Assisi or Palermo?

Assisi sits in the hills of central Italy, so a swim there means a hotel or agriturismo pool. The alternative is Lake Trasimeno, a drive away, with small lido beaches and shallow, slightly cloudy water in high summer.

Palermo has real sea within easy reach. Mondello's pale sand and turquoise water are half an hour away by bus, there are flat rocks and ladders into deep water towards Capo Gallo, and Cefalù's long town beach is an hour along the coast. You won't step from your hotel onto the sand, but you could swim every day from early summer into autumn.

Assisi feeds you well in a narrow, rural way. Expect strangozzi with black truffle, Castelluccio lentils, wild boar, Monte Subasio olive oil and Sagrantino from Montefalco. The catch is the set menus near the basilica, so the best meals are in side-lane trattorias or down in the valley.

Palermo is a far bigger eating city, and much of its eating happens standing up. Market fryers in Ballarò and the Capo make panelle and arancine, sfincione is sold from three-wheeled vans, and the cooking carries traces of the Arab past in pasta con le sarde and caponata. Cannoli and brioche with granita make the sweet side just as strong. Neither city has much fine dining.

Both are UNESCO-listed, but they work differently. Assisi is built around a single overwhelming monument: the two stacked churches of San Francesco, with frescoes by Cimabue, Simone Martini and the Giotto cycle. Add Santa Chiara and the Temple of Minerva, and two calm days cover the town.

Palermo has more depth and more variety. There is the gold-mosaic Palatine Chapel and the rest of the Arab-Norman route, Serpotta's stucco oratories and baroque squares, and the Salinas and Abatellis museums with Selinunte's metopes and Antonello's Annunciata. That is enough for several days, though many of its streets are visibly decaying.

Assisi has no nightlife beyond a glass of wine after dinner and a walk through lanes that are deserted by eleven. Anyone who wants a bar crawl has to go to Perugia.

Palermo goes out on the street. The Vucciria turns into an open-air drinking spot with grills and small music bars, and the Kalsa and the lanes off Via Maqueda stay busy well past midnight on warm nights. Clubs are scarce, though, and in summer the dancing moves out to the coast around Mondello.

Assisi's outdoors starts at the town gate. A path climbs Monte Subasio through holm-oak woods to the Eremo delle Carceri and the open summit meadows, and the flat valley below is good for cycling between Spello and Montefalco. The country is gentle, and autumn is the best time for it.

Palermo has more range because it has both sea and mountains. You can walk up Monte Pellegrino from the city or snorkel off the rocks at Capo Gallo. Further out are the Zingaro coastal trail past coves and dwarf palms, and the beech woods and high peaks of the Madonie. Most of these need a car, and midday summer heat makes walking hard in both places.

Both make excellent bases, but the trips are different. From Assisi you get a dense cluster of medieval Umbria: Spello within minutes, Perugia and Spoleto by valley train, Gubbio and Todi about an hour off, and Orvieto worth a full day. That means many short, easy outings in one consistent landscape.

Palermo's excursions are fewer but more varied. Monreale's mosaics and Cefalù's Norman cathedral are close, while the lone Doric temple at Segesta, hilltop Erice and the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento take you back to Greek Sicily. Ustica is a hydrofoil ride offshore. In both cases a car makes the smaller places far easier.

Palermo works somewhat better with children, mainly because of Mondello's shallow, sandy bay. Puppet shows of knights and Saracens, endless gelato and restaurants that welcome children late into the evening help too. Narrow lanes without pavements and the summer heat are the downside.

Assisi is safe and gentle, but its sights are frescoed churches that need silence, and its stepped streets are hard work with a pushchair. Older children enjoy the Rocca Maggiore and the Subasio walk. Most families base themselves at a valley agriturismo with a pool and visit the town in short trips.

The centres are equally easy to cover on foot, but they are hard in different ways. Assisi's is tiny and walkable end to end, though it climbs steeply in stairs and slopes. The station is down on the valley floor, a bus or taxi ride below, and valley trains run along to Perugia and Spoleto.

Palermo's centre is flat, with the main sights strung along Via Maqueda and Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The obstacles here are scooters, parked cars and missing pavements, along with slow buses and stressful driving once you leave the centre.

Palermo gives you more to browse. There are fashion shops along Via Libertà, moor's-head ceramics, handmade marionettes, coral jewellery and a flea market near the cathedral, and the markets sell capers, pistachio pesto and almond paste to take home.

Assisi's streets are mostly rosaries and Franciscan souvenirs. Among them you'll find embroidered Umbrian linen, Deruta ceramics, Subasio oil and Sagrantino. Neither city is a reason to travel for shopping.

Overall costs are similar, but you save on different things. Assisi is cheap to sleep in, with simple convent guesthouses and good-value agriturismi, and its basilicas are free. Rooms inside the walls cost more around Easter and big feast days.

Palermo is cheap to eat in. A run of market stalls makes a full meal, and trattoria wine and pastries cost far less than in the north. It gets dearer in July and August, when Mondello is in demand, and a hire car for the ancient sites adds up.

Palermo has a real performing arts calendar. The Teatro Massimo runs full seasons of opera, ballet and concerts, the Politeama is home to the Sicilian symphony orchestra, and the family-run Opera dei Pupi theatres keep a tradition alive that you won't find elsewhere.

Assisi's music is mostly sacred: organ recitals and choirs in the basilicas around feast days. In spring the costumed songs and processions of Calendimaggio take over the town. For opera or jazz, people go to Perugia.

Neither city has a bathing culture, but Assisi is far more restful. Once the tour groups leave it is as still as anywhere in Italy, and people come for convent retreats and silent walks to the hermitage. The calm comes from the place itself, not from any spa.

Palermo's rest has to be found in pockets: the long afternoon break, an evening stroll along the Foro Italico, the palms of the Orto Botanico. For actual treatments you need a hotel spa or the thermal waters at Termini Imerese.