Taormina or Venice?

Taormina is the better place for a swim. The coves at Mazzarò and Isola Bella have clear, glassy water good for snorkelling, though the beaches are narrow pebble strips that fill early in summer. Longer sandy stretches at Giardini Naxos and Letojanni make up for it.

Venice's Lido has the opposite qualities: kilometres of fine sand, shallow and gentle water that suits small children, but a greenish sea and long rows of private cabanas. It is a pleasant break from sightseeing rather than a beach trip.

The two eat about equally well, in very different ways. Taormina offers Sicilian cooking at the table: pasta alla Norma, swordfish, raw red prawns, cannoli from the pastry shops, granita with brioche for breakfast and Etna wines on most lists. A refined upper tier comes with sea views, but the choice is shallow in a town this size.

Venice is best eaten standing up, with cicchetti and a spritz at the bacari around the Rialto and in Cannaregio, and lagoon dishes such as cuttlefish risotto and moeche from the Rialto market. Both have their tourist traps, along Corso Umberto in Taormina and around San Marco in Venice.

The gap here is wide. Taormina has one great sight, the Greek theatre with Etna framed through its broken stage, plus the medieval Corso, the Duomo and Palazzo Corvaja, and a curious visitor covers it in a day. It has no major museums.

Venice is a whole city of palaces and churches on water, with the Basilica of San Marco, the Doge's Palace, the Accademia, the Guggenheim and the Biennale on top. A week there still leaves things unseen.

Neither is a place for a big night out, and both are at their best at aperitivo hour. Taormina's evenings move from Piazza IX Aprile to wine and piano bars over the sea, with a few lounge bars and beach clubs at Mazzarò staying open late in summer for a mostly older, couples crowd.

Venice gathers around the bacari of the Rialto and the Fondamenta della Misericordia, with students keeping Campo Santa Margherita going a little later. After that the canals go silent, which makes a fine setting for a late walk.

Taormina has far more to offer outdoors. Etna is within about an hour for walks over lava flows and the Silvestri craters, guided trips towards the summit and winter skiing, and the Alcantara gorges and the paths to Castelmola and Monte Tauro are closer still. The Isola Bella reserve adds diving and kayaking.

Venice's nature is the flat lagoon, with herons, egrets and flamingos around Torcello, kayaking and Venetian rowing lessons, and cycling along the Pellestrina sea walls. Real hills mean gentle walks in the Euganean or Prosecco country, and the Dolomites are more than two hours away.

Both are excellent bases, and Venice has the edge mainly because the trips are so easy. Fast trains reach Padua in half an hour and Verona and Vicenza soon after, and Murano, Burano and Torcello need only a boat.

From Taormina the outings are just as rewarding but longer: Catania in an hour, Ortigia and the Neapolis theatre at Syracuse in two, the baroque towns of the Val di Noto with an early start. Closer in, the hill villages of Savoca and Forza d'Agrò and the wine towns on Etna's northern slopes are best reached by car.

Both are workable with older children and awkward with toddlers, for different reasons. In Taormina it is the steep slope, the steps and the pebbly, crowded coves, so families often base themselves at Giardini Naxos, while snorkelling and lava fields on Etna excite school-age children.

Venice has no cars and plenty of boats, and its shallow, sandy Lido is the gentler beach for little ones. Its hundreds of stepped bridges make pushchairs a constant struggle, though, and summer crowds and humidity tire children quickly.

Venice is easier to get around. Nearly everything lies within a forty-minute walk, vaporettos run to the Lido and the islands, and trains end right at Santa Lucia. Its bridges and slow, crowded boats are the price.

Taormina's centre is tiny and pedestrian, but it clings to a slope, so every outing means stairs. A cable car runs down to Mazzarò and buses link the nearby towns, but Etna and the inland villages realistically need a tour or a hire car.

Venice gives the better shopping, because its crafts are made on the spot: glass on Murano, lace on Burano, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers from workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello. Big fashion names sit along the Mercerie as well, though imported fakes crowd the main routes.

Taormina's shopping is one street, Corso Umberto, with coral, cameos, linen and Caltagirone ceramics. Its best buys are the edible ones, such as Bronte pistachio cream, almond sweets and Etna wine.

Both are among the costliest places to stay in Italy, but Venice is harder on a budget. Rooms in the historic centre, water transport and church and museum entries all add up, and savings depend on sleeping in Mestre and eating cicchetti at the counter.

Taormina is expensive mainly for its hotels and restaurants on the Corso. Buses, bakery snacks and granita stay cheap, and staying down in Giardini Naxos or Letojanni cuts the cost noticeably.

Venice has a proper year-round programme. La Fenice and the Teatro Malibran stage opera, ballet and symphony seasons, the Goldoni puts on drama, the Biennale adds contemporary festivals, and Vivaldi is played in churches most evenings.

Taormina's moment is the summer, when concerts, opera and big pop acts fill the Greek theatre with Etna behind the stage. Outside those months there is little beyond piano bars, and serious opera means a trip to Catania.

The two are fairly level, with spa culture in both limited to hotels. Taormina's best spas have terrace pools above the sea and treatments with volcanic mud and citrus, and its calm comes from long lunches and the shade of the Villa Comunale, though August crowds break it.

Venice has the better reach to real thermal bathing, at Abano Terme and Montegrotto about an hour away. In the city, peace means early mornings and the residential lanes of Castello, Cannaregio and Giudecca, away from San Marco.