San Marino or Zermatt?

San Marino has no shore of its own, but the long sandy beaches of Rimini and Riccione are half an hour down the hill. They have numbered umbrellas, beach clubs and shallow, warm water in high summer, so a beach day is easy to add. It works as an outing rather than a seaside stay.

Zermatt has nothing of the kind. There is no sea and no bathing lake, and the tarns that reflect the Matterhorn stay icy even in August, so swimming means a hotel pool.

Neither place is a destination for food, and they offer two quite different kitchens. San Marino serves Romagna hill cooking: hand-rolled pasta, passatelli in broth, piadina and the Tre Monti wafer cake, washed down with local Sangiovese. The good meals are in family trattorias in Borgo Maggiore rather than on the view terraces at the top.

Zermatt eats Valais Alpine food, meaning raclette, fondue, air-dried beef and wines like Petite Arvine. Its best moments are long lunches at chalets in Findeln or Furi with the Matterhorn in view. It also has a few ambitious village kitchens, but cheap eating is scarce and many places close between seasons.

San Marino has the more substantial sights. The medieval town runs along a cliff edge, with the Guaita and Cesta towers linked by a rock path, the Palazzo Pubblico and the basilica. All of it tells the story of one of the world's oldest republics, and it fills a satisfying half day.

Zermatt's heritage is almost entirely about mountaineering. There is the Matterhorn Museum on the 1865 first ascent, the climbers' cemetery and the old larch barns of the Hinterdorf. It is moving, but it takes a morning, and nobody chooses Zermatt for its monuments.

Zermatt has the livelier evenings, though only in winter. Après-ski fills the slope-side bars from late afternoon, and a few main-street bars and small clubs go past midnight on busy weekends. In summer the hikers turn in after dinner.

On top of Monte Titano there is essentially nothing after the day visitors leave, apart from a quiet glass of wine above the lights of the coast. For a real night out you have to drive down to the Riviera clubs in Rimini and Riccione.

This is Zermatt's great strength. Dozens of four-thousand-metre peaks, the Gorner Glacier and lifts to the Gornergrat and Glacier Paradise give it some of the highest terrain in Europe, with skiing in winter and marmot-filled trails, the Europaweg and guided summits in summer.

San Marino's single limestone ridge at about 740m is pretty, with woodland paths between the towers and wide views to the Adriatic. The Montefeltro hills beyond are good for gentle cycling or a drive, but it is scenery for a morning rather than a trip built around the outdoors.

San Marino makes the far better base for exploring. Rimini's Roman arch and bridge are just below the mountain, and the fortress of San Leo and Gradara castle are close by. Urbino's Renaissance court is about an hour's drive, Ravenna's mosaics a little further, and Bologna is within reach by train from the coast.

The hill towns really need a car, though, because the only regular bus goes down to Rimini. From Zermatt, every outing begins with the long train ride down the valley. Sion's castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace are worth seeing, but most visitors sensibly spend their spare days up in the mountains.

Families do about equally well in both, in different ways. In San Marino children get towers, battlements and the cable car. The real draw is the coast below, with Italia in Miniatura, Fiabilandia, waterparks and shallow beaches, best reached with a car. The steep summit streets are hard work with a pushchair.

Zermatt's car-free streets make it calm and safe. Ski schools, nursery slopes, marmots and cog railways keep children busy, but rainy days are hard to fill and the thin air at the highest viewpoints can be too much for small children.

Zermatt is far simpler once you arrive. You come in by train, the village is closed to ordinary cars, and the cog railway, funicular and gondolas all start within walking distance, with smooth links into the Swiss rail network.

San Marino's centre is walkable but almost every street involves steps or a climb. Without a car you depend on the bus up from Rimini and rare local services, and the surrounding hill towns are realistically reached only by driving.

San Marino's shops live off lower taxes, while Zermatt's live off wealthy skiers. Lower taxes than in Italy fill San Marino's streets with perfume, watches, leather and spirits for Italian visitors. A fashion outlet sits on the valley floor, and collectors come for the republic's stamps and coins.

Zermatt's one main street pairs Swiss watch and jewellery boutiques with cowbells and chocolate. Its genuinely useful offer is the well-stocked ski and mountaineering outfitters, and neither place has much independent design to browse.

The gap here is wide. San Marino costs about what provincial central Italy does: moderate hotels outside August, fairly priced trattorias in the lower villages and cheap entry to the sights. Only the summit view terraces carry a premium.

Zermatt is among the most expensive places in the Alps. Plain hotel rooms, terrace lunches and the lift tickets every visitor needs all add up fast, and only self-catering, picnics or a bed down in Täsch soften the bill.

Both are thin, but Zermatt has a little more to plan around. Zermatt Unplugged brings acoustic sets by well-known singers to the mountain stages in spring, and a late-summer chamber festival fills the village church with serious classical musicians. The rest of the year it is bands in après-ski bars.

San Marino offers a small theatre, open-air music in the squares and the costumed Medieval Days in summer. For opera, people head to Bologna or Rossini's Pesaro.

Zermatt is the better place to unwind. It has a high concentration of excellent hotel spas with pools, saunas and mountain views, some of which sell day passes, and the car-free village has clean air and no traffic noise, although the mood in peak weeks is more active than slow.

San Marino has only a few hotel spas. Its restful moments come on evening walks along the walls once the summer crowds have left, and the thermal baths are a separate excursion down on the coast or in the Apennines.