Amalfi or Catania?

Swimming in Amalfi means pebbles and little space. Marina Grande, below the Duomo, is mostly rows of rented loungers, and the better water is in coves such as Santa Croce or off a hired boat. Catania gives you more room and more choice. To the south is the long sand of La Playa, and to the north you can swim off lava platforms into clear water at Aci Castello and Aci Trezza.

The sea is about as warm in both by late summer. Choose Amalfi for boat days out to the grottoes, and Catania if you want sand underfoot or a whole day at the beach.

Amalfi cooks a short, lemon-scented coastal menu of scialatielli with clams, anchovies and colatura, but it is a small town and the cafés on the piazza are often only average. Catania is a much better place to eat.

Its arancini, crispelle and scacciata, the grills on Via Plebiscito, pasta alla Norma, granita with brioche and the trattorias around La Pescheria could fill a week without repeats. Etna's volcanic wines are also more interesting than those from the hillsides of Furore and Tramonti. Neither city is about fine dining, and Catania's strength is cheap, casual food.

Amalfi's heritage fills half a day: the striped Duomo of Sant'Andrea, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the old Arsenale and the paper museum up the valley. Catania takes two or three days, because the whole city was rebuilt in late-baroque black lava and pale limestone after 1693. Highlights include Via dei Crociferi, the huge monastery of San Nicolò l'Arena, a Roman theatre and Castello Ursino.

Both towns keep a patron saint's feast. Amalfi has processions and band music for Sant'Andrea, while in early February the feast of Sant'Agata brings one of Italy's largest processions to Catania's streets.

In Amalfi the evening ends with dinner and a drink on Piazza Duomo, and the town is silent once the day visitors leave. Catania has the liveliest nights in Sicily. Students fill the lanes around Piazza Bellini and Via Gemmellaro until late, and in summer the beach clubs on La Playa become open-air dance floors. Neither has serious clubbing, but only Catania gives you a proper night out.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, but the landscapes are very different. Amalfi is all cliffs and terraces: the Path of the Gods high above Positano, the waterfalls of the Valle delle Ferriere, mule stairways up to Ravello and kayaks into the sea caves.

Catania sits under an active volcano. Etna's summit craters, lava flows and beech woods are less than an hour away, with small ski areas in winter. The Alcantara Gorge, which you can wade through, lies to the north, and you can snorkel and dive around the sea stacks of the Riviera dei Ciclopi. Coastal walkers will prefer Amalfi, while anyone drawn to volcanoes or diving will prefer Catania.

From Amalfi the trips are short hops along one famous coast. Ravello and the gardens of Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone are a short bus ride up the hill, and Positano is half an hour away by ferry, though the boats to Positano and Capri run mainly from spring to autumn. From Salerno, trains go to the Greek temples at Paestum. With some planning, Pompeii and Herculaneum also fit into a full day, as long as you allow for the slow coast road in summer.

Catania's trips cover a whole corner of Sicily instead. Ortigia in Siracusa and the ancient theatre at Taormina are each about an hour away. The baroque towns of Noto, Modica and Ragusa Ibla lie further south, and the Roman mosaics of the Villa Romana del Casale are inland at Piazza Armerina. Buses link the main towns, but the baroque circuit is much easier with a hire car.

Neither is easy with young children, but Catania copes better. In Amalfi, pushchairs are useless on the steep stairways, the beach is a crowded strip of pebbles and the winding cliff buses can make children carsick, though older children who swim well will enjoy the boat trips and sea caves.

Catania has gently sloping sand at La Playa, old craters on Etna for older children to walk on and the Etnaland water park for hot days. Even so, the city's traffic, uneven pavements and summer heat still take effort.

Both centres are small enough to walk, and both get harder beyond that, for different reasons. In Amalfi it is the steps and the summer crowds. Buses on the one cliff road fill up and a car is more trouble than it is worth, but the town is the hub for buses and ferries along the coast.

In Catania the problem is traffic. The single metro line and slow city buses are of limited use, and although regional buses reach Siracusa, Taormina and Etna, many visitors hire a car. Leave the car behind in Amalfi, but consider one in Catania.

Neither is a shopping destination, but Catania has more to offer. Amalfi has one street of limoncello, ceramics and lemon soap, and its best buy is the handmade cotton paper from the valley. Catania adds the chain and fashion stores on Via Etnea and the noisy daily La Fiera market, and its best souvenirs are things to eat and drink: Bronte pistachio cream, almond pastries and Etna wine, plus ceramics from Caltagirone.

This is one of the biggest gaps between the two. Space is short in Amalfi, so rooms, meals on the piazza, beach loungers and boat hire are all expensive, and only the local buses are a bargain.

Catania is cheap to eat in, thanks to street food and market lunches, and guesthouses in the old centre are reasonably priced for most of the year. Costs rise in July and August, and trips to Etna's summit and car hire add up, but it is still much easier on the budget than Amalfi in any season.

Amalfi has no theatre of its own. Its big draw is the summer Ravello Festival up the hill, with concerts on the Villa Rufolo terrace above the sea. Catania is Bellini's birthplace and has a working opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini, with a full opera and symphony season, as well as the Bellini museum and the Sicilian puppet theatre, the opera dei pupi. Go to Ravello for one unforgettable summer concert, and to Catania for more than one evening out.

Neither town is built for spa breaks, and neither has a thermal-bath tradition, so treatments in both mean hotel spas. The calm comes from different things. In Amalfi it is quiet mornings, swims off the rocks and the hill hamlets in May or October. In Catania it is long lunches, the evening passeggiata and staying in the villages on Etna rather than the noisy centre.