Rovinj or Zurich?

Rovinj has the real sea. You swim in clear Adriatic water from limestone ledges, pebble coves and concrete platforms all through the Golden Cape park, and taxi boats run to St Catherine and Red Island for quieter spots. There is no sand, and you will want water shoes.

Zurich does well for an inland city. It has wooden bathing houses at Utoquai and Mythenquai, and river baths at Letten where swimmers drift down the Limmat. The water is just as clean, but the season is shorter and you swim from lawns and piers. It is a dip between sights, not days spent by the water.

Neither is a great food city, and they differ in kind. Rovinj eats from the sea and the Istrian countryside: grilled fish, scampi buzara, truffle pasta, Malvazija and Teran, with country konobas worth the drive. Zurich is about comfort food and sweets: veal with rösti, fondue in the guild houses, and chocolate and Luxemburgerli from the old Paradeplatz tea rooms.

Both lack street food. Rovinj's weak spot is the harbour's run of menus written for tourists. Zurich has more casual international places around Langstrasse, but the bill is high everywhere.

In Rovinj the town itself is the sight. Pastel Venetian houses climb to St Euphemia, whose bell tower you can climb. The Batana House and a small town museum fill out a slow afternoon, and then you have seen it.

Zurich gives a culture-minded visitor two or three full days. The Kunsthaus, the Swiss National Museum and the Museum Rietberg hold serious collections. The Altstadt adds the Grossmünster, where the Swiss Reformation began, and Chagall's windows in the Fraumünster.

A night out in Rovinj means a drink on the rocks at sunset and then one of a few waterfront cocktail bars. Most of the old town is quiet by midnight, and there is even less once summer ends.

Zurich has a real club scene built on electronic music. Venues in Kreis 4 and 5 and Zurich West stay open until morning at weekends, and the Street Parade fills the lake shore every August. In summer the night moves out to the lake bathing houses. The price of a round is what keeps nights short.

Rovinj's outdoors is gentle and close to sea level. There are the pine and cedar paths of the Golden Cape, kayaking and diving around the archipelago, and the steep green sides of the Lim Fjord a short drive north.

Zurich has the bigger landscape. The Uetliberg and the Albis ridge are a short train ride from the centre. Within about an hour you reach Rigi, Pilatus and the Glarus valleys for high-mountain hiking, and in winter you can ski at Flumserberg, which Rovinj cannot match.

Both make good bases, but in different ways. From Rovinj you can reach Pula's amphitheatre, the mosaics of Porec and the hill towns of Motovun and Groznjan, with Piran and Trieste across the border. Most of it needs a car.

Zurich's rail network takes you further with less effort. Lucerne is under an hour away, Bern, Basel and St Gallen each about an hour, and the Rhine Falls pair well with Stein am Rhein. None of these trips needs a car.

Zurich is the easier choice with children. The zoo with its Madagascar rainforest hall, the shallow lake lidos, the lake boats and trams that take buggies will fill most days. Technorama and Lucerne's Museum of Transport are short train rides away.

Rovinj is relaxed and welcoming, with shady paths in the Golden Cape and resorts with pools and playgrounds. But the rocky shore means water shoes and close watching, and the steep, polished cobbles are hard work with a pushchair.

Both town centres are easy on foot. Rovinj's old town is closed to cars and its shore promenade leads into the park, and Zurich's Altstadt and lake shore are just as easy to walk.

The difference shows once you leave the centre. In Zurich, trams, S-Bahn trains, funiculars and lake boats all run on one ticket, the airport is a short train ride away, and no visitor needs a car. Rovinj has no railway and buses only to the larger towns. You really need a car for the hill towns and wineries, and summer parking is tight.

Zurich is the shopping city of the two. Bahnhofstrasse runs from the station to the lake past watchmakers, jewellers and department stores. The Niederdorf has smaller boutiques and antique shops, and the old viaduct arches in Zurich West hold design shops.

Rovinj sells regional things to take home: truffles, olive oil, Teran and lavender. The lane of Grisia adds galleries and artists' studios, but there is no fashion shopping at all.

Neither is a bargain, but Rovinj is far easier on the wallet. It is expensive for Croatia in July and August, yet private apartments, campsites, bakeries and markets keep costs manageable, and late spring and September are cheaper again.

Zurich is one of the most expensive cities in the world to visit, where even a plain room or a casual lunch costs far more than in most capitals. Supermarket picnics, free lidos and the visitor card help, but only a little.

Zurich has a full programme all year: opera and ballet at the Opernhaus, the Tonhalle Orchestra, the Schauspielhaus for German-language theatre, and jazz and indie acts at the Rote Fabrik by the lake.

Rovinj has occasional summer concerts in St Euphemia and open-air music on the squares. You may also catch bitinada, the local unaccompanied singing. For anything bigger, people go to the summer concerts in Pula's Roman arena.

Zurich has more for anyone who wants a proper bath. There are thermal pools in the vaults of the old Hürlimann brewery, winter saunas in the wooden bathing houses with cold dips in the lake, and Baden's Roman hot springs about twenty minutes away by train.

In Rovinj, spa life means resort hotel spas. The calm comes from the pace of May, June and September: late swims and evening walks in the pines. In high summer you have to leave the crowded centre to find it.