Bari or Lecce?

Neither city has great swimming on its doorstep, but Lecce has the better coast within reach. Bari does have a sandy city beach, Pane e Pomodoro, a walk from the centre. Polignano a Mare's pebble cove between cliffs and the rocky inlets around Monopoli are a short train ride south, and most visitors treat them as half-days out.

Lecce sits 12km inland, yet the Salento gives it two seas. On the Adriatic there are the pale coves and sea stacks of Torre dell'Orso. On the Ionian there are the long, shallow fine-sand beaches of Porto Cesareo. In summer the whole stay revolves around them, though you need a car or the seasonal buses to get there.

Both cook Apulian food with the same Primitivo and Negroamaro wines and orecchiette with turnip tops, but Bari has the edge. Focaccia barese, panzerotti and sgagliozze from kitchen windows, pasta rolled by hand in Bari Vecchia's doorways and raw sea urchins at the old pier make for a day of eating on foot, much of it from the sea.

Lecce's specialities lean towards pastry and the land. Breakfast is a pasticciotto with almond-milk iced coffee, mid-morning brings a rustico, and dinner is ciceri e tria and fava purée in an old town osteria. It is distinctive and cheap, but the range is narrower.

Lecce is the more rewarding city to walk through. Its old town is a near-complete Baroque townscape in honey-coloured limestone, from the carved facade of Santa Croce to Piazza del Duomo at dusk. Half of a Roman amphitheatre lies open below Piazza Sant'Oronzo, and there are Messapian layers beneath the streets.

Bari's sights are fewer and of an older style. The Romanesque Basilica di San Nicola draws Orthodox pilgrims, and the cathedral and the Norman-Swabian castle stand close by in Bari Vecchia, with the nineteenth-century Murat grid beyond. A day or two covers it, while Lecce rewards slower wandering.

Bari has the bigger night out. Students and young locals fill Piazza Mercantile and Piazza Ferrarese, the bars of the Umbertino streets run past midnight, and the city has a handful of clubs. In high summer there are also beach venues along the coast to the south.

Lecce's evenings are gentler: an aperitivo on the piazzas, then the small wine and cocktail bars in the old town lanes. There is little dancing in town, and the summer discos are around Gallipoli, a drive away.

Neither city has mountains, and both sit on flat plains of olive groves and stone walls, so the difference lies in what surrounds them. Bari looks inland, to the open karst grassland of the Alta Murgia for walks and cycling and to the show caves of the Grotte di Castellana.

Lecce's outdoors is the edge of the sea. There are clifftop paths and sea caves between Roca Vecchia and Otranto, birdwatching at Le Cesine and the Alimini lakes, pine woods above the bay at Porto Selvaggio, and good snorkelling and diving.

This is where Bari pulls clearly ahead, because it sits in the middle of Puglia's best-known sights. Matera by train, the trulli of Alberobello, Ostuni and the Valle d'Itria, Castel del Monte and Trani's cathedral by the sea all make easy days out, and Lecce itself is reachable by train.

Lecce's range is smaller and reaches further into the south. It has Otranto's vast mosaic floor, Gallipoli's island old town and the frescoes of Galatina close at hand. The Itria valley is nearly two hours' drive away, and most of these outings are far easier with a car.

Families will find the two much alike. Both have traffic-free old towns, gelato, evenings on the piazzas and very little built for children, and both need a long afternoon rest in the summer heat.

The difference is in the beach and the outings. Bari has a sandy city beach close to the centre and short trips to the Grotte di Castellana and the Fasano safari park. Lecce's draw is the shallow, sandy water around Porto Cesareo, ideal for small children but a drive away.

Both centres are flat and easy on foot, but Bari is much better connected. A rail link runs to the airport, and regional lines run along the coast and inland, so Polignano, Trani and Matera can be reached without a car, even if some trains are slow.

In Lecce, the walking is just as easy and fast trains run north to Brindisi and Bari. Beyond the city, though, the Salento's local railways are slow and infrequent and the beach buses run only in summer. Most visitors hire a car and park outside the walls.

For clothes and everyday shopping, Bari is the better bet. The pedestrianised Via Sparano and the Murat grid around it work as a proper Italian high street of fashion chains and a few smarter boutiques, which Lecce cannot match. Even so, Bari's most memorable things to take home are edible: dried orecchiette, taralli and olive oil from the delicatessens. Puglian ceramics are also worth hunting for.

Lecce has less to buy, but more of it is made in the town itself. Cartapesta saints and nativity figures come out of workshops in the old town, and small objects carved from its pale limestone are a souvenir Bari has no answer to. Neither city justifies a shopping trip, but Lecce is the place to find something handmade.

Both are good value for Italy, with cheap street food, simple trattorias and local wine. The difference is when costs rise and what adds to the bill.

In Bari, rooms get scarcer in July and August, and day trips by car add up. In Lecce, the August crowds across the Salento make rooms and beach loungers expensive, and a hire car is close to essential, so May, June and September give the best balance there.

Bari has more on stage. The Teatro Petruzzelli, one of Italy's largest opera houses, runs a full season of opera, ballet and symphonic concerts. In summer there are open-air concerts and a long-running jazz festival in the piazzas and the castle.

Lecce's two theatres, the Politeama Greco and the Paisiello, carry a smaller season. Its own tradition is pizzica, the Salento's tambourine dance, heard at village festivals all summer and at the Notte della Taranta in Melpignano in August.

Lecce is the better choice for real rest. The sulphur springs of Santa Cesarea Terme, in grottoes and pools on the cliffs above the sea, are under an hour away, and old fortified masserie on the plain have become quiet retreats with spas.

Bari shares the slow southern rhythm of long lunches and an evening stroll along the seafront. Its spas, though, are mostly hotel facilities, and proper pampering means leaving the city for a country estate.