San Marino or Valletta?

Valletta has the sea right at its feet. Locals swim off limestone ledges under the bastions and off the Sliema rocks, the water is unusually clear, and Golden Bay, Mellieha and the rock pool at St Peter's are easy bus trips.

San Marino has no shore of its own. The nearest swimming is on the sandy Riviera at Rimini and Riccione, half an hour down the mountain, among rows of umbrellas and beach clubs. That shore is shallow and good for small children, but a beach day there takes planning.

Valletta is the better place to eat. Inside the walls there are cheap pastizzi counters, small wine bars on the stepped streets and a few ambitious kitchens, and for fish you go to the harbour at Marsaxlokk. The cooking mixes Sicily, North Africa and Britain, with rabbit stew and lampuki pie as its signature dishes.

San Marino's cooking is honest Romagna fare: hand-rolled pasta, passatelli in broth and piadina. The trouble is the summit, where terraces sell the view more than the cooking. The good meals are down in Borgo Maggiore or over the border.

The gap here is wide. Valletta itself is the monument: a planned Renaissance city of honey-coloured stone, with the gilded Co-Cathedral and its Caravaggio, the Grandmaster's Palace, Fort St Elmo and the MUZA art museum. The Three Cities and the Hypogeum add a second and third day.

San Marino's appeal is the setting and the story. Three towers stand on a cliff edge, and the Palazzo Pubblico speaks for one of the oldest republics in the world. It is memorable, but a half-day visit covers it.

Neither place parties inside its walls, but Valletta at least offers an evening. Strait Street, once the sailors' quarter, has wine bars and cocktail places with tables out on the steps, and Paceville's clubs run until dawn a short ride away. In San Marino, a few terraces stay open for a drink over the coast lights, and anything later means the Rimini seafront.

The two offer different landscapes. San Marino is green and inland: wooded paths around Monte Titano, cliffs looking over the Romagna plain, and quiet cycling roads through the Marecchia valley and the Montefeltro farmland.

Valletta has the stronger outdoor offer, and most of it is at sea. Wrecks, caves and reefs close to shore make Malta a real diving destination, and the Blue Grotto and Gozo's Blue Hole are known well beyond the island. On land there is less: dry, built-up country, with good cliff walks at Dingli and spring wildflowers.

Both make excellent bases, and the difference lies in the range of places and in how you reach them. From San Marino you get a cross-section of Italy: the fortress of San Leo, Renaissance Urbino, the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna and Bologna further on. Without a car, though, most of the hill towns are hard to reach.

Valletta's outings are all on one island, with one shared character, but they reach much further back in time. There are temples older than the pyramids at Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, the silent walled town of Mdina, and Gozo by ferry. Buses and boats reach all of them.

Valletta is easier with children. English is spoken everywhere and distances are short, and the noon cannon at the Upper Barrakka Gardens, the aquarium at Qawra and Popeye Village all go down well. Its steps and summer heat are hard on pushchairs, though, so many families stay in Sliema.

San Marino's towers, battlements and cable car thrill children for a morning. The real family attractions, Italia in Miniatura, Fiabilandia and the waterparks, are on the coast and need a car.

Both old towns are walked on foot, and both have plenty of stairs. The difference is what lies beyond them. Valletta has a lift down to the harbour and ferries to Sliema and the Three Cities, and a bus network from the city gate reaches almost every corner of Malta. Those buses are slow, but you don't need a car.

San Marino has a cable car to Borgo Maggiore and a car-free core. Beyond that there is just the bus to Rimini, and for the surrounding hill towns you need a car.

Lower taxes on one side and handmade crafts on the other sum up the difference. San Marino's main streets are lined with shops selling perfume, watches, leather goods and spirits for less than in Italy, alongside souvenir ceramics, decorative crossbows and the republic's stamps and coins for collectors. An outlet centre on the valley floor adds fashion brands, but there is little independent design or craft of any depth, and serious shoppers head to Bologna.

Valletta has more worth taking home. Small workshops sell silver filigree, Gozo bobbin lace and blown glass, and at Ta' Qali near Mdina you can watch them being made. Republic Street and Merchant Street have the chains and jewellers, with a street market at the lower end of Merchant Street, and Sliema across the harbour has the malls. Still, neither city is worth the trip for shopping alone.

Overall costs are much the same, but the money goes on different things. In San Marino, rooms and view terraces on the summit cost extra. Lower taxes make fuel and spirits cheaper than in Italy. The real extra cost is the car you need to see the region.

In Valletta, rooms inside the walls are mostly boutique townhouses and cost more than across the harbour in Sliema or Gzira, though winter rates are kinder. Bus fares are low, so getting around the island costs little. Separately, pastizzi and other street snacks make a very cheap lunch.

Valletta has a real stage. Its small, gilded Manoel Theatre dates from 1731 and hosts chamber music, drama and the Malta Philharmonic. There is also an open-air stage in the ruins of the Royal Opera House, a winter baroque festival and jazz on the Grand Harbour. On Gozo, two rival opera houses stage productions every autumn.

San Marino has a small theatre, and its main event is the costumed Medieval Days festival with crossbows and flag-throwers. For opera you head to Bologna or Rossini's Pesaro.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and their spas are ordinary hotel affairs. Both are calmest once the day visitors have left. Valletta is the more restful of the two: the Barrakka Gardens look over the harbour, the limestone turns gold in the evening, and mild springs and autumns slow the city down, with a swim nearby.

San Marino's quiet comes on summer evenings, walking the walls high above the plain. The thermal spas are a separate trip into the Apennine valleys.