Florence or Lecce?

This is the widest gap between the two. Florence sits in the Arno valley with no swimming to speak of. The long, lounger-lined sands of the Versilia are about an hour and a half away by train, so a swim in the sea means giving up a whole day.

Lecce is inland too, but the Salento coast is close enough to shape the whole stay. The cliffs and pale coves of Torre dell'Orso on the Adriatic are about half an hour away, and the shallow, very clear water of Porto Cesareo is on the Ionian side. You will need a car or the summer buses, and August brings crowds.

Both cities cook simply and well, but Florence offers more range. You get bistecca, ribollita, lampredotto from the carts, two working food markets, Chianti on the doorstep and a fine-dining tier as well, provided you steer clear of the set menus near the Duomo.

Lecce's cooking is more particular. Breakfast is a pasticciotto with iced almond coffee, dinner might be ciceri e tria or orecchiette with turnip tops, and the wine is Negroamaro. Eating well costs less there, but beyond Apulian dishes there is little choice.

For art, Florence is in a different league. The Uffizi, David in the Accademia, the Bargello and the Pitti Palace hold some of the most important Renaissance work anywhere. Smaller places such as the Brancacci Chapel and the frescoed cells of San Marco would fill a long visit by themselves.

In Lecce the townscape itself is the attraction: honey-coloured Baroque facades, Santa Croce, the enclosed Piazza del Duomo at dusk and half a Roman amphitheatre below the main square. Its museums are modest, so this is a city to wander rather than study.

Neither city is a place for dancing until dawn, and evenings follow a similar pattern: aperitivo, then wine bars, with students keeping things going.

In Florence the crowd gathers on Piazza Santo Spirito, at student pubs near the centre and at summer bars along the Arno. Lecce stays quieter in town, in small cocktail bars in the old lanes, but in summer the late scene moves to beach clubs and open-air discos around Gallipoli, which means a drive.

Both offer gentle rather than wild country, but of opposite kinds. Florence has hills: olive terraces at Fiesole, lanes in the Chianti for walking and cycling, and further out the Casentino forests and the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps.

Around Lecce the land is a flat olive plain, so the outdoors means the coast. There are clifftop paths towards Otranto, boat trips into sea caves, birdwatching in the Le Cesine wetlands and good snorkelling and diving. In both places, summer is too hot for long walks.

Florence is one of the finest day-trip bases in Europe. Siena, Pisa, Lucca and Bologna are all around an hour or less by train or bus, and San Gimignano, Volterra and the Chianti villages add more than a week of outings.

Lecce has good outings of its own, among them the cathedral mosaic at Otranto, Gallipoli's island old town and the trulli of Alberobello. The distances are longer, though, and most of these trips depend on a car.

Neither city is built around children, and neither has a zoo, aquarium or theme park worth the trip. Florence keeps them busy with the climb up the dome, the secret passages of Palazzo Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens, though its narrow, crowded pavements are tiring with a pushchair.

Lecce's traffic-free old town and family evenings on the piazzas feel more relaxed. The shallow, sandy beaches near Porto Cesareo also give small children a kind of day out that Florence cannot offer.

Florence is the easier base without a car. The main sights are within about twenty minutes' walk of each other, Santa Maria Novella station is right in the centre, and trains run easily to Pisa, Lucca and Bologna.

Lecce's old town is just as walkable and flatter, but beyond it things get harder. Local railways across the Salento are slow and infrequent and the beach buses run only in summer, so most visitors hire a car.

Florence is a real shopping destination. Leather workshops, the goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio, marbled paper, the artisans of the Oltrarno and the luxury houses on Via de' Tornabuoni give it real depth, though some of the leather is mass-produced, so look closely before you buy.

In Lecce, shopping is a pleasant sideline. Look for cartapesta saints from the old-town workshops, carved limestone, Grottaglie ceramics and olive oil to take home. Beyond a few shops on the main streets there is little fashion.

In Florence, most of the money goes on staying close to the sights and getting into them. A few days of the big galleries and the dome climb make tickets a real part of the budget, and restaurants on the main squares charge for the view. Street food and house wine stay reasonable and you will hardly pay for transport. The biggest savings come from a winter visit or a room near the station or in the Oltrarno.

Lecce asks less of you from day to day, because wandering its old town costs nothing and eating out is modest. Here the spending moves to the coast. A hire car, and beach-club loungers in high summer, are what push the bill up, so May, June and September are when your money goes furthest.

Florence has the stronger stage. Opera was more or less born here, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino runs a full season of opera, concerts and ballet, and its spring festival is among the oldest in Europe. Many visitors, though, only meet the city's music through concerts in churches staged for tourists.

Lecce's two theatres put on a modest season. Its real musical tradition is pizzica, the tambourine dance played at village festivals all summer and at the Notte della Taranta in Melpignano in August. Outside summer there is little on.

What separates the two is where the calm comes from. Florence's centre is crowded in high season, so rest usually means leaving it: Montecatini Terme, a grand old spa town, is under an hour by train, the open-air sulphur pools at Saturnia and Bagno Vignoni lie further south, and a few nights on a farm in the hills are the classic way to slow down. In town, the Boboli and Bardini gardens early in the day are the quiet corners.

In Lecce the slower pace is part of everyday life, with shops shut through the long afternoon rest and evenings spent sitting on the piazzas. Taking the waters there happens by the sea: Santa Cesarea Terme has sulphur pools in grottoes on the cliffs, and some of the old fortified masserie on the plain have become quiet retreats with spas.