Lecce or Salerno?

Lecce gives you better swimming, though neither city is a beach resort in itself. Its own nearby sands at San Cataldo are ordinary, but the Salento offers two different seas: limestone coves and sea stacks on the Adriatic, and long, shallow fine-sand beaches with very clear water around Porto Cesareo on the Ionian.

Salerno has the sea at the end of the street, but its city beaches are grey sand, and the water near the port is murky. For a proper beach day you head south to the lidos and pine woods towards Paestum, or take the ferry to the pebbly coves of the Amalfi Coast.

The two cities eat equally well, but they eat differently. Lecce's cooking is inland peasant food: pasticciotto and iced almond coffee for breakfast, then ciceri e tria, fava purée with chicory, and dark Negroamaro and Primitivo wines.

Salerno looks to the sea and the plain, with fried seafood, pasta with clams, Cetara's colatura and buffalo mozzarella made that morning, served with whites such as Fiano and Falanghina. Lecce is the more unusual table, while Salerno has more variety from one meal to the next.

Lecce is the clear choice for sightseeing in the town itself. Its whole old town is a Baroque showpiece of carved limestone, from the facade of Santa Croce to the Piazza del Duomo, with a half-excavated Roman amphitheatre and Messapian layers underground. Its museums are modest, but walking the streets is the point.

Salerno's heritage is medieval and more compact: the Norman cathedral with the crypt of Saint Matthew, the Giardino della Minerva with its link to Europe's first medical school, and the Arechi Castle high above. It is worth a day or two. The region's great ancient sites lie outside the city.

Evenings are much the same in both: a passeggiata, an aperitivo, then wine bars until late, with little dancing in town. In Lecce the bars are in the old town's lanes, kept lively by students, and in summer the clubs are out on the coast around Gallipoli. Salerno's crowd fills Largo Campo and Via dei Mercanti, and Naples is close enough for a bigger night out.

Salerno is far better for the outdoors. The Amalfi Coast's cliffs and lemon terraces begin at the edge of the city, old mule tracks cross the Lattari mountains behind it, and the Cilento national park to the south adds wooded hills, river gorges and the headlands around Palinuro.

Lecce's surroundings are a flat plain of olive groves, good for easy cycling but with no hills to climb. Its nature is mostly on the coast: clifftop paths and sea caves towards Otranto, birdwatching at Le Cesine and the Alimini lakes, and snorkelling and diving in clear water.

Salerno is one of the best bases in Italy for day trips. Paestum's temples and Pompeii are each about half an hour away by train, and Naples is not much further. Ferries cross the gulf to Amalfi and Positano, and Ravello, Herculaneum and Caserta are all easy days out.

Lecce has a good spread of trips too, including Otranto's cathedral mosaic, Gallipoli on its island, Galatina's frescoes and, further north, Ostuni and the trulli of Alberobello. These are mostly lovely towns rather than world-famous sites, though, and most of them are much easier with a car.

Neither city has a zoo, aquarium or theme park, and both rely on gelato, late evenings in the squares and shallow sandy beaches. Lecce's old town is flat and largely free of traffic, which is easy with a pushchair, and the beaches around Porto Cesareo are ideal for small children. Salerno gives families a long, flat seafront with playgrounds and its winter Luci d'Artista lights, but its old town is all steps, and the winding Amalfi road can make children carsick.

Salerno is the easier city if you won't have a car. Its station, seafront, shopping street and old town lie in one walkable strip, and trains go straight to Naples, Pompeii and Paestum. In summer, ferries replace the crowded coast road.

Lecce's centre is flat and compact, and fast trains run north to Bari. Beyond the city, though, the Salento's local railways are slow and its beach buses run only in summer. Most visitors end up hiring a car and parking outside the walls.

Salerno has a little more for shoppers, mainly the long pedestrian Corso Vittorio Emanuele with its Italian chains. Nearby, there are hand-painted Vietri majolica, limoncello and colatura to bring home.

Lecce's distinctive craft is cartapesta: papier-mâché saints and nativity figures made in workshops in the old town, along with small carvings in local stone and Grottaglie ceramics. Apart from that there are a few fashion shops and food stores, which make for pleasant browsing rather than a shopping trip.

Both are good-value southern cities, and both become expensive in August. In Lecce, cheap street pastries and osterie are offset by the hire car, and by beach-club loungers when the whole Salento fills up. Salerno's main advantage is that it costs far less than staying on the Amalfi Coast itself, and its trains and buses are cheap. Over several days, though, ferry fares and entry tickets to the big archaeological sites add up.

Neither city is a big draw for performances, but they offer different things. Salerno's gilded Teatro Verdi has a respectable season of opera, concerts and ballet, and the cliff-top concerts of the Ravello Festival are within reach in summer. Lecce's theatres are more modest. Its real live tradition is pizzica, the tambourine dance played at village festivals all summer and at the Notte della Taranta in Melpignano in August.

Lecce is the more restful of the two. The long afternoon closing sets a slow pace, and several old fortified masserie on the plain now operate as quiet retreats with spas. Santa Cesarea Terme, with sulphur pools in grottoes above the sea, is less than an hour away.

Salerno's calm is mostly found on its palm-lined seafront at sunset and in the quiet upper lanes of the old town. Outside that, it is a working port with heavy traffic. For spa treatments you are limited to hotel spas or the inland springs at Contursi Terme.