Amalfi or Salerno?

Both towns give you equally good swimming, but on very different shores. Amalfi is pebbles. Marina Grande sits right below the Duomo and is packed with rows of beach-club loungers in summer, so the best swims are in Atrani or in coves such as Santa Croce, reached by stairs or small boats, where the water is very clear.

Salerno's own beaches are grey sand, and the water near the port is less clean. The real draw is the long sandy shore towards Paestum, backed by pine woods, which suits a whole lazy day by the sea in a way Amalfi's coves never can.

Salerno eats better and more widely. The two share a pantry of terrace lemons, Cetara's colatura and lemon cakes, but in Amalfi the choice is small and the piazza cafés are mostly average. The best meals here come from finding a careful trattoria up an alley, ordering scialatielli with seafood and a white from Furore.

Salerno has a proper city's depth: wood-fired pizza, friggitorie, sfogliatelle in the old town, and buffalo mozzarella brought in the same day from the Battipaglia plain. The cooking is everyday rather than refined, but it is consistently good.

Each town is built around a medieval cathedral holding an apostle's relics, Andrew in Amalfi and Matthew in Salerno, but Salerno has more around it. Amalfi's striped Duomo, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the Arsenale and the paper mill museum fill about half a day.

Salerno adds the Giardino della Minerva, linked to Europe's earliest medical school, the Arechi Castle above the gulf and small diocesan and archaeological museums. That is a day or two of sightseeing rather than a morning.

Amalfi effectively shuts down after dinner. A drink on Piazza Duomo or a gelato by the harbour is the whole evening, and the town empties once the day visitors leave.

Salerno has a real going-out scene, if a modest one. On weekends and summer nights, young locals spill out of wine bars and pubs into the squares around Largo Campo and Via dei Mercanti until late. Neither town has clubs worth the name, and both send you to Naples for a big night.

This is Amalfi's strongest suit, and it has the slight edge because the landscape starts at its door. You can walk from your room into the Valle delle Ferriere, climb the old mule stairways to Pontone and Ravello, or kayak out to the Emerald Grotto. Agerola, the start of the Path of the Gods, is a short bus ride away.

Salerno reaches the same trails by ferry or bus, which costs time. In return, it has the Cilento to the south, with wooded hills, the Calore gorges and the wild headlands around Palinuro, best explored with a car.

Both are excellent bases, but they point in different directions. Amalfi is the hub of the coast. Ravello, Positano, Atrani and Cetara are close by bus or boat, and Capri is a ferry ride away in season, but Pompeii and Paestum take planning along the slow coast road.

Salerno is on the railway, so Paestum's temples and Pompeii are each about half an hour away, and Naples, Herculaneum and the palace at Caserta are easy days out. Its own trips to the Amalfi Coast rely on seasonal ferries.

Salerno is much kinder to children. Its flat seafront promenade has gardens, playgrounds and gelato, the beaches towards Paestum are shallow sand, and the Luci d'Artista lights give winter visits a draw of their own. It still has no zoo or theme park.

Amalfi is a town of stairs where pushchairs are useless, the pebble beach is crowded, and the winding buses unsettle carsick children. It works for older children who swim well and enjoy boats and sea caves.

Salerno is the easier place to move about. The station, the Corso, the seafront and the old town lie along one walkable strip, a short metro line and buses cover the rest, and regional trains run direct to Naples, Pompeii and Paestum.

Amalfi is tiny and walkable but built on steps, which makes it hard for anyone with limited mobility. Its buses and ferries are useful, but in summer the buses fill up and the single cliff road clogs. In neither town is a car worth it on the coast.

Salerno has the edge simply because it has a real high street. Corso Vittorio Emanuele has Italian chains and clothing, and Vietri's majolica is close by.

Amalfi has a single street of limoncello, lemon soap and ceramics that repeat from shop to shop. Its one genuine find is handmade cotton paper from the valley mills, along with sandals made to measure. Neither town has much luxury shopping.

There is a big gap here. Amalfi is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy: sea-view rooms are priced like the dearest capitals, and piazza meals, loungers and boat hire add up fast. Only the local buses are cheap.

Salerno is a working city with local prices for rooms, pizza and trains. Many people stay there and visit Amalfi for the day for exactly that reason. Its costs rise in summer with ferries and lido sunbeds, but it never approaches Amalfi's level.

Salerno has a stage of its own. The gilded Teatro Verdi, modelled on Naples's San Carlo, puts on a proper season of opera, concerts and ballet.

Amalfi has no theatre, only church concerts and the band music of the Sant'Andrea feast. It does sit closer to the Ravello Festival's summer concerts on the Villa Rufolo terrace, which guests from either town can reach for a memorable evening.

Both towns are equally restful, in different ways, and neither has a bathing tradition. In Amalfi, calm comes from luxury cliff hotels whose spas mostly serve their own guests, from swims off the rocks and from the hill hamlets in May and October, as the centre gets noisy in high summer.

Salerno's version is a slow sunset walk along its palm-lined promenade. It is also within about an hour of the open-air sulphur pools at Contursi Terme, though traffic on the main roads means it is never a retreat.