Budva or Matera?

Budva is a beach town and Matera is not. In Budva you can walk from the old town to Slovenska Plaza or the Mogren coves, and the coast road leads on to Becici, Jaz and the sand facing Sveti Stefan. The shore is mostly fine pebble and coarse sand, and in high summer it is crowded with sunbeds.

From Matera the sea is an outing of about three quarters of an hour by car, to the Ionian shore around Metaponto and Policoro. What you find there is softer than Budva: long sandy beaches backed by pines, with shallow water that suits small children. Without a car, though, a stay in Matera is effectively a stay without swimming.

Matera eats better. Its food is the plain cooking of Basilicata, built around the crusty pane di Matera, with fave e cicoria, hand-made cavatelli, roast lamb and crackling peperoni cruschi, and the trattorias of the upper town serve it well.

Budva's promenade restaurants cook for the summer crowds and the results are uneven, so a good meal there means finding konobas for grilled squid and the day's catch, Njegusi ham and Vranac red. Neither city offers much beyond its own region, but Matera's regional cooking has more depth.

Here the gap is wide. Budva has one real sight, its walled old town, rebuilt after the 1979 earthquake, with the Church of St John, the Citadel and a small archaeological museum. An unhurried walk covers it in an hour or two.

Matera's Sassi are a whole townscape of cave houses and carved churches climbing the side of the Gravina gorge, lived in since prehistoric times, with Byzantine frescoes in Santa Maria de Idris and Santa Lucia alle Malve. Add the Palombaro Lungo cistern you can walk through, the Museo Ridola and the sculpture in MUSMA's rock rooms, and Matera repays several days in a way Budva cannot.

Budva goes out and Matera stays in. A summer night in Budva means the beach bars and terrace clubs along Slovenska Plaza, the old town's small bars and an open-air club on the hill that runs until dawn, though nearly all of it closes from October.

An evening in Matera is a passeggiata on Via del Corso, a long dinner and a glass of Aglianico above the lit-up Sassi, with a few cave wine bars open late in summer. It suits couples, not anyone looking for a night out.

Both have striking landscapes, and Budva offers more to do in them. Bare limestone mountains rise straight behind the town. Lovcen's beech forest and its views over the Bay of Kotor are an hour inland, and Lake Skadar's reeds are good for kayaking and birdwatching. The sea adds boat trips along the cliffs, sea kayaking and paragliding from the hills above Becici.

Matera's nature is closer at hand. A path drops from Sasso Caveoso into the Gravina gorge and climbs to the Murgia plateau, past abandoned rock churches and Neolithic sites. The Lucanian Dolomites and Pollino are further out, and on that bare upland, summer walks need an early start.

Both make good bases, and Matera has slightly more within reach. Altamura and Gravina are close by. Within about an hour you reach the trulli of Alberobello, the white towns of the Valle d'Itria, Castel del Monte and Polignano a Mare, and on the Basilicata side there are Craco and the Greek temple at Metaponto.

Budva's outings run along one coast: Kotor half an hour away, baroque Perast, Cetinje inland, then Stari Bar and Ulcinj to the south, with Dubrovnik a long day across a border. Buses reach some of these, while nearly all of Matera's need a car.

Budva works better with children, mainly because of the sea. The town beaches shelve gently, the bays at Becici are calmer and there is a water park on the hill. July and August nights are loud, though, so families often stay in Becici instead.

Matera has no beach and nothing built for children. Older children enjoy the caves and the underground cistern, but steep stone steps rule out pushchairs and summer afternoons are hot and shadeless. A short stay with a car works best.

You explore both centres on foot, and in both you need a car to see much beyond them. Budva's old town, marina and promenade are flat and close together. Local buses run along the coast road to Kotor and boat taxis reach the nearby coves, but there is no railway and the single coast road jams in summer.

Matera is also a walking town, with a flat upper town and steep stairways down into the Sassi, which cars cannot enter. Leaving it means a slow narrow-gauge train to Bari or the sparse buses, and a hire car for almost everything else.

Neither is a place to shop, and the difference lies in the souvenirs. Budva's old town lanes and promenade stalls sell silver filigree, olive oil, honey and rakija alongside beachwear, and a modest centre near the marina covers the basics.

Matera's workshops in the Sassi make the painted terracotta cuccù whistle and tufa carvings of the town. Its best take-home is food: dried peppers, local pasta and Aglianico.

Costs are much alike, and both have an expensive quarter to avoid if money is tight. In Budva that is the seafront in July and August, where rooms, sunbeds and promenade meals cost most. Apartments a few streets back, or a visit in June or September, are easier on the budget.

In Matera it is the cave hotels of the Sassi. Guesthouses in the newer town are far cheaper and only a short walk away, meals in the upper-town trattorias are modest, and walking the Sassi and the Murgia is free.

Neither has performances all year, and each has its own summer highlight. Budva's is Grad Teatar, a long-running festival of theatre, concerts and readings in the old town squares. Otherwise, live music means cover bands in the seafront bars.

Matera's big night is the Festa della Bruna, the patron feast at which a papier-mâché float is ritually torn apart. Add conservatory concerts and a summer jazz festival staged against the Sassi.

Matera is the calmer place to unwind. Some of its hotel spas are candlelit cave rooms with pools cut into the rock. The town's slow pace, with quiet early mornings in the Sassi and long lunches, does much of the rest, and it is most restful from autumn to spring.

In Budva, wellness means resort spas in Becici and around Sveti Stefan and massages at the beach clubs, and in high summer the seafront music carries late into the night. May, June and late September are its restful months.