Amalfi or Kotor?

Amalfi's sea starts where the town ends. The pebbles of Marina Grande lie just below the Duomo steps, packed with beach-club loungers in summer, and the open Tyrrhenian there is clear. Atrani's small beach is a ten-minute walk, and boats reach coves and grottoes the road never touches, so a swim fits easily between other plans.

Kotor's swimming is from jetties and concrete platforms along the enclosed inner bay, where the water is calm and warm but less clear. What it does have within reach is sand: Jaz and the Budva coves are about half an hour away, so a proper beach day there is an outing rather than part of the daily routine.

Amalfi has the more distinctive table. Its sfusato lemons, colatura from Cetara and scialatielli with clams give the cooking a clear identity, helped by hillside whites and reds from Furore and Tramonti.

Kotor's menus mix the bay's mussels, cuttlefish risotto and grilled fish with smoked Njegusi ham and a glass of dark Vranac, which is satisfying but narrower in range. Both towns share the same trap of tired terrace food on their main squares. In Amalfi the fix is the alleys and the valley, in Kotor the konobas along the shore at Dobrota, Prcanj and Perast.

Kotor is the stronger place for sightseeing. The whole walled town is the attraction, with marble lanes, the Cathedral of St Tryphon from 1166, seafaring palazzi, the Maritime Museum and the walls zigzagging up to the fortress of St John for the view down the bay.

Amalfi's heritage is fine but brief: the striped Duomo with its Constantinople bronze doors, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the old Arsenale and the paper museum. Half a day covers it, after which most people turn to the coast.

Neither town is built for late nights, but Kotor goes further. A handful of bars inside the walls stay open late in summer, there is a small club scene, and Budva's seafront runs until dawn about half an hour away.

Amalfi's evening is dinner, then a gelato or a drink on Piazza Duomo, and it falls silent once the last buses and ferries leave. The nearest proper night out is in Salerno or Naples, which is a long way to go after dark.

Both are outstanding settings where the mountains meet the sea, but the scenery works differently. Amalfi is an open coast of lemon terraces and cliff villages, with the Sentiero degli Dei looking out to Capri, the shaded Valle delle Ferriere behind town and mule stairways up to Ravello.

Kotor sits deep inside an enclosed, fjord-like bay under limestone walls over 1,000m high. The Ladder of Kotor and the hairpin road lead up into the beech woods of Lovcen, and Lake Skadar's wetlands add birdlife that Amalfi has no equivalent for. In both places summer heat makes spring and autumn the walking seasons.

Amalfi has the more famous and varied list within an easy day. Ravello's villa gardens are a short bus ride up, Positano and Capri are a ferry away, and Pompeii, Herculaneum and the temples of Paestum are reachable with some planning. The catch is that ferries run mainly from spring to autumn.

Kotor's outings are good but fewer: baroque Perast and its island church, Herceg Novi, Budva and Sveti Stefan, and the old royal capital of Cetinje over Lovcen. Dubrovnik works as a long day, though the border crossing can drag in summer.

Neither town is built around children, but Amalfi is the harder of the two with young ones. Where Kotor's old town is level, Amalfi rises in stairways from the seafront, so a pushchair soon becomes something to carry. Its beach is a narrow, busy pebble front with little room to spread out, and any outing to Ravello or Positano means the twisting cliff-road buses, which are hard on children prone to travel sickness. It suits older children who swim confidently best, with boat trips into the sea caves and walks up the valley.\n\nKotor is easier going for families.

Its car-free walled town is small enough that nobody gets lost, and the street cats often hold children's attention longer than the churches do. Families tend to stay along the shore, where the calm water of the bay makes swimming from the jetties easy, and the sandy beaches near Budva are a short drive away. The boat out to Perast's island church is the outing children enjoy most, while the fortress climb is best kept for the cooler hours.

Both are easy on foot and awkward beyond, in different ways. Amalfi's centre involves a lot of steps, but it is the hub of its coast, so buses and seasonal ferries cover Ravello, Positano, Salerno and Capri and a car is more bother than help.

Kotor's walled town is flat and quick to cross, though the marble gets slippery in rain. Its buses run less often, so reaching Lovcen, the Lustica coves or several villages in one day usually means hiring a car or a driver. Summer brings a single jammed road to both.

Amalfi has more worth carrying home. Its handmade cotton paper from the valley mills, hand-painted majolica, linen clothing and made-to-measure sandals stand out, even if the limoncello and lemon soap repeat from shop to shop along the main street.

Kotor's lanes run more to souvenirs and cat-themed trinkets, with silver filigree and lace as better finds. Its best buys are edible, such as Vranac, Njegusi ham and honey from the green market, and anyone after brands has to go to the Tivat marina.

This is the widest gap between the two. Amalfi charges capital-city rates for sea-view rooms in summer, and meals on the piazza, loungers and boat hire all add up. Even staying in the hill villages and coming out of season only softens it.

Kotor is moderately priced for konoba meals, local wine, buses and the fortress walk. It only reaches resort prices inside the walls in July and August, and an apartment in Dobrota or Muo brings the cost down a lot.

Neither has a theatre season, so this comes down to summer events. Amalfi's highlight is the Ravello Festival up the hill, with orchestral and chamber concerts on the Villa Rufolo terrace above the sea. Kotor offers a looser summer programme of recitals and choirs in its churches and squares, plus carnival and Boka Night, when decorated boats fill the bay.

Amalfi has the edge for rest, mainly thanks to its cliffside hotels, whose spas and pools set a quieter tone, and a day shaped by long shaded lunches and morning swims from the rocks. When the centre fills in summer, the hill hamlets offer an escape. Neither town has public baths or any bathing tradition.

In Kotor, spa treatments mean a resort hotel along the bay or at Tivat. The calm here is found in early mornings on the water and unhurried lunches in the shore villages, well away from the old town's crowded summer middays.