Bari or Ohrid?

Bari has the better swimming. It has the sea, warm and calm in summer, a sandy city beach at Pane e Pomodoro, and the cliff-backed cove at Polignano a Mare and the inlets around Monopoli a short train ride south. Swimming fits easily into a summer stay as a half-day out.

In Ohrid you swim in fresh lake water, very clear and unsalted, from jetties, concrete platforms and short pebble strips below Kaneo, at Potpeš and in the villages to the south. It is lovely on a hot day, but the beaches are small and the water is only properly warm in July and August.

Food is one of the main reasons to choose Bari. Orecchiette rolled in the old town's doorways, focaccia barese, sgagliozze and raw sea urchins by the fishermen's pier give it a street-food culture of its own. Tiella, burrata and Primitivo or Negroamaro wine round out the sit-down meals.

Ohrid's Macedonian cooking is honest and satisfying: tavče gravče, ajvar, sheep's cheese and lake fish such as belvica, with Tikveš wines. But the same menu repeats along the waterfront, so it is worth seeking out family-run places in the upper old town.

Ohrid has the deeper set of sights. The frescoes of St Sophia, the church of St John on its rock at Kaneo, Samuel's Fortress and the Plaošnik site, with its links to early Cyrillic learning and a Hellenistic theatre below, make the old town an open-air record of Orthodox history. Town and lake are listed together by UNESCO.

Bari's centrepiece is the Basilica di San Nicola, a fine Apulian Romanesque church and pilgrimage site, with the cathedral and the Norman-Swabian castle close by. The Murat grid and the Pinacoteca add a nineteenth-century and artistic layer, but the whole set is pleasant rather than profound.

Bari is the better place for an evening out. Students and young locals crowd Piazza Mercantile and Piazza Ferrarese, the bars of the Umbertino streets run past midnight, and there are a handful of clubs. The city stays reasonably lively outside summer, even if winter weeknights are quiet.

Ohrid's nightlife exists mainly in July and August, when visitors from Skopje fill the café-bars around the old bazaar and the beach clubs on the southern shore. For the rest of the year an evening usually ends with wine over dinner.

Ohrid wins easily on scenery. The deep, ancient lake is ringed by mountains, Galičica rises steeply to viewpoints over both Ohrid and Prespa, and the spring-fed pool at St Naum is explored by rowing boat. Walking, kayaking and paragliding all start close to town.

Bari sits on a flat plain of olive groves, and its main outdoor space is the seafront promenade. The open karst of Alta Murgia, the Grotte di Castellana and gentle cycling in the Valle d'Itria are worthwhile, but none of it is wild.

Day trips are where Bari pulls furthest ahead. Matera's cave dwellings, the trulli of Alberobello, the white towns of Ostuni and Locorotondo, Frederick II's Castel del Monte, Trani's seafront cathedral and Baroque Lecce are all within a day, many of them by train. It is a base you could fill a fortnight from.

Ohrid's outings are good but fewer: St Naum by boat or road, Struga, Bitola with the mosaics of Heraclea Lynkestis, and Korçë across the Albanian border. Roads are slow and buses are thin, so a car or a driver is close to essential.

Bari is slightly easier with children. The sandy city beach, the flat, traffic-free lanes of the old town and outings to the Grotte di Castellana and the Fasano safari park give more variety, though the midday summer heat calls for a long break.

Ohrid works well for families happy to spend their days in the lake, with boat rides and the prehistoric pile village at the Bay of Bones as extras. The steep, cobbled old town is hard going with a pushchair, and neither place has much built specifically for children.

Both centres are easy to manage on foot, but in different ways. Bari's old town, Murat quarter and promenade lie on flat ground, a train runs to the airport, and regional railways head out to the coast and inland, even if some lines are slow.

Ohrid is smaller but steep, with cobbles and stairs in the old town. Cheap, plentiful taxis do the work that Bari's trains do, since the buses and summer boats to the southern shore cannot be relied on.

Bari offers more to browse. Via Sparano and the Murat streets carry Italian fashion chains and a few boutiques, and the delicatessens sell dried orecchiette, taralli, olive oil and Puglian ceramics to take home.

Ohrid's shopping centres on one craft, the Ohrid pearl, made by a few families from a lustre of lake-fish scales. Buy from an established workshop in the bazaar streets rather than a stall. Woodcarving, icons and filigree silver complete a small but distinctive range.

Ohrid is clearly cheaper. Guesthouse rooms, full meals with Macedonian wine, taxis and church entry fees all cost little, and late spring or early autumn gives the lowest prices with good weather.

Bari is good value by Italian standards, with cheap street food, inexpensive local wine and a free old town and basilica. Beach clubs and car hire for the Valle d'Itria push the bill up, and in both places rooms tighten in July and August.

Bari has a real year-round stage in the Teatro Petruzzelli, one of Italy's largest opera houses, with opera, ballet and symphonic concerts. A summer jazz festival in the piazzas and the castle adds to it, although much of the theatre is in Italian.

Ohrid's offer is almost entirely the Ohrid Summer Festival, whose concerts and opera in St Sophia and the ancient theatre make memorable settings. Outside the festival there is little beyond folk music in restaurants.

Neither is a spa destination. Both lack a bathing tradition and rely on hotel spas, so relaxation comes from the pace of the place.

In Bari that means long lunches, the afternoon break and the evening walk on the promenade, with restored country estates inland for proper pampering. Ohrid's calm is the lake itself, especially in May, June and September, when slow mornings by the water are at their best.