Matera or Ohrid?

Ohrid has its swimming on the doorstep. The water is clear, calm and fresh, and you can walk to it from the old town at Kaneo and Potpeš, with longer stretches further south at Lagadin and Gradište. What you lie on is concrete platforms, jetties and short pebble strips rather than sand.

Matera has the better sand but none of the convenience. The wide, pine-backed Ionian beaches at Metaponto and Policoro are about 45 minutes away by car and shallow enough for small children. Getting there takes a whole day out rather than an afternoon dip, and without a car most visitors never swim.

Matera has the deeper kitchen. Its peasant cooking is built on the horn-shaped durum loaf, hand-made cavatelli, crapiata and crackling peperoni cruschi, with Aglianico del Vulture to drink, and the trattorias of the upper town around Via Ridola cook it well.

Ohrid's food is honest but narrow, and the same menu repeats along the waterfront: tavče gravče, grilled meats, šopska salad and lake fish such as belvica, with burek from the bakeries in the morning. Neither town offers much beyond its own regional cooking.

These are two compact sets of sights, equally rewarding but different in character. Matera is about how people lived: cave houses that were lived in until the 1950s, rock churches with faded frescoes, the Palombaro Lungo cistern under the main piazza, and Carlo Levi's panorama in Palazzo Lanfranchi.

Ohrid is about faith and learning. Its highlights are the medieval frescoes of St Sophia, St John at Kaneo on its rock above the lake, Plaošnik with its links to the Cyrillic tradition, and Samuel's Fortress crowning the hill. Each fills a day or two on foot. Matera is at its best at dusk, while Ohrid's sights are spread along the hill above the water.

In July and August Ohrid has the livelier evenings. Café-bars fill the promenade and the streets around the old bazaar, and beach clubs on the southern shore play music into the small hours.

Matera offers the passeggiata on Via del Corso, a long dinner and a few cave wine bars. That makes a lovely evening for a couple but never a night out. Out of season, both towns go quiet soon after dinner.

Ohrid has the bigger landscape. The deep, clear lake is ringed by mountains, and Galičica rises above 2,000m, with views over both Ohrid and Prespa, paragliding from the ridge and kayaks to hire below.

Matera's nature is drier and closer at hand. You can walk straight down from Sasso Caveoso into the Gravina gorge and up onto the Murgia plateau, past abandoned rock churches and Neolithic sites, and the Lucanian Dolomites are within reach by car. Both are best walked in spring and autumn.

Matera has more good outings, and they are more varied. Because it sits where Basilicata meets Puglia, a week of trips need not repeat itself. One day you could see the trulli of Alberobello, the next the sea cliffs at Polignano a Mare, then the ghost town of Craco, or Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa clinging to their sandstone peaks. A Greek temple at Metaponto and Frederick II's octagonal castle add more variety, and most of these are a short or moderate drive away.

Ohrid's list is shorter and centres on the lake and its monasteries. St Naum at the southern tip is the classic, and in summer you can reach it by boat. The floor mosaics of Heraclea Lynkestis outside Bitola are the strongest outing further afield, and Korçë across the Albanian border adds a different country. The roads are slow, though, so each day out takes longer. From either town you will want a car or a driver.

Ohrid is easier with children, mainly because the lake is right there. Summer days fill themselves with calm water, boat rides, ice cream on the promenade and the pile village at the Bay of Bones, and a lakeside apartment makes the obvious base.

Older children enjoy Matera's caves, cistern and gorge. But the Sassi's steep steps defeat a pushchair, summer afternoons there are hot with little shade, and the nearest beach is a drive away.

Both centres are explored on foot, and both old towns are steep enough to tire the legs. Beyond the centre, Ohrid is simpler. Taxis are plentiful for short hops, and summer boats and local buses run along the shore, even if they are not frequent.

Matera is off the national rail network. A slow narrow-gauge line runs to Bari and buses are sparse, so the beaches, the parks and the towns of Puglia really call for a hire car.

Neither town is a shopping destination, but Ohrid has one distinctive thing to buy. The Ohrid pearl is made by a few families using a lustre from fish scales and is best bought from a long-established workshop in the bazaar streets, alongside filigree silver and carved wood. Matera offers the cuccù whistle and miniature tufa carvings, and its best buys are things to eat and drink: dried peppers, local pasta and Aglianico.

In Matera most of the money goes on your bed. The cave hotels and boutique stays of the Sassi are the town's signature and are priced as one, and they cost most in high summer. A room up in the newer town asks far less, and the ravine is still only a few minutes away on foot. Meals are kind to the budget by Italian standards, and the gorge and the Murgia trails cost nothing at all.

Ohrid is cheaper on every count, so your room does not take up most of the budget the way it does in Matera. Eating out, getting about and seeing the churches add up to very little, and the lake costs nothing to swim in. The one time it gets expensive is a lakefront room on a July or August weekend, so May, June and September give you the most for your money.

Ohrid has the more substantial programme, thanks to its summer festival, held since the early 1960s, which brings opera, concerts and theatre to St Sophia and the ancient theatre. Matera has conservatory concerts, a summer jazz festival and the Festa della Bruna, when the papier-mâché float is torn apart, but little else. Outside summer, neither has much to attend.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, so relaxing means hotel spas and a slow pace. Matera's unusual touch is spas in candlelit cave rooms with pools cut into the rock. Its calm is in the quiet early mornings in the Sassi, before the tour groups arrive.

In Ohrid the calm comes from the lake: coffee by the still water and quiet evenings on the promenade. Matera is most restful from autumn to spring. Ohrid is easiest in May, June and September and loses its quiet in August.