Assisi or Matera?

Neither town is on the coast, but Matera is much better placed for a swim. About 45 minutes away, the Ionian shore around Metaponto and Policoro has wide sandy beaches backed by pine woods, with shallow, warm water that suits children. The Adriatic coves of Puglia are further on.

From Assisi the sea is about two hours away in either direction. The nearest swimming is at the little lido beaches on Lake Trasimeno, where the water is warm but murky. In practice, a pool at your agriturismo is the realistic option.

Both towns serve honest rural cooking with little street food and no market halls, but Matera eats a little better. Pane di Matera, peperoni cruschi, crapiata and hand-made cavatelli give it a stronger identity, and the trattorias in the upper town around Via Ridola are good and fairly priced.

Assisi has excellent ingredients: black truffle on strangozzi, Castelluccio lentils, Subasio olive oil and Sagrantino from Montefalco. The problem is that the streets nearest the basilica are full of set menus for tour groups. To eat well you have to look for side-lane trattorias or the agriturismi in the valley.

Both towns are equally strong for sightseeing, but in very different ways. Assisi is about art and faith. The two stacked churches of the Basilica of San Francesco hold frescoes by Giotto, Cimabue and Simone Martini, and the Temple of Minerva, Santa Chiara and the Porziuncola complete a pilgrimage town made of pink stone.

Matera is about a place lived in since prehistory. You explore the cave homes and carved rock churches of Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano, walk through the Palombaro Lungo cistern under the main piazza, and see Carlo Levi's panorama at Palazzo Lanfranchi. Assisi rewards close looking indoors, while Matera's best moment is standing over the gorge at dusk.

Neither town has a night out, but Matera at least has an evening. In summer the passeggiata along Via del Corso, a few late cave wine bars and cocktail terraces above the lit Sassi, and a small student crowd keep things going for a while.

In Assisi the lanes are empty by eleven, and an evening means a glass of Sagrantino and a walk under the floodlights. For bars you would need to go to Perugia, half an hour away.

Holm-oak woods and wildflower meadows on Monte Subasio, or the bare limestone of the Murgia: the walking is equally good in both towns, but it feels very different underfoot. From Assisi a path climbs through shady woods past the Eremo delle Carceri to open grassland at about 1,290m, and below the town the olive groves and flat valley floor make easy cycling between Spello, Bevagna and Montefalco.

Matera's landscape is drier and starts at the edge of town. You drop into the Gravina gorge, cross the stream and climb onto a stony plateau of wild thyme, where abandoned rock churches and Neolithic village sites look back at the Sassi and kestrels nest in the cliffs. For longer days by car, Assisi has the Valnerina and the Sibillini, while Matera has the sandstone peaks of the Lucanian Dolomites and the forests of Pollino.

Assisi is the stronger base, because so much lies close by and part of it can be reached by train. Spello is minutes away, and Perugia, Spoleto, Gubbio, Todi and Orvieto follow, along with Deruta's ceramics and the Tuscan towns of Cortona and Montepulciano.

Matera's outings are excellent too: Altamura, the trulli of Alberobello, the white towns of the Valle d'Itria, Castel del Monte, ghostly Craco and the mountain villages of Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa. Almost all of them need a car, though, and the distances are longer.

Assisi's answer for families is to stay outside it, at an agriturismo with a pool in the valley, and come up for short visits to the Rocca Maggiore or a walk on Monte Subasio. The frescoed churches need quiet, which is hard on younger children.

Matera gives curious older children a little more inside the town: cave houses, the walk-through cistern under the main piazza and a scramble down into the gorge. With a car, the shallow sandy beaches of the Ionian coast make an easy break. In both towns, though, the stepped lanes rule out a pushchair, so bring a baby carrier.

Assisi is somewhat easier. Its small walled centre is steep, but car parks and lifts at the edges help. Regional trains from the station in Santa Maria degli Angeli run along the valley to Perugia, Spello and Spoleto, so you can see a fair amount without a car.

On foot, Matera is simple: the upper town is flat and the Sassi lie just below, down tiring stairs. Leaving it is the hard part. Matera has no main-line railway, only a slow narrow-gauge line to Bari, and buses are sparse, so a hire car matters more here.

Neither town is a place to shop seriously, and in both the things worth taking home are local crafts and food rather than fashion. In Assisi they are mixed in with the rosaries, Tau crosses and Franciscan souvenirs that fill the streets around the basilicas, so it takes some looking to find the hand-woven linens with Assisi embroidery, Deruta ceramics, Subasio olive oil and bottles of Sagrantino.

Matera's workshops in the Sassi sell the cuccù, a painted terracotta whistle shaped like a cockerel, along with tufa carvings and papier-mâché. Dried peppers and Aglianico also pack well. The town has something Assisi lacks, too: a stretch of ordinary Italian high-street shops along Via del Corso in the upper town.

Costs are similar in both towns, and they are cheaper than the big Italian cities. The ways to save differ. Assisi has free basilicas and simple convent guesthouses, though rooms inside the walls cost more around Easter and feast days. In Matera the cave hotels in the Sassi are the expensive part, so staying in the newer town a short walk away keeps costs down.

Live performance is thin in both towns, so plan around particular occasions. Assisi offers organ and choral music in its basilicas and the medieval song and costume of Calendimaggio in spring, and Perugia is close for opera and jazz. Matera's big night is the Festa della Bruna, when a papier-mâché float is torn apart, and in summer there are open-air concerts and a jazz festival set against the Sassi.

Assisi's calm is spiritual and comes with the place. People come for retreats in convent guesthouses, silent walks up to the Eremo delle Carceri and the stillness that settles once the tour groups have gone. The few spas are in country hotels down in the valley.

Matera relies on pace more than on retreats, but it has the more unusual spa: hotel pools cut into candlelit cave rooms. Neither town has thermal baths. Matera is most restful from autumn to spring, with early mornings in the Sassi and the light fading over the gorge in the evening.