of town.

Trieste has a real stage life. The Teatro Verdi on the waterfront runs a season of opera and ballet, the city keeps up a Habsburg love of operetta that is rare in Italy, and there are the Politeama Rossetti, a Slovenian-language theatre and summer concerts in the castle courtyard on San Giusto.

Positano offers only occasional summer concerts in churches and squares. For its best evening of music you go along the coast to Ravello's classical festival on a terrace above the sea.

The two are close here, and neither has thermal baths, but the calm comes in different forms. In Positano it comes from cliffside hotel spas and pools and slow afternoons on a terrace above the sea. It is at its best in May, June and late September, because July and August bring crowds and the stairs tire you out.

Trieste offers the pace of the city rather than pampering, with only a few hotel and day spas. Instead there are long sittings in old coffee houses and sunset walks on the Molo Audace, and that quiet lasts all year.