Saint-Tropez or Verona?

On beaches, Saint-Tropez is in another league. Pampelonne has about 5km of fine sand on the open sea, with beach clubs and public stretches between them. The coast path leads on to quieter coves at Escalet, Cap Taillat and Gigaro.

Verona has no coast, so swimming means Lake Garda, about half an hour away. There you get calm fresh water, lidos, lawns running down to the water and Sirmione's flat limestone shelves. It makes a pleasant summer afternoon, but nobody chooses Verona for its beaches the way people choose Saint-Tropez.

Saint-Tropez cooks the Provençal summer: grilled fish, bouillabaisse, vegetables with aïoli and long lunches on the sand with a glass of local rosé, plus the cream-filled tarte tropézienne first made here. The hotel dining rooms are genuinely good, but simple, honest meals are hard to find on a quayside that sells the view, and in winter much of the town shuts.

Verona eats better from one day to the next, with a cooking of its own rooted in the Veneto hinterland: risotto with Amarone, bigoli with duck and bollito misto with peppery pearà, served in plain wood-panelled osterie around Piazza delle Erbe and in Veronetta. Wine is its real strength, with Valpolicella, Amarone and Soave made a short drive away. The range stays narrow, though, with little street food and few foreign kitchens.

Verona has far more to see. Its UNESCO-listed centre brings together the Roman Arena and theatre, the Scaliger tombs, San Zeno and Castelvecchio, enough for two or three unhurried days.

Saint-Tropez has one real treasure, the pointillist and Fauvist paintings in the Annonciade, plus the citadel and the lanes of La Ponche, and you can see it all in a day. People go for the light and the harbour that drew Signac, not for monuments.

Saint-Tropez has the bigger night out, but only in summer and only of one kind: afternoon parties at Pampelonne's beach clubs, champagne on harbour terraces, and a few famous clubs open until dawn, with dress codes and table service. By October it falls quiet.

Verona's evenings are gentler and run all year. There is aperitivo in Piazza delle Erbe, cheaper wine bars in student Veronetta, and a late burst of life when the opera crowd leaves the Arena near midnight. There is no real dance scene in the centre.

Both have good country close by, and Saint-Tropez is a little ahead for anyone who wants the sea as part of it. The Sentier du Littoral runs round the peninsula past pine-backed coves to the capes of Camarat and Taillat. The Maures forests suit hiking and biking, and Port-Cros and Porquerolles offer protected island trails and good snorkelling.

Verona's outdoors means hills, a lake and mountains instead. You can walk and cycle through the Valpolicella vineyards, follow the Adige cycle route, explore the Lessinia's gorges or climb the steep ridges of Monte Baldo above Garda. The lake's northern end has some of Europe's most reliable wind for sailing and windsurfing.

Verona is much the stronger base. Trains reach Venice in about an hour and ten minutes and Vicenza and Padua in less, and Mantua is under an hour away. Sirmione, the Garda towns and the cellars of Valpolicella and Soave are closer still.

From Saint-Tropez the outings are charming but smaller. There are the hill villages of Ramatuelle and Gassin, Grimaud's ruined castle, Port Grimaud's canals by boat and a full day on Porquerolles. All of them depend on roads that jam badly in high summer.

Verona works better with children. Gardaland, the water parks along Garda's southern shore and the Parco Natura Viva safari zoo are all about half an hour away, and the flat, largely pedestrian centre is easy with a pushchair.

Saint-Tropez offers families gently shelving sand at Pampelonne and Gigaro and a small, safe old town. Little else there is aimed at children, though, and the prices and summer traffic make a longer stay hard work. Many families stay across the gulf and come over by boat.

Verona is far easier to get around. Everything inside the river loop is a short, flat walk, and trains from Porta Nuova run to Venice, Milan and Peschiera. You only need a car for places like the Valpolicella and the Lessinia.

Saint-Tropez is tiny and walkable, but it has no railway, the main beaches are several kilometres out, and the single road along the gulf jams for hours in July and August. The passenger boats from Sainte-Maxime and Port Grimaud are often the best way in.

Saint-Tropez has the better shopping for a town its size, almost all at the luxury and resort end. The big fashion houses open summer shops behind the port, alongside swimwear and jewellery, and old-town workshops make the hand-made Tropézienne sandal. The Place des Lices market adds linen, baskets and pottery.

Verona's Via Mazzini is smart but provincial, with Italian labels and shoe shops, and the best things to take home are edible: Amarone, Garda olive oil and pandoro. Serious fashion shoppers go on to Milan.

Verona is not cheap, but it is much easier on the wallet. Walking round the centre costs nothing, Veronetta's osterie and wine counters are fairly priced, and the main expense is a central hotel, especially on opera nights.

Saint-Tropez is among the most expensive places on the Mediterranean, with rooms, loungers, meals and taxis priced for the yachting crowd. Budget visitors tend to sleep inland or across the gulf and come in for the day.

Verona is in a different class here. Summer opera in the Roman Arena, with Verdi and Puccini staged on a vast scale under the night sky, is reason enough to go. The Teatro Filarmonico's winter season and the Roman theatre's summer festival of Shakespeare, dance and jazz add to it.

Saint-Tropez has some open-air classical and jazz concerts in summer and the Bravade, a centuries-old musket procession each May. Beyond that, serious opera or theatre means a long drive to Toulon or Nice.

Verona has the edge thanks to the warm springs around it: Sirmione's thermal pools facing Lake Garda, the spring-fed park near Lazise and the springs at Caldiero, used since Roman times. The city's gentle pace, with evening walks by the river and the terraces of the Giardino Giusti, does the rest.

Saint-Tropez relies on luxury hotel spas aimed at their own guests, and in high summer it is crowded and loud. In May, June and September, though, long lunches and pétanque under the plane trees make it a calm place to unwind.