Rome or Rovinj?

Rome's sea is a day out rather than part of the stay. Ostia is about half an hour away by suburban train, with dark volcanic sand mostly divided into paid lidos and a free stretch further south towards Castel Porziano. Fregene, to the north, is more relaxed but harder to reach without a car. The water is rarely clear, Romans fill both beaches at weekends, and the prettier coves of Sperlonga and Sabaudia are a much longer trip south.

Rovinj is the better place to swim, and you can swim right from the edge of town. You can slip in off the stones below the old town walls or use the limestone ledges, pebble coves and bathing platforms of the Golden Cape, and taxi boats run to quieter coves on St Catherine and Red Island. There is little sand and the shore is almost all rock, with sea urchins about, so pack water shoes.

Rome is the stronger food city by a wide margin. It has a whole cuisine of its own: the four classic pastas, artichokes fried in the Ghetto, the offal dishes of Testaccio, and street food such as supplì and pizza al taglio that makes a cheap lunch easy. The trick is to eat away from the big sights.

Rovinj eats well within a narrower range: grilled fish, scampi buzara, truffle pasta and peppery Istrian olive oil, often best at konobas out in the countryside. Its Malvazija and Teran wines outclass the modest wines of the Roman hills. Harbour menus are aimed at visitors, though, and cheap everyday food is hard to find.

There is no real contest. Rome has the Forum and the Pantheon, Byzantine-gold mosaics in early basilicas, Bernini's piazzas and the collections of the Vatican, the Borghese and Palazzo Massimo. A week there still means leaving things out.

In Rovinj, the sight is the town itself: pastel Venetian houses climbing to St Euphemia, a bell tower to climb, the Balbi Arch and the Batana House with its fishing boats and songs. It makes a charming afternoon rather than the reason for the trip.

Neither town is built for clubbing, but Rome keeps going much later and gives you far more choice. Aperitivo leads into crowded nights in the lanes of Trastevere, cocktail bars in Monti, cheap student drinking in San Lorenzo and an arty crowd in Pigneto, with some dancing in Testaccio and Ostiense.

A Rovinj evening is a long dinner and a drink on the rocks at sunset, then a few waterfront bars in summer. The old town is mostly quiet by midnight, and outside the season there is little going on.

The two are about level outdoors, but the green is very different. In Rovinj it is on the doorstep and tied to the sea: the pine and cedar paths of the Golden Cape, kayaking and diving around the archipelago's reefs and wrecks, and boat trips into the Lim Fjord.

Rome's green inside the city means its villa parks and the cycle out along the Appian Way past tombs and aqueducts. Beyond that it reaches higher ground than Istria has: crater lakes in the Alban Hills, and Apennine hiking and winter skiing about ninety minutes away.

Rome is the better base. Ostia Antica and Tivoli's Villa d'Este and Hadrian's Villa are close, Etruscan tombs and Orvieto lie to the north, and high-speed trains make Florence or Naples an easy day out. Much of this needs no car.

Rovinj has a dense little region of its own around it. Pula's Roman amphitheatre and the mosaics of Porec's basilica are each about forty minutes away, and Motovun and Groznjan sit above the truffle woods. Trieste and Piran are within reach too. You will want a car for most of it.

Both are about equally suited to children, in quite different ways. Rome is a sightseeing trip with kids, kept going by gladiators, catacombs, gelato and the Bioparco and rowing boats in Villa Borghese, but long queues and summer heat wear them down.

Rovinj is a resort stay: a small, safe town, campsites and resorts with pools and playgrounds, island boat trips and flat shady paths in the Golden Cape. The rocky shore needs close watching with young swimmers. Pushchairs struggle in both, on Rome's uneven cobbles and on Rovinj's steep, polished lanes.

Both are best seen on foot, and the difference lies beyond the centre. In Rome the walk from the Colosseum to Trastevere takes in most of what you came for. The metro barely touches the core and buses crawl in traffic, but trains carry you out to the day trips, and a car is only a nuisance.

Rovinj's car-free old town and shoreline promenade cover everything in town, with bikes for the coast paths and taxi boats to the islands. There is no railway, though, so the wider region really calls for a car, and parking near the old town is tight in summer.

Rome is far ahead. The big Italian fashion houses line Via Condotti and the streets around the Spanish Steps. Monti has independent boutiques and vintage, Via Margutta and Via dei Coronari keep their antique dealers and workshops, and on Sundays there is the sprawling Porta Portese market.

In Rovinj, shopping means taking the region home: truffles, olive oil, Malvazija, lavender and brandies, plus the galleries and artists' studios on Grisia. There are no fashion streets, and the choice shrinks outside summer.

Both are on the expensive side, and in each case rooms take most of the budget. Rome's central rooms are small and costly, and the big sights charge serious entry fees. Day to day, though, it is kind: standing espresso, pizza by weight, free water from the fountains and churches full of art that cost nothing to enter.

Rovinj's prices peak in July and August, and fish sold by weight soon adds up on a harbour bill. Cheap eating is scarce, so the savings come from staying in a private apartment or a campsite and travelling in late spring or September.

Rome has a real classical and concert season. There is opera and ballet at the Teatro dell'Opera, summer opera among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, the Santa Cecilia orchestra at Renzo Piano's Auditorium, sacred concerts in churches and an established jazz club scene.

Rovinj offers occasional summer concerts in St Euphemia, music on the squares and, if you are lucky, the unaccompanied bitinada singing tied to the batana boats. For anything larger, people drive to Pula's arena.

Neither has a bathing culture of its own, and both rely on hotel spas, so the difference is in what lies around them. From Rome you can reach real thermal water: the sulphur pools of Bagni di Tivoli and the free open-air hot springs near Viterbo. The centre itself is noisy, and the calm is found on the Aventine and in the villa gardens.

Rovinj's resort spas sit along the shore and the Golden Cape. Its real draw is the pace in May, June and September: late swims off the rocks and evening walks in the pines.