Amalfi or Florence?

Amalfi is the only one of the two where swimming is part of a normal day. Marina Grande lies below the Duomo steps, Atrani's small beach is ten minutes away on foot, and boats reach coves and grottoes the road never touches. It is pebble rather than sand and crowded with loungers in high summer, but the sea is right there.

From Florence, the sandy Versilia beaches near Viareggio take about an hour and a half by train, so a swim means giving up a whole day. Most visitors make do with a pool.

Florence has the deeper and more rewarding table. There is bistecca, ribollita and lampredotto from street carts, the Mercato Centrale and Sant'Ambrogio markets show what locals buy, and the trattorie in the Oltrarno reward a little walking. Chianti wine is produced just south of the city.

Amalfi's cooking is narrower but distinctive: sfusato lemons, colatura from Cetara, and scialatielli with clams. It is good when you find the right trattoria up an alley, but the piazza and seafront mostly serve passing crowds.

There is a large gap here. Florence holds Botticelli at the Uffizi, Michelangelo's David, Brunelleschi's dome, the Bargello's sculpture and the Fra Angelico cells at San Marco, which is enough for a week of looking.

Amalfi's heritage is its maritime republic. There is the striped Duomo with its Constantinople bronze doors, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the old Arsenale and the paper museum. They are fine, but a morning or afternoon covers them.

Neither is a clubbing city. Florence still offers a proper evening out, with aperitivo, wine bars, drinkers spilling across Piazza Santo Spirito, student pubs and summer bars along the Arno.

Amalfi stops at a late dinner and a gelato on the piazza. Once the last ferries and buses leave, the town falls silent, and a real night out means a trip to Salerno or Naples.

Amalfi's setting is the more dramatic. The Lattari mountains fall straight into the sea, the Sentiero degli Dei looks across to Capri, the Valle delle Ferriere hides waterfalls in a shaded gorge, and kayaks slip into sea caves. Old mule stairways make demanding half-day walks between villages.

Florence's countryside is gentler and more cultivated, with olive terraces at Fiesole, cypress lanes and vineyards in Chianti for cycling, and the Casentino forests further out. It is lovely, but not on Amalfi's scale.

Both are excellent bases, and Florence is slightly better. Siena, Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano and the Chianti villages are all near, and Bologna is a short high-speed train ride away. Trains run all year, so the options don't shrink in winter.

Amalfi has Ravello, Positano, Capri and Paestum, with Pompeii and Herculaneum within a long day. But many of those trips depend on ferries that mostly run from spring to autumn, and on a coast road that crawls in summer.

Florence is the easier of two awkward choices. Climbing the dome, the secret passages of Palazzo Vecchio, the globes at the Museo Galileo and space to run in the Boboli Gardens give children something to do, and the Pinocchio park at Collodi makes a classic day out.

Amalfi suits confident swimmers of school age who will love boats and sea caves. For toddlers, the steep stairs, crowded pebbles and winding, carsick-prone bus rides make it hard going.

Both centres are small and walkable, but Florence handles transport far better. Its main sights lie within about twenty minutes of each other on foot, trams run to the airport, and Santa Maria Novella station sits in the middle for rail trips.

Amalfi's town is tiny but built on stairs, which makes it hard for anyone with limited mobility. Leaving it depends on packed buses and seasonal ferries along a single cliff road, and in summer full buses often pass by waiting queues.

Florence is a serious place to shop for craft and fashion. There are leather workshops, goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio, gilders and framers in the Oltrarno, antique dealers on Via Maggio and the fashion houses of Via de' Tornabuoni.

Amalfi comes down to one main street of limoncello, ceramics and lemon soap. The handmade cotton paper from the valley is the one souvenir truly its own.

Neither is cheap, but Amalfi costs more. Short supply pushes sea-view rooms towards capital-city prices, and loungers, boat hire and seafront meals all add up. The buses are the one bargain.

Florence's museum tickets add up quickly, but street food, market lunches and cheap house wine keep daily costs reasonable, and you will hardly need transport. Staying across the river or visiting in winter cuts the bill further.

Florence, where opera was born, has a working opera house with its own orchestra and ballet, the Maggio Musicale festival each spring and the eighteenth-century Pergola theatre. There are many concerts in churches, though some are aimed at tourists.

Amalfi has no stage of its own. Its highlight is a summer evening at the Ravello Festival, with the orchestra playing on the Villa Rufolo terrace above the sea, a single but memorable occasion.

Amalfi restores you through its pace rather than through spas. Treatment rooms belong mostly to the cliff hotels and their own guests, so the calm comes from long shaded lunches, swims off the rocks and the hill hamlets above town. In July and August the centre itself is crowded and noisy.

Florence gives you more to work with. The city centre is no more restful in high season, but Montecatini Terme, with its grand old drinking halls and thermal establishments, is under an hour by train. The open-air sulphur pools of Bagno Vignoni and Saturnia make a longer day out or an overnight stay. Within the city, early mornings in the Boboli and Bardini gardens are quiet.