Amalfi or Lecce?

Amalfi's swimming is pebbly and fitted around everything else: the town beach at Marina Grande is lined with club loungers in summer, and the better water lies at Atrani or in coves such as Santa Croce, reached by stairs or shuttle boat. Hiring a boat to reach grottoes and rocks is the best of it.

Lecce has no good beach on its doorstep, but a short drive brings far more choice: pale coves under sea stacks at Torre dell'Orso on the Adriatic and long, shallow sandy beaches at Porto Cesareo on the Ionian. If whole days on the sand are the plan, the Salento offers more, provided you have a car.

Both kitchens are firmly regional, but Lecce's is the more rewarding to eat through. A day there runs from a warm pasticciotto and almond-milk iced coffee to ciceri e tria and orecchiette with turnip tops in simple old-town osterie, with dark Negroamaro on the table, and none of it costs much.

Amalfi has fine ingredients in its sfusato lemons, anchovies, colatura and scialatielli with clams. The trouble is that the piazza and seafront kitchens cater to passing crowds, so eating well means seeking out the trattorias in the alleys and up the valley.

The gap here is between a morning's sightseeing and a week's. In Amalfi the sights come from the medieval maritime republic: the striped Duomo with its bronze doors cast in Constantinople, the white interlaced arches of the Chiostro del Paradiso, the old Arsenale where the galleys were built, and the paper museum in a mill up the Valle dei Mulini. Most visitors have seen it all by lunchtime.

Lecce is worth the journey for its sights alone. The old town is a near-complete Baroque townscape in honey-coloured limestone, from the carved facade of the Basilica di Santa Croce to the enclosed Piazza del Duomo at dusk, with half a Roman amphitheatre below Piazza Sant'Oronzo, the Castle of Charles V and Messapian layers beneath the streets. The museums are modest, but the streets alone can fill several days of wandering.

In Amalfi the evening ends with dinner and a gelato on Piazza Duomo or by the harbour, and the town goes quiet once the day visitors have left. Lecce has more going on: aperitivo on the piazzas, then wine and cocktail bars in the lanes, kept busy late at weekends by students. For dancing it still means a summer drive to the coastal discos around Gallipoli.

Amalfi's landscape is its great asset. The Lattari mountains drop sheer into the sea, and the Sentiero degli Dei, the shaded gorge of the Valle delle Ferriere and the stairways between cliff villages make serious, spectacular walking. Kayaks reach sea caves such as the Emerald Grotto.

Around Lecce the land is flat olive country, better for gentle cycling than hiking. Its outdoors is the coast: clifftop paths from Roca Vecchia towards Leuca, birdwatching at Le Cesine and the Alimini lakes, and good snorkelling and diving.

Amalfi puts famous names within easy reach: Ravello on the hill above, Positano by ferry, Capri in season, and Paestum, Pompeii and Herculaneum for a full day out. The catch is that ferries mostly stop in winter and the summer road is slow.

Lecce is a good base for the Salento, with Otranto's cathedral mosaic, Gallipoli's island old town and the frescoes at Galatina all nearby. Ostuni and the trulli of Alberobello take longer to reach, though, and most outings need a hire car.

Lecce is far easier with children. Its old town is flat and largely free of traffic, families fill the piazzas in the evening, and the shallow sand around Porto Cesareo suits toddlers. Amalfi means steep stairways that defeat pushchairs, a crowded pebble beach and winding buses that can make children carsick. Confident older swimmers will still enjoy its boat trips and sea caves. Neither town has attractions built for children.

Both centres are small enough to walk, but Amalfi's is all steps while Lecce's streets are flat, which matters a great deal for anyone with limited mobility. The bigger difference is beyond town. Amalfi's buses and seasonal ferries mean you can manage without a car, and are better off without one, despite the summer queues. Lecce has good trains north to Bari, but reaching the beaches and the smaller towns of the Salento really calls for one.

Neither is a shopping trip. The difference is in the crafts: Amalfi's handmade cotton paper, majolica tiles and sandals made to measure, against Lecce's papier-mâché saints, carved limestone and ceramics from Grottaglie. Amalfi's one main street tends to repeat the same limoncello and ceramics, while Lecce adds food shops for olive oil, wine and taralli.

This is where the two differ most. Amalfi has little space and much of its accommodation is luxury, so sea-view rooms, piazza meals, loungers and boat hire are all expensive. Only staying up in the hill villages in spring or autumn takes the edge off.

Lecce is good value by Italian standards, with cheap street food, simple trattorias and fairly priced palazzo bed and breakfasts. The exception is August, when the Salento fills up and you also have the cost of a hire car.

Amalfi itself has no theatre, so its one big draw is in Ravello: summer concerts on the terrace of Villa Rufolo above the sea. Beyond that there are church music and the feast of Sant'Andrea. Lecce has more on through the year, with opera and drama at the Politeama Greco and the Paisiello. In summer it adds the pounding pizzica of village festivals, which peaks at the Notte della Taranta in Melpignano.

Lecce offers more ways to unwind. The cliffside sulphur pools of Santa Cesarea Terme are within reach, country masserie double as quiet spa retreats, and the long afternoon close slows the whole town down. In Amalfi, relaxing means a shaded lunch and a swim from the rocks. Its spas sit inside cliff hotels mainly for their own guests, and the centre is noisy in July and August.