Bologna or Matera?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Matera gives the better seaside day. The Ionian shore at Metaponto and Policoro has broad sandy beaches backed by pine woods, with shallow, calm water that suits children, though you need a car to get there.

Bologna's sea is the Romagna Riviera, about an hour away by train at Rimini. Getting there is easier, but you arrive at rows of rented sunbeds in organised lidos, and the Adriatic there is often greenish rather than clear.

Bologna is one of the reasons people travel to Italy at all. Tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in brodo and lasagne verdi are cooked in old osterie, the Quadrilatero lanes and Mercato delle Erbe give it a real market culture, and Parma ham and Parmigiano come from just down the Via Emilia.

Matera eats well in a plainer register: crusty pane di Matera, fave e cicoria, cavatelli and crackling peperoni cruschi, with Aglianico to drink. It is honest regional cooking, but it has neither markets nor street food, and after a few dinners the menus start to repeat.

Bologna comes out ahead on breadth. Its arcaded medieval centre, San Petronio, the Two Towers, the Archiginnasio's anatomical theatre and the Pinacoteca make a full two or three days, and they amount to the record of a major university city.

Matera has fewer sights, but they are stranger. Cave houses and frescoed rock churches like Santa Maria de Idris, the walk-through Palombaro Lungo cistern and the Sassi lit up at dusk give it an atmosphere that brick porticoes can't match, even if the list of things to see is shorter.

Bologna is the only one of the two with a night out. Thousands of students crowd Piazza Verdi and the taverns of Via del Pratello, and the aperitivo crowd around Via San Vitale moves on to wine bars, though the clubs are out on the edge of town and August goes quiet.

Matera's evening is a passeggiata along Via del Corso, a long dinner and a drink on a terrace above the Sassi. It is lovely for couples, but there are no clubs, and outside summer the town is asleep soon after dinner.

Matera has the wilder landscape right on its doorstep. The Gravina gorge drops away beneath the Sassi, and across it the stony Murgia plateau has trails past abandoned rock churches and Neolithic sites, with kestrels on the cliffs. The Lucanian Dolomites and the forests of Pollino are within a day's drive.

Bologna's outdoors is gentler: easy walks in the Colli Bolognesi, the gypsum caves of the Parco dei Gessi, and the Via degli Dei for anyone ready to walk for several days to Florence. To the north lies flat farmland that is good for cycling and dull to look at.

Bologna is the stronger base by some way, because the rail network does the work. Florence is about half an hour away by fast train. Ravenna's mosaics, Ferrara, Modena and Parma are short hops, and Verona, Padua and Venice are close enough for a day.

Matera has fine outings too, including the trulli of Alberobello, the white towns of the Valle d'Itria, Castel del Monte and the ghost town of Craco. Almost all of them need a hire car, though, and they are mostly small towns and countryside rather than great art cities like Florence or Venice.

Bologna is the easier city with children, though it does little for them on purpose. Its flat centre is mostly closed to traffic and shaded by porticoes, and gelato and pasta make meals simple. A climb up the Asinelli tower or a day at Mirabilandia near Ravenna fills the gaps.

Matera's caves and gorge appeal to older children, but the Sassi are made of steep, uneven steps where a pushchair is no use, and there is little shade on summer afternoons. It works best as a short stay with a baby carrier and a car for the Ionian beaches.

Both centres are best on foot, but Bologna is far easier once you want to go further. Its old town is flat and sheltered by porticoes, and the central station at its edge connects to most of northern Italy.

Within Matera you walk too, but the stairways down into the Sassi tire the legs. Beyond the town it is cut off: Matera is not on the national rail network, the narrow-gauge line to Bari is slow and buses are sparse, so a car is close to essential.

Bologna has more to browse. There are the delis of the Quadrilatero, high-street chains on Via dell'Indipendenza, a small luxury cluster in the Galleria Cavour, and the Montagnola market and Santo Stefano antiques fair besides.

Matera's shops are small and mostly aimed at visitors: painted cuccù whistles, tufa carvings of the Sassi and ceramics. The best things to take home from either city are edible, though, whether that means mortadella and Parmigiano or dried peppers and Aglianico.

Matera goes a little further on a modest budget. Simple trattorias in the upper town are cheap, guesthouses in the newer town cost far less than the cave hotels a short walk below, and walking the Sassi and the Murgia costs nothing. The Sassi themselves are where the price goes up.

In Bologna the meals and aperitivo are fair, but rooms in the old town carry northern Italian prices, and they become scarce and costly during the big trade fairs.

Bologna has a performing arts life all year. The Teatro Comunale stages opera, ballet and concerts, small basement jazz clubs play most nights, and in summer there are concerts and films in Piazza Maggiore.

Matera has almost nothing on a regular basis beyond conservatory concerts and a summer jazz festival set against the Sassi. Its one great night is the Festa della Bruna, the patron feast that ends with the papier-mâché float being torn apart.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, so relaxation works differently in each. Bologna's spa water is out of town, in the spring-fed pools at Castel San Pietro Terme and the old valley spa of Porretta Terme. Matera keeps its calm closer to home, with candlelit hotel spas in rock-cut rooms and quiet mornings in the Sassi, while Bologna's noisy university quarter makes the city itself less restful.