Assisi or Mostar?

Neither place is for a beach vacation, but Mostar gets you to the water more easily. The Kravica waterfalls give a proper swimming pool in the wild, the cold Neretva is good for a bracing plunge, and the Adriatic at Neum is a day trip away.

From Assisi the options are a hotel pool or the shallow, slightly murky lidos of Lake Trasimeno, and the sea is two hours off on either side.

The two eat about equally well, in very different traditions. Assisi offers Umbrian country cooking: strangozzi with black truffle, Castelluccio lentils, wild boar and some of Italy's best olive oil, with Sagrantino to drink.

Mostar cooks with an Ottoman accent: charcoal-grilled ćevapi, burek and slow stews, Herzegovinian Žilavka and Blatina, and the ritual of Bosnian coffee. In both towns the tourist terraces near the main sight are weaker than the side lanes, and neither has much fine dining.

Assisi carries more weight here. The two-storey Basilica of San Francesco is one of the great monuments of European art, and Santa Chiara, the Roman Temple of Minerva, the Rocca Maggiore and the Porziuncola chapel below fill a calm two days.

Mostar's appeal is narrower but sharper: the rebuilt Stari Most with its divers, the Kujundžiluk bazaar, a minaret you can climb and Ottoman houses. The scarred façades along the old front line add a recent history that Assisi does not have.

Mostar has the edge, though neither is a night-out destination. After dinner on a terrace facing the floodlit bridge, a few cocktail bars and student clubs stay open late at weekends, especially in summer.

Assisi is close to silent by eleven. A glass of Sagrantino and an evening stroll are the whole programme, and anyone wanting bars heads to Perugia.

The outdoors are equally good in both, but they feel quite different. Assisi offers gentle walking: oak woods up Monte Subasio to grassy summit meadows, spring wildflowers and flat cycling between Spello and Montefalco, with the Sibillini further off.

Mostar's surroundings are rougher karst country. The jagged Prenj range, rafting and kayaking in the Neretva canyons, the Buna spring at Blagaj and the birds of Hutovo Blato make for wilder, sweatier days, best kept to spring and autumn.

This is where Assisi pulls furthest ahead. Spello is minutes away, Perugia and Spoleto are an easy train ride, and Gubbio, Todi, Orvieto and the Tuscan towns of Cortona and Montepulciano are within a day. That is a run of major towns few bases can match.

Mostar's outings are smaller and more scattered: the dervish tekke at Blagaj, walled Počitelj, Stolac's stećci tombstones and Konjic's bunker. Sarajevo makes a long day by train through the gorge, and most of the rest needs a car or a tour.

Neither is built for children, but Mostar holds their attention slightly better. Watching the bridge divers, climbing a minaret and swimming under Kravica make a good couple of days.

Assisi asks for quiet in its frescoed churches. Families there tend to stay at a valley agriturismo with a pool, with the castle and a Subasio walk for older children. In both towns, steep lanes defeat pushchairs and the summer heat is hard on small children.

Assisi is the easier base to get around, mainly because of its valley railway. Regional trains run to Perugia, Spello, Foligno and Spoleto, though the station is in Santa Maria degli Angeli, 4km below the walls, so you need a bus or taxi to get between the two. Inside the town, the climb from the Basilica up to Piazza del Comune is steep, and the lifts and car parks at the edges make it easier.

Mostar's sights lie along the Neretva rather than up a hillside. The walk from the Austro-Hungarian centre to the old bridge is shorter and gentler than Assisi's stairs, and only the lanes close to Stari Most rise sharply. What Mostar lacks is a local network like Umbria's. City buses serve residents rather than visitors, so the links that matter for a trip are the train to Sarajevo and the long-distance buses across the region.

Mostar is the more interesting place to browse, mainly for the Kujundžiluk, where a few coppersmiths still hammer coffee sets by hand among kilims and lamps. You need a careful eye to separate them from the imported stock.

Assisi's lanes are dominated by rosaries and Tau crosses. The things worth carrying home are edible or woven: Subasio olive oil, truffles, Sagrantino and Assisi-embroidered linen.

Mostar is clearly the cheaper stay. Guesthouse rooms, grilled meals, local wine and coffee all cost little, and prices fall again a few streets back from the bridge.

Assisi is reasonable for Italy. Its basilicas are free, and convent guesthouses and agriturismi keep rooms affordable. Still, hotels inside the walls and the restaurants by the basilicas make a day there noticeably dearer than in Mostar.

Neither offers much, and the difference lies in the kind of thing on offer. Assisi's music is sacred: organ recitals and choirs in the basilica, plus the medieval pageantry of Calendimaggio in spring, with Perugia's opera and jazz nearby for more.

Mostar has a national theatre and youth theatre working mainly in local languages, open-air summer concerts and the occasional café band.

Assisi is the better place to unwind. Convent retreats, silent walks to the hermitage and a few spas at country hotels give a stay real stillness once the tour groups leave.

In Mostar the hammam survives only as a historic building and treatments are scarce. Rest there means long coffees in the shade and the sound of the Neretva in the early morning.