San Marino or Siena?

San Marino has the clear advantage here, because the Romagna shore at Rimini and Riccione is about half an hour below the mountain. The beaches have wide sand, shallow water and orderly rows of umbrellas, and they fit easily into an afternoon from July to early September.

From Siena, the Maremma beaches around Castiglione della Pescaia are well over an hour away, so a swim costs a whole day and most swimming happens in an agriturismo pool. The sea is about equally warm at both in high summer. The difference is the distance.

Both cook in the central Italian tradition of hand-rolled pasta, but Siena does it with more conviction. Pici with duck ragù, cinta senese pork, panforte and ricciarelli from long-established pastry shops, and Chianti, Brunello and Vino Nobile by the glass make eating a real part of a stay.

San Marino's piadina, passatelli and Tre Monti cake are honest food. But the summit terraces sell the view more than the cooking, so a good meal means going down to Borgo Maggiore or into Romagna. Neither town offers much beyond its own regional food.

San Marino's appeal is its setting and its story: three towers on a cliff edge and the ceremonies of an ancient republic in the Palazzo Pubblico, seen comfortably in half a day.

Siena is in another league. Its whole medieval centre is UNESCO-listed, with the Campo, the Duomo's inlaid floor and Piccolomini Library, Duccio's Maestà and Lorenzetti's frescoes of Good and Bad Government. It needs two or three days, and the seventeen contrade give its streets a living civic identity that San Marino's small museums cannot match.

Neither town is the place for a night out, but Siena at least has evenings. There is wine on the Campo, students fill a handful of pubs and wine bars, and around the Palio the contrade hold long outdoor dinners that run late.

San Marino's summit empties when the coaches leave, leaving a few terraces looking down on the lights of the coast. A real night out there means driving down to the Riviera clubs at Rimini and back up the mountain afterwards.

Monte Titano gives San Marino cliffs, wooded paths between the towers and wide views to the Adriatic, which are enough for a morning walk or a drive through the Marecchia valley.

Siena's surroundings offer far more outdoors. There are the bare clay hills of the Crete Senesi and the Val d'Orcia, and white strade bianche gravel roads that draw cyclists straight from the edge of town. Walkers can follow stretches of the Via Francigena or head for the beech forests of Monte Amiata. Neither has high mountains.

Both make good bases, and this is San Marino's strongest suit. The fortress of San Leo, Renaissance Urbino, Ravenna's mosaics, Gradara and Rimini's Roman arch and bridge are all within about an hour and a quarter.

Siena's circle is denser still. Florence, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, the Chianti villages, Volterra, Pienza, Montalcino and Montepulciano are all within reach, along with abbeys such as Sant'Antimo and San Galgano. From either town a car opens up the hill towns, but Siena's fast bus to Florence beats anything San Marino has beyond its bus to Rimini.

San Marino works better with children, mainly because of what lies below it: Italia in Miniatura, Fiabilandia, waterparks and shallow sandy beaches. Up top there are the cable car and the battlements.

Siena has no attractions built for children, so it suits older ones who will climb the Torre del Mangia or stand on the unfinished cathedral façade. In both towns steep, stepped streets make pushchairs hard work, and around Siena a farmhouse with a pool usually does more for a family than the town itself.

Both centres are largely car-free and steep, but Siena is easier to use. Everything inside the walls is a few minutes' walk apart, escalators lift you up from the station, and buses run to Florence and nearby towns.

San Marino's core is small, with a cable car down to Borgo Maggiore. Without a car, though, you arrive on the bus up from Rimini, and buses between the villages are infrequent. Around both towns the hill country really calls for a car.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what differs is the kind of shopping. San Marino sells on its lower taxes, with perfume, watches, spirits and leather along the main streets and an outlet centre in the valley. Collectors come for its stamps and coins, but there is little real craft.

Siena is the slightly better place to browse. Banchi di Sopra and Via di Città have Italian clothing and leather, and there is majolica, contrada scarves, panforte and pecorino to take home. A large weekly market fills the area around the Fortezza Medicea.

San Marino is gentler on the wallet. Hotels are moderate outside August, the trattorias in the lower villages are fair, the sights are inexpensive, and lower taxes make fuel and spirits cheaper. Only the summit terraces carry a premium.

Siena costs more, chiefly for rooms inside the walls, which are scarce and rise in summer and around the Palio. The tickets for the cathedral complex and the civic museums also add up. An osteria lunch or a bed in an agriturismo outside town keeps the bill in check.

San Marino's stage life amounts to a small theatre, occasional local concerts and the costumed musicians and crossbow contests of its summer Medieval Days.

Siena has far more for a town its size. The Accademia Chigiana holds summer concerts in palaces and churches, Siena Jazz adds concerts by its teachers and students, and the Teatro dei Rinnovati and Teatro dei Rozzi run winter seasons. For opera, both send you elsewhere: Siena to Florence, San Marino to Bologna or Pesaro.

Both share the same evening calm once the day visitors leave, and both have crowded streets on summer days. The real difference is thermal water.

San Marino has a few hotel spas, and thermal resorts only as a separate outing. Siena has the travertine pools of Rapolano Terme half an hour away, the medieval bath at Bagno Vignoni, the free limestone pools of Bagni San Filippo and Petriolo's hot river, all of which fit easily into a stay among the hills.