Amalfi or Naples?

Amalfi puts the sea at the foot of the town. Marina Grande lies below the Duomo steps, Atrani's beach is ten minutes away on foot, and small boats run to coves such as Santa Croce and Duoglio. It is all pebble and packed with loungers in high summer, but the water is clear and a swim fits easily between other plans.

In Naples you swim from the rocks under the Lungomare or at small lidos in Posillipo, and the water near the port is not always clean. The good swimming there means a ferry to Procida, Ischia or Capri, which makes it a day out rather than a daily habit.

Naples is the far better place to eat. It is the home of pizza, and its street food, from fried pizza to sfogliatelle and babà, sits alongside markets such as the Pignasecca and trattorias cooking ragù and genovese. Its one gap is international food, which is scarce.

Amalfi cooks from a fine coastal larder of sfusato lemons, anchovies, colatura and scialatielli with seafood, but the choice is a small town's. The cafés on the piazza that serve the day visitors are often average, and the careful trattorias are tucked away in the alleys and up the valley.

The gap here is wide. Amalfi's heritage is lovely but takes half a day: the striped Duomo with its bronze doors cast in Constantinople, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the old Arsenale and the paper museum.

Naples could fill a week, with churches on every block of Spaccanapoli and the National Archaeological Museum holding the finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Add the Veiled Christ in the Cappella Sansevero, the catacombs of San Gennaro, the Royal Palace and Capodimonte. Amalfi was a maritime republic, while Naples was the capital of a kingdom, and the difference in scale shows.

Amalfi's evenings end with dinner and a drink or gelato on Piazza Duomo. The town goes quiet once the last buses and ferries have taken the day visitors away.

Naples keeps going well past midnight, with students on the steps around Piazza Bellini and a better-dressed crowd in the alleys of Chiaia. Neither is a clubbing city, but only Naples offers a proper night out.

Both sit in outstanding landscape, but of different kinds. Amalfi has its scenery on the doorstep: the Lattari mountains dropping into the sea, the Valle delle Ferriere gorge at the back of town, mule stairways up to Pontone and Ravello, and the Path of the Gods a short bus ride away at Agerola.

Naples offers volcanoes instead. The crater rim of Vesuvius, the oak-filled crater of Astroni, Lake Avernus and the snorkelling at Gaiola are all close by. Green space inside the city is scarce, though, and the Path of the Gods takes a long day from there.

Both are excellent bases, but Naples has the edge. Pompeii and Herculaneum are each under an hour away on the Circumvesuviana, the palace at Caserta is about forty minutes by train, and ferries from Molo Beverello reach Capri, Ischia and Procida.

Amalfi's strength is its own coast: Ravello up the hill, Positano by ferry, and Cetara and Vietri sul Mare along the road. Pompeii and Paestum are within reach but take some planning, and the ferries run mainly from spring to autumn.

Neither is easy with small children, but Naples copes better. It has the Edenlandia amusement park, the zoo and the science museum at Bagnoli, plus funiculars and underground tunnels that older children enjoy, and Neapolitans make families welcome in any pizzeria.

Amalfi is built of stairways that defeat a pushchair, its beach is a crowded strip of pebbles, and the winding cliff buses can make children carsick. Older children who swim confidently will love the boats and sea caves, but families with toddlers are better off staying somewhere else.

Amalfi is tiny and easy to walk, though almost every route involves steps, and its buses and ferries make it the hub of the coast. In summer the buses fill up and pass waiting queues, and the single cliff road jams.

Naples is a little easier. Metro Line 1, with its stations decorated as art galleries, and four funiculars up to Vomero and Posillipo do much of the climbing for you. Its buses are slow and the Circumvesuviana is crowded and prone to delays, and in neither place is a car worth having.

Naples is the place for real shopping. Via Toledo and the Galleria Umberto I are the high street, Via Chiaia and Via dei Mille have the boutiques, and Chiaia's tailors make suits, shirts and silk ties by hand. The workshops on Via San Gregorio Armeno make nativity figures all year.

Amalfi has one main street of limoncello, lemon soap and ceramics, and much of the stock is the same from shop to shop. Its handmade cotton paper from the valley mills is the souvenir that is truly its own.

The difference here is large. Amalfi is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Sea-view rooms, seafront meals, loungers and boat hire are all priced at the luxury end, and only the local buses are cheap.

Naples is one of the cheaper big cities in Western Europe, and pizza, coffee at the bar, the funiculars and guesthouses in the centre are all easy on a budget. Its costs rise only when you head to the islands or the Amalfi Coast, so staying in Naples and visiting Amalfi for the day saves a great deal.

Naples has the Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest opera house in Europe still in use, with a full season of opera, ballet and concerts. There are also concerts at the San Pietro a Majella conservatory, and Neapolitan song in small venues and trattorias.

Amalfi has no theatre at all. Its one draw is up the hill at Ravello, where the summer festival holds concerts on the terrace of Villa Rufolo. That is an evening worth planning around, but it is a short season, not a year-round programme.

Naples has real thermal water: the springs at Agnano on the edge of the city, used since Roman times, and the terraced thermal parks of Ischia an hour away by hydrofoil. The city itself is loud, so in town rest comes from the Lungomare and the cloisters of Santa Chiara.

Amalfi has no bathing tradition, and its spas belong to cliff-side hotels that serve mainly their own guests. Its calm comes from the pace of long lunches and early swims, and you will find it most easily in the hill hamlets and in May or October.