Rovinj or Salzburg?

Rovinj has the sea on its doorstep. Clear Adriatic water laps limestone ledges and pebble coves along the Golden Cape park, and taxi boats run to quieter coves on St Catherine and Red Island. It is rock rather than sand, so pack water shoes.

Salzburg has no sea, and its river is too cold to swim in, so bathing means a trip to Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee or Mondsee, where you get in from lawns and jetties. That makes a nice outing on a hot day, whereas in Rovinj swimming shapes the whole day.

Neither has a wide range of food, but they eat very differently. Rovinj means fish and shellfish, scampi buzara, truffle pasta and Istrian olive oil and wine, and the best meals are often at family konobas out in the countryside.

Salzburg's cooking is heavier and Alpine: schnitzel, Kasnocken and the peaked Salzburger Nockerl. Its strengths are the coffee houses and the chestnut-shaded garden of the monastery brewery in Mülln. In both towns, skip the old-town menus aimed at passing visitors.

Rovinj's old town is lovely to wander. It fills a former island and climbs to St Euphemia, but once you have seen the bell tower and the Batana House, a slow afternoon covers it.

Salzburg offers far more: a UNESCO-listed Baroque centre with the cathedral and the Residenz, the Hohensalzburg fortress, Mirabell, the Mozart houses, the catacombs of St Peter and the trick fountains of Hellbrunn. It takes two or three days rather than an afternoon.

Both towns are quiet by midnight, and neither is for clubbing. In Rovinj, evenings mean a drink on the rocks at sunset and a few waterfront cocktail and wine bars in summer, and the town largely shuts down outside the season.

Salzburg's best nights are in the beer halls, at long wooden tables shared with locals, with student pubs along Rudolfskai during term. Clubbers from Salzburg head to Munich, and those from Rovinj to the bigger party spots along the coast.

Rovinj's outdoors is gentle. There are cedar and pine paths in the Golden Cape, kayaking and diving among the low islands, and the steep green channel of the Lim Fjord a short drive north.

Salzburg sits at the foot of the Alps. It has wooded ridges inside the city, a cable car up the Untersberg to about 1,800m, paragliding on the Gaisberg and the Königssee half an hour away. For mountain hiking, big views and winter skiing, it is in another league.

Both make good bases. From Rovinj you can reach Pula's Roman amphitheatre, the mosaics of the basilica in Porec and the hill towns of Motovun and Groznjan, with Piran and Trieste further away, but almost all of it needs a car.

Salzburg has the edge in range and access. Hallstatt and the Salzkammergut lake villages, the salt mines of Hallein and Berchtesgaden and the clifftop fortress at Werfen are all within reach. Munich and Linz are a train ride away, so visitors without a car still have plenty of choice.

Rovinj works as a relaxed resort stay with children. There are boat trips to the islands, pools and playgrounds at the big campsites, and flat, shady paths in the Golden Cape. On the other hand, the rocky shore needs water shoes and close watching, and there is little in town made for children.

Salzburg has more to fill the days: the trick fountains at Hellbrunn with the zoo beside them, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the fortress funicular and the marionettes, plus salt mines with miners' slides just outside town. In both towns, steep cobbles make hard work of a pushchair.

Both centres are compact and largely car-free, so you can walk everywhere in town. Rovinj stops there: there is no railway, so the hill towns, wineries and much of the coast mean hiring a car.

Salzburg adds trolleybuses across the city, flat riverside cycle paths and direct trains to Munich and Vienna. Only the lake villages really call for a car.

Rovinj's shopping is mostly truffles, olive oil, wine and lavender, plus the artists' studios and small galleries along Grisia, and little beyond that.

Salzburg has more substance. There is Getreidegasse with its wrought-iron guild signs, Tracht workshops making dirndls and loden jackets to measure, the farmers' market by the Andräkirche and the old Christmas market on Domplatz. Neither is a place for fashion or luxury shopping.

Neither is cheap, but the costs fall at different times. Rovinj is expensive mainly in July and August, when harbour restaurants and old-town rooms charge for the view. Late spring, September, private apartments and the big campsites all bring the cost down.

Salzburg is expensive all year and tightest around the summer festival and the Advent markets. The ways to save are staying across the river, eating in the inns of the outer districts and using the city card for museums and transport.

Rovinj has summer concerts in St Euphemia, music on the squares and the occasional bitinada singing, and almost nothing the rest of the year. For a big show, you drive to the arena in Pula.

Salzburg takes music as seriously as any city in Europe. The Salzburg Festival fills the Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule each summer, Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons, and the Mozarteum, the Landestheater, the Marionette Theatre and the chamber concerts at Mirabell keep the rest of the year busy.

Rovinj relaxes you through its pace: long lunches, late swims and evening walks in the pines in May, June and September, plus spa areas at the resort hotels. In high summer, though, you have to leave the centre to find calm.

Salzburg offers quiet walks on the Mönchsberg and in the Mirabell gardens, the Paracelsus Bad in the city park, and a real bathing culture close by, in the brine baths of Bad Reichenhall and the thermal springs of the Gastein valley.