Lecce or Naples?

Lecce is the better choice for a beach trip. It sits inland, but the Salento gives it two coasts: pale coves and sea stacks on the Adriatic around Torre dell'Orso, and long, shallow beaches of fine sand on the Ionian at Porto Cesareo and Punta Prosciutto. You need a car or the summer buses to get there.

In Naples, swimming means the rocks below the Lungomare, small lidos in Posillipo or paid beach clubs, and the water near the port is not always clean. The clear, rocky coves of Capri, Ischia and the Sorrento peninsula are a boat trip away, good for a day out but not a beach vacation.

Naples has the stronger food scene. It is the home of pizza, the street food runs from fried seafood cones to frittatine, the pastry shops make sfogliatelle and babà, and the Pignasecca and Porta Nolana markets show off the produce of Campania.

Lecce's cooking is more modest and very much its own: pasticciotto with iced almond coffee for breakfast, ciceri e tria and fava purée in the osterie, and dark Negroamaro wine with dinner. Neither city has much international food, but Lecce has even fewer ambitious restaurants.

Naples has far more to see. Its Greek-planned historic centre is crowded with churches along Spaccanapoli, the Archaeological Museum holds the treasures of Pompeii, and there are catacombs, tunnels, royal palaces and the Capodimonte gallery on top of that.

Lecce is about a single, harmonious townscape. You come for the carved facades of Santa Croce, Piazza del Duomo at dusk and the half-buried Roman amphitheatre. It makes a beautiful place for two or three days of walking, but its museums are modest.

Naples has the livelier nights. Crowds of students drink on the steps of Piazza Bellini, and a better-dressed crowd fills the alleys behind Piazza dei Martiri until long after midnight. It is a street scene rather than a club scene, though.

Lecce's evenings run from the passeggiata to an aperitivo, then to wine bars in the old town's lanes. There is little dancing in the city, and in summer you have to drive to the beach clubs around Gallipoli for that.

The volcanic landscape gives Naples the edge. You can climb to the crater rim of Vesuvius, walk through the old craters of the Phlegraean Fields such as Astroni, snorkel at Gaiola and hike the Path of the Gods above the Amalfi Coast.

Lecce's surroundings are a flat plain of olive groves, good for easy cycling. Its outdoors is the coast: the cliffs and sea caves between Roca Vecchia and Otranto, the wetlands at Le Cesine and Alimini, and the pine woods of Porto Selvaggio.

Few places match Naples for day trips. Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and the Caserta palace are all reachable by train, ferries go to Capri, Ischia and Procida, and Sorrento leads on to the Amalfi Coast and Paestum.

Lecce is a good base for its region rather than a world-famous one. Otranto's mosaic floor, Gallipoli's island old town and the frescoes at Galatina are close, and Ostuni and the trulli of Alberobello are further north. Most of these are much easier by car.

Neither city has much built for children, so the difference is in the everyday feel. Lecce is the calmer of the two, with a largely traffic-free old town, piazzas full of families in the evening and shallow sandy beaches near Porto Cesareo that suit toddlers.

Naples is warmer in its welcome but tougher on the ground. Scooters, broken pavements and steps make pushchairs hard work. In return it has a zoo, an amusement park and a science museum, and older children usually love the tunnels, the funiculars and Pompeii.

Naples is the easier place without a car. Metro Line 1, four funiculars, the Circumvesuviana and the ferries take you nearly everywhere, even if buses are slow and the train to Pompeii is crowded.

Lecce's flat old town is simple to walk, but once you leave it, slow local railways and summer-only beach buses push most visitors into hiring a car.

Lecce's shopping comes down to its crafts. There is cartapesta, the papier-mâché saints made in old-town workshops, along with small limestone carvings and ceramics from Grottaglie. Beyond those it is mostly food shops, souvenirs and a few fashion stores.

A shopper gets much more to work with in Naples. Workshops in Chiaia make suits, shirts and silk ties, Via Toledo is a proper high street, and the Galleria Umberto I puts shops under an iron-and-glass roof. Coral and cameos come from Torre del Greco, and the nativity workshops of San Gregorio Armeno are worth a walk in their own right.

Both are good value by Italian standards, and the cheap things are much the same: pastries, pizza and trattoria meals. In Lecce, prices jump in August when the Salento fills up, and a hire car adds to the cost.

In Naples, the city itself stays cheap, with inexpensive transport. The costs rise with ferries, island hotels and the entry fees at the big archaeological sites.

The gap here is between one great opera house and a summer folk tradition. Lecce's Politeama Greco and Paisiello theatres put on a modest season. Its most distinctive music is pizzica, played at village festivals through the summer and at the huge Notte della Taranta in Melpignano in August, so outside summer there is less to hear.

In Naples, the Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest opera house in Europe still in use, has a full season of opera, ballet and concerts all year. There are also concerts at the conservatory, chamber music in the churches and Neapolitan song in small venues and trattorias.

They are about level, and in both the thermal water lies outside town. From Naples you can reach the Roman-era springs at Agnano or the terraced thermal parks of Ischia, while Lecce has the sulphur grottoes of Santa Cesarea Terme on the cliffs and quiet masseria spas.

The difference is the town itself: Lecce's long afternoon rest and still piazzas are restful, while Naples is loud and intense.