Pula or Zermatt?

This is the widest gap between the two. Pula has very clear Adriatic water, rock platforms and pebble coves around Verudela and Stoja, the wild inlets of Cape Kamenjak and shallow bays at Medulin. You can swim comfortably from June to late September.

Zermatt has no sea and no bathing lake, and the tarns above the village stay too cold to swim in even in August. Pack water shoes for Pula's sharp rocks. In Zermatt a swimsuit is only for the hotel pool.

Pula has the better food, mostly thanks to Istria: truffle pasta, scampi buzara, pršut and the local Malvazija and Teran wines. The best meals are in hinterland taverns and harbourside konobas, not at the tourist tables around the Arena.

Zermatt eats well for a village of its size. A long lunch at a mountain chalet in Findeln or Zum See, with the Matterhorn in view, is a highlight in itself. But the choice is narrowly Alpine (raclette, fondue and air-dried beef), cheap meals are hard to find, and many kitchens close between seasons.

Pula's Roman remains explain the gap. There is the Arena with its outer ring of three storeys still complete, the Temple of Augustus on the Forum and the Arch of the Sergii. Add the Venetian fortress and the Austro-Hungarian naval forts, and the sights fill a day or two.

Zermatt's heritage is mountaineering, told in the Matterhorn Museum and the climbers' cemetery. Add the old larch-wood barns of the Hinterdorf and the Gornergrat railway, and that is about a morning. Nobody chooses Zermatt for its monuments.

Neither is a place for a serious night out, but Pula offers a little more across a long summer. There are drinks on terraces around the Forum, beach and cocktail bars on Verudela and at Medulin, and a few small clubs on warm weekends. Zermatt's evenings belong to winter après-ski, loud and expensive, and in summer most visitors turn in early before a day's hiking.

Here Zermatt is in a different league. The Matterhorn rises straight above the village, and lifts climb above 3,800m to glacier terrain. The skiing crosses into Italy, and in summer there are hundreds of kilometres of marked trails, the Five Lakes walk and guided climbs of four-thousanders.

Pula's outdoors are gentler and coastal. There is the car-free headland of Kamenjak for walking and cycling, sea kayaking among its islets, windsurfing in Premantura bay and diving on naval-era wrecks. The nearest real mountains, the Učka range, are about an hour and a half away.

Pula wins easily here, because its outings are close and varied. Within about an hour's drive you can reach Rovinj's Venetian harbour, the Byzantine mosaics of Poreč's basilica and the truffle and wine country around the hilltop villages of Motovun, Grožnjan and Hum. A short crossing from Fažana takes you to the Roman ruins and Tito's retreat on Brijuni. Piran and Trieste stretch a day to about two hours each way, and buses are thin enough that a car pays off.

From Zermatt, any excursion begins with more than an hour on the valley train, and there are fewer places to go: Brig's Stockalper Palace, the castle hills and vineyards of Sion, and Saas-Fee in the next valley. A week in Pula can mix towns, islands and wine estates. In Zermatt, the mountains above the village are usually a better use of a free day than the valley below.

Pula gives children more to do. There are shallow, sheltered bays at Medulin and Premantura, an aquarium inside a fort on Verudela and the Arena's underground passages, plus a dinosaur park and a water park within an hour. The drawbacks are the summer heat, the rocky shores near town and the need for a car.

Zermatt's strength is its car-free calm, with ski schools, nursery slopes at Sunnegga and walks where children can spot marmots. Beyond skiing and hiking there is little made for children, and the highest viewpoints can be too cold and thin-aired for the youngest.

Zermatt is the easier place to get around. You arrive by train and then walk everywhere, with electric taxis, ski buses, the cog railway and the Sunnegga funicular all close to the centre and smooth Swiss rail links out of the valley. Only the hotels on the slopes mean a steep climb with luggage.

Pula's old centre is small, flat and easy on foot, and city buses reach Verudela. But Kamenjak, the hill towns and most of the wider coast really need a car or a scooter, and parking near the centre is tight in summer.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what differs is what you would buy. In Pula it is food and drink, such as olive oil, truffle products, wine, honey and pršut, from the market hall and the producers inland. Zermatt's one main street sells Swiss watches and jewellery to wealthy skiers and, more usefully, excellent ski and mountaineering gear.

The gap in cost is very large. Pula is cheaper than the best-known resorts further down the Croatian coast, and its city buses and the Arena and other Roman sights cost little. High summer narrows the advantage, as rooms then cost about as much as on Western Europe's coasts and the tables beside the Arena and the harbour charge tourist rates. The extras to plan for are a hire car and boat trips.

Zermatt is expensive even by Alpine standards. Plain hotels charge steeply in season, a meal or a drink on a mountain terrace costs well above the European norm, and the lifts and cog railways every visitor depends on add a heavy daily cost. Supermarket picnics or a bed down the valley in Täsch soften the bill, but the same week still costs far more than it would in Pula.

Pula has the stronger offer, mostly because of one venue. In summer the Roman Arena hosts touring pop and rock acts, classical galas and film festival screenings, so a summer visit has a fair chance of an evening under the stone arches. The Istrian National Theatre adds drama all year, although it is in Croatian, and there is little regular opera or classical music.

Zermatt's calendar rests on two short festivals: acoustic sets at Zermatt Unplugged in spring, played in tents and on mountain stages, and chamber music in the village church in late summer. Outside those weeks there is no theatre or concert hall, and live music means a band at après-ski, so Pula's long open-air season is the safer bet.

Neither has thermal springs, but Zermatt has many more good hotel spas, with indoor pools, saunas and steam rooms, often with mountain views, and some sell day access. The car-free quiet and clear air help, although in peak weeks the mood is active rather than slow.

In Pula, spa facilities are limited to the large resort hotels on Verudela and in Medulin. Unwinding there is simpler: long coffees on the Forum and evening walks along pine-shaded coastal paths outside high summer.