Venice or Vienna?

Venice has an actual seaside. The Lido runs for kilometres of fine sand on the open Adriatic, mostly lined with cabanas but with free stretches at the ends, and the shallow, mild water suits children even if it is greenish. Quieter Pellestrina and the big resorts at Jesolo and Sottomarina add more choice.

Vienna swims in fresh water instead. The Danube Island's gravel banks and the warmer Alte Donau with its old lidos make a good summer evening, and the reedy Neusiedler See is an hour off, but there is no sand and sea. For a beach afternoon, Venice wins easily.

Vienna eats better on a typical visit. Its imperial cuisine of schnitzel, Tafelspitz and strudel is easy to find done well in wood-panelled Beisl taverns, the coffee houses are an institution, and the Heuriger in Grinzing and Nussdorf pour wine grown inside the city limits.

Venice's high point is the bacaro counter, cicchetti and a spritz around the Rialto, with lagoon seafood such as cuttlefish risotto from the market. The trouble is the mass of tourist restaurants on the main routes, so a good dinner takes more searching than it does in Vienna.

Both are among Europe's great sightseeing cities, but in different ways. In Venice the whole city is the exhibit: San Marco, the Doge's Palace and the Grand Canal palazzi, with Venetian painting kept in the churches and scuole where it was meant to hang, and the Biennale in the Arsenale and Giardini.

Vienna's riches are imperial and kept in great institutions: the Hofburg and Schönbrunn, the Kunsthistorisches Museum's Bruegels, Klimt at the Belvedere and Schiele at the Leopold, plus a second golden age of Jugendstil and Otto Wagner. Venice is about atmosphere, Vienna about collections, and either will fill a week.

Vienna has more of a night. Bars and small clubs under the Gürtel arches stay open late, the Bermuda Triangle handles old-town drinking, the Danube Canal fills with deckchair bars in summer, and the winter balls are an experience Venice has no answer to.

In Venice the best of the evening is the aperitivo along the Fondamenta della Misericordia, with Campo Santa Margherita's student bars lasting a little longer. By midnight the canals are silent, which makes a lovely walk but sends club-goers to the mainland.

The lagoon is Venice's countryside. Its salt marshes and fishing valleys around Torcello and Sant'Erasmo hold herons, egrets and flamingos, and you can explore them by kayak or on a lesson in standing rowing, with flat bike rides along the Pellestrina sea walls. The Euganean Hills and the Prosecco hills offer gentle walking about an hour away, but there are few parks in town and the Dolomites are a long trip.

Woods and vineyards begin at Vienna's own edge. The beech-covered Vienna Woods and the vineyard trails up to the Kahlenberg are close at hand, the Prater meadows reach well into the city and the Donau-Auen floodplain forest lies just to the east. The Rax and Schneeberg add real limestone mountains about 90 minutes out, which gives Vienna far more to do outdoors.

Venice has the stronger set of excursions. Fast trains reach Padua's Scrovegni Chapel in half an hour, Vicenza's Palladio and Verona's arena soon after, with Bologna and Trieste also possible, and the lagoon adds Murano, Burano and Torcello without needing a train at all.

Vienna's options are good but fewer: Bratislava by boat or train, the Wachau with Melk and Dürnstein, the abbeys at Klosterneuburg and Heiligenkreuz, and Haydn's Eisenstadt. Its unusual advantage is a second capital an hour away, and Brno in another country.

Vienna is much the better family base. Schönbrunn Zoo, the Prater's Ferris wheel and rides, the aquarium in a flak tower and the ZOOM children's museum keep children busy whatever the weather, with playgrounds everywhere and trams that take prams.

Venice works for children as an adventure, with boats instead of buses, Murano glass-blowing and the shallow Lido beach. But stepped bridges defeat pushchairs, summer is hot and packed, and there is little made for children, so it suits a short stay with older ones.

In Venice you get around on foot and by boat, while Vienna has a full metro and tram network. With no cars, most of central Venice is within a forty-minute walk, vaporetti run out to the Lido and the islands, and traghetti cross the Grand Canal. The price is effort: alleys that get you lost, stepped bridges that are hard on luggage and pushchairs, and slow, crowded boats.

In Vienna the walking is easier and public transport covers the rest. The old town is compact and largely pedestrian, and the U-Bahn, trams and buses all run on one ticket. They reach everything from Schönbrunn to the vineyard villages, and the trains run all night at weekends.

The two are fairly level, with different strengths. Venice is about crafts made on the spot, Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers, though you have to steer past imported copies on the main routes.

Vienna has broader ordinary shopping, from luxury on the Kohlmarkt and Graben to Mariahilfer Strasse and Neubau's independent designers, plus Augarten porcelain, Loden and the Christmas markets at the Rathaus and Schönbrunn.

In Venice the expense starts with simply being there. A bed in the historic centre is the largest cost of the trip, sitting down at a café table on Piazza San Marco is notoriously dear, and the boats are priced for visitors, so every ride out to the Lido or Murano adds up. Many of the churches that hold the city's paintings also charge at the door. Eating at a bacaro counter, sleeping in Mestre and coming in late autumn or winter help, but they don't make Venice cheap.

Vienna's costs are in a different place. A night's sleep, a tram ride and a weekday lunch cost what you would expect in Western Europe, and the money goes on the big sights, Schönbrunn, the Hofburg and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which charge full admission. Plenty of a Viennese day costs little or nothing, though: a church interior, a walk through the Prater, an hour over one coffee. Even the State Opera is open to anyone willing to stand, where in Venice the Titians in the Frari come with a ticket, so a week in Vienna leaves you with more money than a few days on the lagoon.

This is where Vienna pulls furthest ahead. The State Opera plays a different work most nights, the Philharmonic is at home in the Musikverein's Golden Hall, and the Konzerthaus, Volksoper, Burgtheater and the Boys' Choir in the Hofburg chapel fill the rest of the week, with cheap standing places at the opera.

Venice has La Fenice, a great house where Verdi and Rossini had premieres, and the Biennale's festivals. Most visitors, though, end up at church concerts of Vivaldi, which can be moving in his own city but are often routine.

In Venice, rest comes from the quiet. With no traffic, early mornings in Castello, Cannaregio or on Giudecca are hushed, though the daytime crowds around San Marco are the opposite. Spas are mostly in hotels, and for real thermal baths you go to Abano Terme, about an hour away.

Slowing down is part of everyday life in Vienna, from long afternoons in a coffee house to evenings at a vineyard tavern. Therme Wien and the Art Deco Amalienbad are inside the city, and Baden's sulphur springs are half an hour away, so rest is easier to find here than on the lagoon.