Pula or Zagreb?

Pula is the only one of the two with the sea on its doorstep. You swim off rocks, platforms and pebble coves on Verudela and Stoja, with the wild inlets of Kamenjak a short ride south and shallower bays around Medulin. There is no sand, so pack water shoes.

Zagreb sits two hours inland, and its swimming is at Lake Jarun and Bundek. They are pleasant on a hot afternoon but no substitute for the Adriatic. To get the sea on a Zagreb trip, you have to add a separate stay on the coast.

At the table the two are evenly matched, but they cook from different traditions. Pula eats Istrian: truffle pasta, scampi buzara, grilled fish, pršut, and Malvazija and Teran from estates nearby. The best of it is found in harbour and hinterland taverns rather than around the Arena.

Zagreb's cooking is Central European: štrukli, turkey with mlinci and Zagorje sausages, with Dolac market at its centre and coffee on Lower Town terraces as the daily ritual. Go to Pula for seafood and olive oil, and to Zagreb for hearty plates and café life.

Both give a solid day or two of sightseeing, but from different eras. Pula is Roman first: the Arena, the Temple of Augustus on the Forum and the Arch of the Sergii, with Habsburg naval forts around the edges and a single history museum in the fortress.

Zagreb has a medieval hilltop quarter above a Habsburg grid, and many more museums and galleries, from the Strossmayer old masters to Naive Art and the Museum of Broken Relationships, with Mirogoj cemetery as a sight in its own right. Pula has the one great monument, and Zagreb has the wider spread of collections.

Zagreb has the livelier evenings, and they last all year. Tkalčićeva fills with terraces below the Upper Town, smaller cocktail and craft beer bars hide in courtyards near Flower Square, students keep alternative venues open, and in summer the crowd moves to the lakeside clubs at Jarun.

Going out in Pula is mostly a summer thing: terraces by the Forum, beach bars on Verudela and around Medulin, and a few small clubs. Out of season the city goes quiet early.

Pula's outdoors is low, stony coast and open water. Zagreb's is wooded hills that start at the edge of town. Around Pula you can walk or cycle the car-free Kamenjak headland past dinosaur footprints in the rock, kayak among its islets, windsurf in Premantura bay and dive on wrecks from the naval era.\n\nMedvednica rises to about 1,030m on Zagreb's northern edge, with beech forest, marked trails and mountain huts a tram and bus ride away, and Maksimir's lakes and oak woods are inside the city. Plitvice makes a long day south. Pula's nearest real high ground is Učka, an hour and a half away, so keen walkers have more right on Zagreb's doorstep.

Pula has the stronger list of excursions. Rovinj, the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, the hill towns of Motovun, Grožnjan and Hum, and the Brijuni islands are all within about an hour, and Piran and Trieste can be reached too. Buses are thin, though, and a car makes all the difference.

Zagreb's outings are pleasant rather than outstanding: the castles and pilgrimage churches of Zagorje, baroque Varaždin, Samobor and Karlovac's fortress, with Ljubljana a long day by train. None of them quite matches Rovinj or the Poreč mosaics.

Pula is the better pick with children, mostly because of the sea. It has the shallow bays at Medulin and Premantura, an aquarium inside a fort on Verudela and the Arena's underground passages to explore, with a dinosaur park and a water park within an hour. The catch is rocky shores, summer heat and needing a car.

Zagreb is easy to walk with a pushchair and has the zoo in Maksimir, the Tesla technical museum and the funicular. With no big attractions, though, it suits a few gentle days more than a whole family vacation.

Zagreb is much easier without a car. Blue trams cover the city in a dense web, the funicular takes you up to the Upper Town, and buses reach Medvednica and the airport. You only need to drive for Zagorje or Plitvice.

Pula's small centre is just as walkable, with the Arena, the Forum and the market minutes apart, and city buses reach Verudela. Beyond that, slow trains and infrequent regional buses mean Kamenjak, the wider coast and the hill towns really call for a car or a scooter.

Neither is a place to come for shopping, but Zagreb has more to browse: chains and local fashion along Ilica, a few design shops, a Sunday flea market at Britanski trg, and licitar hearts and neckties as gifts. Pula's best buys are edible, such as truffles, olive oil, wine and pršut from the market hall and producers inland, with little beyond chain stores on the old-town street.

Pula is the dearer of the two, and the gap is widest in July and August, when its rooms book up at close to Western European coastal rates. Zagreb, with no beach season to push prices up, stays cheaper all summer. In spring and autumn Pula comes closer, but its coves and hill towns usually mean paying for a hire car, while in Zagreb a tram ticket covers most of what you want to see.

At the top end the difference shrinks. In Zagreb, smart restaurants, cocktails and the best hotels cost about what they would in Western Europe, and in Pula so do the tables around the Arena and the harbour. Zagreb wins on the everyday things, such as terrace coffees, bakery snacks and market food, which makes it the cheaper place for a comfortable stay, though not a truly budget one.

Zagreb has a full season of its own. There is opera, ballet and drama at the Croatian National Theatre, the Zagreb Philharmonic at the Lisinski hall, the Zagreb Soloists in churches, and jazz and rock in smaller clubs, with open-air concerts in Upper Town courtyards in summer.

Pula's big moment is the Arena on a summer night, when touring concerts and Pula Film Festival screenings take place under the Roman arches. For the rest of the year there is the Istrian National Theatre and little else, so plan any show in Pula around the summer programme.

Neither city has a bathing tradition of its own, and in both, spa means a hotel wellness area. What differs is what lies nearby. Zagreb has the thermal resorts of Zagorje, Tuheljske, Krapinske and Stubičke Toplice, within about an hour. In Pula, relaxing means walks on the pine-shaded coastal paths and an unhurried pace outside high summer.