Siena or Venice?

From Siena the sea is a full day out. You drive to the Maremma coast around Castiglione della Pescaia or Follonica, which takes well over an hour each way. In town, swimming means a pool at a hotel or agriturismo.

Venice has a real beach within easy reach. The Lido's long stretch of fine sand faces the open Adriatic a short vaporetto ride from San Marco, and its shallow, gentle water suits children. The water is greenish rather than clear, and few people come to Venice for the beach, but a hot afternoon there is easy to fit in.

You eat about as well in either city, but the meals are very different. Siena means sitting down in a family osteria to inland Tuscan cooking: hand-rolled pici, ribollita, cinta senese pork and wild boar. Afterwards come panforte and ricciarelli from bakeries that have been going for generations, and Chianti or Brunello is poured by the glass.

Venice is at its best standing at the counter of a bacaro near the Rialto with cicchetti and a spritz. Its cooking comes from the lagoon: cuttlefish risotto, sarde in saor and soft-shell crab in season. Neither city offers much beyond its own cooking. Avoid the restaurants facing the Campo in Siena and the picture menus around San Marco in Venice.

Siena is a complete medieval city in its own right. The sloping Campo, Lorenzetti's frescoes of Good and Bad Government, the Duomo's inlaid marble floor and Duccio's Maestà make a superb set that two or three days cover well.

Venice is on another scale. The whole city is the monument, from the Basilica and Doge's Palace to the palazzi lining the Grand Canal. Behind them stand the Accademia, Titian in the Frari, Tintoretto's cycle at San Rocco and modern art at the Guggenheim, with fine paintings in small parish churches too. A week there still leaves things unseen.

Neither city is for a big night out, and both are quiet well before midnight. In Siena the evening is a long dinner, a glass of wine on the Campo and a few student pubs. It only stays up late on the nights around the Palio, when the contrade eat together outdoors.

Venice is liveliest earlier, at aperitivo time in the bacari of the Rialto and the Fondamenta della Misericordia. Campo Santa Margherita keeps a few student bars going later. For clubs, Siena points you to Florence, while Venice sends you to the mainland or, in summer, to the beach clubs of Jesolo.

Siena has the better countryside right outside its walls. The bare clay hills of the Crete Senesi and the UNESCO-listed Val d'Orcia are classic Tuscan landscape. There are white gravel roads to ride, stretches of the Via Francigena to walk, and the beech forests of Monte Amiata about an hour and a half away.

Venice's outdoors is the lagoon: salt marshes around Torcello and Sant'Erasmo with herons and flamingos, seen by kayak or on a rowing lesson. Beyond that the land is flat, and the city itself has little green space beyond the Giardini.

Both cities are superb bases, and Siena has slightly more right on its doorstep. San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, the Chianti villages, Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano are all close, along with abbeys such as Sant'Antimo and San Galgano, and Florence is an easy bus ride away. To reach the hill towns and wineries, though, you really need a car.

Venice works the other way round. Fast trains run to Padua, Vicenza and Verona, and boats go to Murano, Burano and Torcello, so you can see a great deal without driving.

Neither is an easy city with small children, but Venice has a little more to keep them busy. Siena is safe and mostly free of cars. Older children enjoy climbing the Torre del Mangia and seeing the contrada drummers, but there is nothing built for children, and the steep streets are hard going with a pushchair. Many families stay at a farmhouse with a pool and come into town for half days.

In Venice, children get vaporetto rides, glass-blowing on Murano, the dinosaurs at the natural history museum and the shallow Lido beach. Against that are hundreds of stepped bridges, summer crowds and humid heat.

Both centres are car-free and best on foot, but Venice is easier to get into and around. Siena stands on three ridges, so expect steep climbs. A chain of escalators links the station to the upper town, regional trains are slow and few, and the countryside really needs a hire car.

In Venice, trains run straight into Santa Lucia, and vaporetti carry you along the Grand Canal and out to the islands and the Lido. Traghetti cross the canal between the bridges. The downside is the many stepped bridges, which are hard work with wheeled luggage, and the crowded main lines.

Siena's shopping is modest. There are Italian clothes and leather goods along Banchi di Sopra, hand-painted majolica and contrada scarves, and panforte, pecorino and wine to take home, plus a large weekly market by the Fortezza Medicea.

Venice offers more, especially crafts with long histories: Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and velvet furlane slippers. The big fashion names are on Calle Larga XXII Marzo and the Mercerie. Look for workshops where the craft is done on site, because the main routes are full of imported imitations.

Siena is moderately expensive. Rooms inside the walls are scarce and cost more around the Palio and in summer. Osteria lunches are good value, though, everything in the centre is walkable, and an agriturismo outside town brings the cost down.

Venice is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Hotel rooms, café tables on the piazza and water transport are all priced for visitors. Eating cicchetti at the counter, staying in a quieter sestiere or in Mestre, and going in late autumn or winter all help.

Siena has a good musical life for a small town. The Accademia Chigiana holds summer concerts in palaces and churches, Siena Jazz puts on its own concerts, and two historic theatres stage drama and music through the winter. For opera, though, you have to go to Florence.

Venice has opera on its own doorstep. La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini premiered works, runs a full season of opera, ballet and symphonic concerts, shared with the Teatro Malibran. The Biennale adds contemporary theatre and dance. The church concerts of Vivaldi are uneven in quality, but most visitors go to at least one.

Siena has the better restorative side, thanks to its natural hot springs. The travertine pools at Rapolano Terme are half an hour east. Further south are the steaming medieval bath at Bagno Vignoni, the free limestone pools of Bagni San Filippo and the hot river at Petriolo. Many visitors pair them with a stay at a rural spa or farmhouse.

Venice has hotel spas, and the nearest thermal baths are at Abano Terme, about an hour away. Its calm comes from the silence of a city without traffic, best found early or late in Castello, Cannaregio or on Giudecca.