Assisi or Lucca?

Lucca has a real beach option and Assisi does not. A short train ride takes you to the Versilia coast, where wide, gently shelving sand runs from Viareggio to Forte dei Marmi. There are neat rows of umbrellas at the beach clubs, and wilder dunes backed by pine woods at the Lecciona.

From Assisi the sea is about two hours away. The nearest swimming is Lake Trasimeno, whose small lidos have warm, shallow and slightly cloudy water. A hotel pool is the more realistic plan.

Both towns cook plain, rustic country food, but Lucca gives you more to work with. Assisi's highlights are hand-rolled strangozzi with black truffle, Castelluccio lentils, torta al testo and Subasio olive oil, with Sagrantino to drink. The trouble is that many tables near the basilica serve tour-group set menus, so the good meals are on side lanes or out at country agriturismi.

Lucca has more good everyday places. There are family trattorias inside the walls serving farro soup and tordelli, bakery counters selling cecina and buccellato, and wine bars with aperitivo. The menus repeat after a few days, but the standard is more reliable.

The two are close, but they reward you in different ways. Assisi is built around a single masterpiece. The two-storey Basilica of San Francesco holds frescoes by Cimabue, Simone Martini and the Giotto cycle, and around it stand Santa Chiara, the Temple of Minerva and the Porziuncola below the town.

In Lucca the sight is the whole city. Its unbroken Renaissance walls enclose carved Romanesque façades such as San Michele in Foro, the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro and the Ilaria del Carretto tomb. It has no single work on the level of Assisi's basilica, but the townscape is richer and more varied.

Neither town is for late nights, but Lucca has a little more going on. It has aperitivo in Piazza San Michele, a few wine bars and pubs with students, and in summer the discos of the Versilia coast for anyone willing to taxi back late.

Assisi empties once the day-trippers leave. A glass of Sagrantino and a walk through the floodlit lanes is the whole evening, and anyone who wants a bar scene should stay in Perugia.

Assisi's outdoors is focused on one mountain. Monte Subasio rises straight behind the town, with a walk through holm oaks to the Eremo delle Carceri and on to open summit meadows. Below it lie the vineyards and olive groves of a valley that is flat enough for cycling.

Lucca has the wider and wilder range around it, so it edges ahead. The marble-scarred Apuan Alps are about an hour north, there are chestnut woods in the Garfagnana, and the reed beds of Lake Massaciuccoli are good for birdwatching. Within the city itself, the 4km tree-lined ring of the walls makes an easy daily run or ride.

Both are first-rate bases, and the choice comes down to which Italy you want to see. From Assisi you reach the quiet hill towns of Umbria: Spello is minutes away, then Perugia, Spoleto and Gubbio, with Orvieto and Deruta's ceramics further out. Many of them need a car.

Lucca's trips are bigger names and easier to reach by train. Pisa is about half an hour away and Florence a little over an hour, plus there are the villa gardens at Marlia, the sculptors' studios of Pietrasanta and, with an early start, the Cinque Terre.

Lucca is far kinder to children. It is flat and mostly traffic-free, and renting a family quadricycle to ride the walls is the classic outing. The Collodi Pinocchio Park and the beaches are both close, and Lucca Comics & Games in autumn thrills older children.

Assisi is safe and welcoming, but its stepped lanes defeat pushchairs. Its churches ask for silence, and apart from the Rocca Maggiore there is little for children. Families usually stay at a pool agriturismo below the town.

Lucca is the easier town on foot. It is flat and compact, closed to most traffic and made for bikes, with the station just outside the southern walls and direct trains to Pisa and Florence.

Assisi's centre is small but climbs steeply from the basilica to the cathedral. Its station is 4km down in the valley at Santa Maria degli Angeli, so every train trip starts with a bus or taxi. Both towns need a car for the countryside.

Lucca offers a proper browse. Via Fillungo has fashion and jewellery shops behind old Liberty-style shopfronts, and the side lanes have delicatessens and paper shops. Once a month, one of Italy's oldest antiques markets fills the streets around the cathedral.

Assisi's streets are mostly rosaries and Tau crosses. The things worth carrying home are Assisi embroidered linens, Deruta ceramics, Subasio oil and Sagrantino.

Assisi works out a little cheaper. Its basilicas are free, convent guesthouses offer very simple, low-cost rooms, and the valley agriturismi are good value. Prices only rise near the basilicas and at Easter.

Lucca is reasonable for Tuscany, with fair trattorias and many free sights. However, rooms inside the walls are few and fill up in summer and at festival time, so staying just outside often saves money.

Lucca is Puccini's town, and that gives it a real musical life. Short recitals of his arias run through most of the year, and the Teatro del Giglio has an opera and concert season. Summer brings star concerts in Piazza Napoleone and open-air opera by the lake at Torre del Lago.

Assisi's music is sacred and occasional, with organ and choral concerts in the basilica and the medieval song and processions of Calendimaggio in spring. For opera or jazz, people go to Perugia.

Neither town has baths of its own, so the difference lies in what is nearby and in the kind of calm. From Lucca, a short trip reaches the belle époque spa halls of Montecatini, the warm cave pools at Monsummano and the steam grottoes of Bagni di Lucca, so a proper spa day is easy to arrange.

Assisi's rest is spiritual rather than physical. It offers convent retreats, silent walks to the Eremo delle Carceri and lanes as still as anywhere once the groups have gone, but almost nothing in the way of treatments.