Venice or Zermatt?

Venice has an actual beach: the Lido's long sandy shore, with gentle, shallow water that is warm in summer, and quieter Pellestrina beyond it. It makes a pleasant afternoon away from the sights, even if the water is greenish rather than clear.

Zermatt has nothing comparable. The lakes above the village are too cold to swim in even in August, so swimming means a hotel pool.

Venice has the more rewarding table. Its bacari around the Rialto and in Cannaregio serve cicchetti such as creamed salt cod and sarde in saor, and the Rialto market supplies the cuttlefish risotto and lagoon seafood. The catch is the tourist menus along the main routes.

Zermatt eats well for a village, though the range is narrow. The best of it is a long lunch on a chalet terrace at Findeln or Zum See, with raclette, air-dried beef and Valais wines in view of the Matterhorn.

There is a wide gap here. Venice is a sight in itself, with the Basilica of San Marco, the Doge's Palace and the Grand Canal palazzi, as well as Titian at the Frari, the Accademia's Venetian masters and the Guggenheim's modern collection. A week barely covers it.

Zermatt's heritage fits into a morning: the Matterhorn Museum and the story of the 1865 first ascent, the climbers' cemetery and the old larch-wood granaries of the Hinterdorf. People come for the peaks.

Neither is a place for a big night out, and the difference is in style. Venice is at its liveliest at aperitivo hour, with spritzes on the Fondamenta della Misericordia and students in Campo Santa Margherita. After midnight the canals go quiet.

Zermatt's evenings depend on the season. Winter après-ski fills the slope-side bars with ski boots and loud music, and a few late bars on the main street keep going. In summer the hikers go to bed early.

This is where Zermatt is far ahead. The Matterhorn rises right above the village, surrounded by four-thousand-metre peaks and the Gorner Glacier. Lifts serve skiing that crosses into Italy, and in summer they open hundreds of kilometres of trails where marmots and ibex live.

Venice's outdoors is flat and watery. It has the salt marshes of the northern lagoon around Torcello, with herons and flamingos, rowing and kayaking, and long bike rides along the Lido sea walls.

Venice is much better placed for outings. Fast trains reach Padua's Scrovegni Chapel in half an hour and Verona's arena in a little more than an hour, with Vicenza and the Brenta villas on the way. Murano, Burano and Torcello are reached by boat without leaving the lagoon.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion's castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace are worth a day, but most visitors would rather spend a spare day up in the mountains.

Both are car-free and broadly matched for children, but they suit different families. Venice works best for short stays with older children who enjoy vaporetto rides, glass-blowing on Murano and the shallow Lido beach. Stepped bridges and summer crowds make pushchairs hard work.

Zermatt suits active families. It has ski schools and nursery slopes at Sunnegga in winter and marmot-spotting walks in summer, but rainy days are hard to fill and the thin air at the highest viewpoints is hard on small children.

Both centres are walked rather than driven, and Zermatt is the easier of the two. Its compact village strip has electric taxis, ski buses and lifts all close to the centre. The only real effort is the climb to hotels on the slopes.

In Venice the alleys twist and dead-end at canals, hundreds of stepped bridges make luggage a struggle, and the main vaporetto lines are slow and crowded. Arriving by train at Santa Lucia, though, is simpler than changing at Täsch.

Venice offers far more to browse. There is Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers from real workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello, plus fashion houses on Calle Larga XXII Marzo. It pays to avoid the imported fakes along the main routes.

Zermatt has one street of watch boutiques, souvenirs and serious ski and mountaineering outfitters. The outdoor gear is excellent, but there is little else to buy.

Both are expensive, but Venice is easier on a budget. Standing at a bar counter for cicchetti, staying in Cannaregio or Mestre and visiting in late autumn all bring costs down noticeably.

Zermatt is expensive right through the trip. Plain hotels, terrace lunches and the lift and cog-railway tickets every visitor needs all cost a lot. Self-catering and a bed down the valley in Täsch help, but only so much.

Venice has a real stage. La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini held premieres, runs a full season of opera, ballet and concerts, and the Teatro Goldoni and the Biennale festivals add drama and contemporary work. On top of that there are Vivaldi concerts in churches most nights.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Outside the spring Zermatt Unplugged festival and the late-summer chamber music weeks, live music means a band in an après-ski bar.

Zermatt is the more restful choice. Its many hotel spas, several with Matterhorn views, sit in a village of clear air and no traffic noise, which is especially calm after a day's skiing, although peak weeks feel more active than slow.

Venice is quiet early in the morning, on Giudecca and in residential Castello, but its daytime crowds take some avoiding. For real thermal bathing you need to go to Abano Terme, about an hour away near Padua.