Lecce or Venice?

Lecce has the better sea, but you have to drive for it. The plain sands at San Cataldo are close, while the pale coves and sea stacks of Torre dell'Orso and the very clear, shallow water at Punta Prosciutto make the Salento a proper beach destination, where a summer stay can revolve around the sea.

Venice's beach is easier to reach, a short boat ride to the Lido, but the water is greenish and much of the sand sits under rows of cabanas. It works well for an afternoon off from sightseeing, and is gentle enough for small children, rather than as a reason to come.

The two eat about equally well in quite different ways. Lecce's food is the farm cooking of the Salento plain: pasticciotto and iced almond coffee for breakfast, ciceri e tria and fava purée at simple osterie, dark Negroamaro with dinner, and almost nowhere is touristy.

Venice is about the lagoon and the bar counter, with cicchetti and a spritz in the bacari of Cannaregio and Castello and black cuttlefish risotto made with fish from the Rialto market. Around San Marco you have to step past a lot of indifferent tourist restaurants first. Neither city offers much beyond its own regional cooking.

Lecce's honey-coloured Baroque streets, with Santa Croce, the Piazza del Duomo and a half-buried Roman amphitheatre, make a fine place to wander for a couple of days. Its museums are modest, though, and the pleasure lies in the townscape rather than great collections.

Venice operates on another scale. The whole city is the monument, and behind its facades sit the Doge's Palace, the Accademia's Venetian painters, Titian in the Frari, Tintoretto at San Rocco and modern art at the Guggenheim, plus the Biennale. Lecce can be seen in a weekend, while Venice can fill a week.

Neither is a party city, but Lecce stays up later. After the passeggiata and aperitivo, its old-town wine and cocktail bars fill with students at weekends, and in summer the dancing moves out to beach clubs around Gallipoli.

Venice peaks at aperitivo time on the Fondamenta della Misericordia and then goes quiet, with only Campo Santa Margherita holding on past midnight. Its dark, silent canals are lovely for a late walk but no use for a night out.

Lecce has more to do outdoors, nearly all of it on the coast. The cliffs and sea caves between Otranto and Santa Maria di Leuca, the pine woods of Porto Selvaggio and good snorkelling and diving give it real variety. Inland, the flat olive plain is good for easy cycling.

In Venice, the outdoors means the lagoon. Kayaking or rowing lessons among the marshes near Torcello, with herons and flamingos, are memorable, but there is little else beyond cycling the Lido's sea walls and a few small parks.

Lecce is a good base for the Salento, with Otranto's mosaic floor, Gallipoli's island old town and Galatina's frescoes nearby, and the trulli of Alberobello within a long drive. Most of these trips need a hire car, though.

Venice offers more and makes it easier. Fast trains reach Padua's Scrovegni Chapel in about half an hour and Verona or Vicenza soon after, with no driving needed. Then there are the lagoon islands: glass on Murano, painted houses on Burano and Torcello's lonely cathedral, all by boat.

The two are much the same for children, and neither has much built for them. Lecce's strengths are a traffic-free old town, piazzas full of local families in the evening and the very shallow sands of Porto Cesareo. Summer days there have to work around the midday heat.

Venice wins on novelty: boats instead of buses, glass-blowing on Murano and dinosaurs at the natural history museum. Its stepped bridges and packed summer routes make it harder with a pushchair, so it suits older children on shorter stays.

Venice is easier for a car-free visit. Everything is reachable on foot or by vaporetto, trains arrive at the edge of the city and boats run out to the islands. The catch is the stepped bridges, which are hard work with heavy luggage.

Lecce's centre is small, flat and easy to walk, but beyond the walls the Salento's local trains are slow and the beach buses only run in summer. You really need a car to reach the coast and the stone towns.

Venice offers more to buy. There is real Murano glass, Burano lace, handmade masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers from workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello, plus the big fashion names along Calle Larga XXII Marzo, though the fake glass on the main routes takes some sifting.

Lecce's equivalents are fewer and smaller: cartapesta saints from old-town workshops, carved limestone and Grottaglie ceramics. Beyond those, olive oil and taralli are the best things to take home.

Lecce costs far less. Bed and breakfasts in old palazzi, trattoria meals and local wine are cheap for most of the year, and the main exception is August, when the Salento fills up and rooms, loungers and hire cars all get expensive.

Venice is costly in almost every way: central hotels, water transport, entry to churches and sights, and sitting down in a café on the piazza. Eating cicchetti at the counter, staying in Mestre and coming in late autumn or winter help, but it remains the bigger outlay.

Venice has the stronger stage. La Fenice, where Verdi and Rossini premiered operas, runs a full season of opera, ballet and concerts, the Goldoni stages drama, and baroque concerts of Vivaldi play in churches most evenings.

Lecce's Politeama Greco and Teatro Paisiello have a modest programme. Its own draw is pizzica, the Salento's tambourine dance, played at village festivals all summer and peaking at the Notte della Taranta in Melpignano, so a summer visit is the time to catch it.

Both cities are restful in their own way rather than spa towns. Lecce's long afternoon closures and the masseria retreats on the plain set a slow pace, and the sulphur grottoes of Santa Cesarea Terme above the sea are under an hour's drive.

Venice offers hotel spas in palazzi and on the Lido. Its thermal mud and pools are an hour away at Abano Terme, and its calm is in the hushed early mornings of Castello and Giudecca, away from the crowds at San Marco.