Amalfi or Tirana?

In Amalfi the sea is at the foot of the town. Marina Grande lies under the Duomo steps, Atrani's beach is a short walk away and coves such as Santa Croce are reached by boat, so a swim fits between other plans. It is all pebble and crowded with beach-club loungers in summer, but the water is clear.

From Tirana the sea is a day out, under an hour to Durrës. The beach there is long, sandy and shallow, which young children may find easier than Amalfi's pebbles, but the water near the port is less clear. The southern coves that make Albania's coast famous are too far for a day trip.

Both cuisines are regional and built on local produce, but Tirana gives a hungry visitor more choice. Tavë kosi, fërgesë, morning byrek and the farm restaurants in the hills around the city make for honest, varied eating, and Blloku and the streets around Pazari i Ri have plenty of places to try.

Amalfi has the more famous ingredients: sfusato lemons, colatura from Cetara and scialatielli with seafood. The town is small, though, and the places on the piazza and seafront cook for passing crowds. You have to look for the good trattorias in the alleys and up the valley.

Tirana has a little more to see, though neither suits a long museum itinerary, and their history comes from very different periods. Tirana's is the twentieth century: Skanderbeg Square, the mosaic on the History Museum and, above all, the communist era told through Bunk'Art and the House of Leaves. That is about two full days of memorable visits.

Amalfi's heritage is medieval and compact: the Duomo with its bronze doors, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the Arsenale of the old maritime republic and the paper museum. Half a day covers it, and the covered passages and stairways of the old town are as much of the appeal as the monuments.

The two kinds of evening could hardly be further apart. In Amalfi the night is the dinner itself, stretched out on a terrace as the sea goes dark below, then a short stroll around the harbour before bed. That suits couples, and walkers who want an early start on the trails. Anyone hoping to dance will find the town emptied once the day visitors have gone, and the nearest real alternative is Salerno or Naples.

Tirana's evening gets going at about the time Amalfi's winds down. Dinner runs late, and then the city's young crowd moves on to Blloku, a walk from Skanderbeg Square, where terrace bars and small clubs keep going into the early hours. Friends on a weekend away, or anyone in their twenties and thirties, will get far more out of their nights here, as long as they enjoy a polished, dressed-up scene rather than anything underground.

Amalfi has the more dramatic landscape. The Lattari mountains fall almost straight into the sea, the Path of the Gods runs high above Positano with Capri on the horizon, and the Valle delle Ferriere gorge, with its waterfalls and ferns, starts at the back of town. Old mule stairways climb to the hill hamlets, and kayaks slip into sea caves under the cliffs.

Tirana has a mountain on its doorstep too. Mount Dajti rises from the city's eastern edge, and the cable car lifts you to beech and pine forest at about 1,000m in a quarter of an hour, with views across the plain to the sea. The Grand Park lake gives shaded paths in town and the Bovilla reservoir lies within an hour, but the scenery is greener and gentler, with no sea below the trails, and the high Albanian Alps need more than a day.

Amalfi sits in the middle of a string of famous places, most of them short hops away. Ravello is up the hill, Positano is a ferry ride away and Capri can be reached in season, while Paestum, Pompeii and Herculaneum fit into a long day. The catch is that ferries are seasonal and the coast road is jammed in summer.

Tirana's surroundings hold the heritage the city itself lacks: Kruja's castle under an hour away, Roman Durrës, and UNESCO-listed Berat about two hours south. Distances and slow roads make these full days by car, minibus or tour rather than easy hops.

Neither is easy with small children, but Tirana is the better of the two. Children are welcome in cafés late into the evening, the Grand Park has playgrounds by the lake, the Dajti cable car makes an outing in itself and Durrës has sand. Traffic and uneven pavements are the drawback.

Amalfi's stairways make a pushchair useless, the pebble beach is crowded and the winding cliff buses can make children carsick. Older children who swim well get far more from it, with boat trips and sea caves.

Both are explored on foot, and Tirana is slightly easier, mainly because of the ground underfoot. Its centre is flat and compact and taxis are cheap for sights on the edge of town, though the buses confuse visitors and wide roads need care to cross.

Amalfi is tiny but built on stairs, which is hard on anyone with limited mobility. Its buses and seasonal ferries connect the whole coast, but in summer the buses fill up and the cliff road crawls.

Neither is worth the trip for shopping, and what each does well is local. Amalfi's best buys are the handmade cotton paper from the valley, majolica ceramics and sandals made to measure, all along one main street where much of the stock repeats.

In Tirana the pleasure is food from the Pazari i Ri stalls, such as cheese, honey, raki and herbs, along with felt hats and filigree silver. Beyond that it offers malls full of chain stores rather than craft.

The gap is wide. Amalfi is among the most expensive places to stay in Italy. Sea-view rooms, seafront meals, beach loungers and boat hire all cost a lot, and staying in the hill villages in spring or autumn only softens the bill.

Tirana is one of the cheapest capitals in Europe. Meals, coffee, taxis and museum entry cost little, and central mid-range hotels are good value. Only the smarter places in Blloku charge noticeably more.

Tirana has a stage with a full season, the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet on Skanderbeg Square, and tickets are easy to get. It also has a few jazz bars and open-air concerts in summer, though plays are performed in Albanian.

Amalfi has no theatre of its own. Its standout evening is a summer concert at the Ravello Festival on the Villa Rufolo terrace above the sea. The setting is unforgettable, but outside summer there is little beyond church music and the feast of Sant'Andrea.

Neither has a spa culture, and in both the rest comes from the pace of the day. In Amalfi that means swims from the rocks and long lunches on a terrace. Spa treatments are mostly for guests of the cliff hotels, and the centre gets noisy in July and August.

Tirana offers slow hours over coffee and the evening xhiro along the boulevards, with Dajti's forest as an escape from the traffic. For thermal water, the simple spa hotels of Llixha are about an hour away.