Matera or Salerno?

Salerno has the sea at its door. Its grey-sand city beaches are fine for a quick dip, and the wide sands towards Paestum and the clear coves near Amalfi are a short ride away, so swimming can be part of every summer day.

Matera has no beach of its own. The sandy, shallow Ionian beaches at Metaponto and Policoro are good for children, but they are a drive away, and without a car you will not swim at all.

Matera cooks the plain dishes of inland Basilicata: crusty durum-wheat bread, crapiata, cavatelli, roast lamb and crackling peperoni cruschi with Aglianico. It is satisfying, but there is little else to choose from.

Salerno eats better and more widely. It has the sea and the Campanian plain to draw on, so you get clams, fried fish, wood-fired pizza, mozzarella made the same morning and lemon pastries, from friggitorie in the old town to dinners on the seafront.

Here Matera is clearly ahead. Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano are whole districts of cave homes and rock churches carved into the Gravina gorge, lived in from prehistory until the 1950s. Add MUSMA's sculpture in rock rooms and the walk-through cistern under the piazza, and you have a set of sights you will find nowhere else.

Salerno's heritage is medieval: the Norman cathedral with Saint Matthew's crypt, the medicinal garden of Europe's first medical school and the Arechi Castle. It is worth seeing, but most of the region's great sights lie outside the city.

Neither city is for clubbing, but Salerno has the livelier evenings. On weekends and through the summer, young locals fill the lanes around Largo Campo and Via dei Mercanti until late, and Naples is close for a bigger night. Matera offers the passeggiata, dinner and a glass of wine on a terrace above the lit Sassi, then quiet.

Salerno looks out on the cliffs and lemon terraces of the Amalfi Coast, with the Path of the Gods and the Valle delle Ferriere in the Lattari mountains behind. The Cilento's gorges and headlands lie to the south, and you can kayak or sail along the coast.

Matera's outdoors is drier and starker. You cross the gorge to the thyme-covered Murgia, where rock churches and Neolithic sites stand on the plateau, and the Lucanian Dolomites and Pollino are longer drives. It is good walking, but it has less variety and no sea.

Both are good bases, but Salerno's choice is exceptional and easier to reach. Trains run to Paestum, Pompeii and Naples, and ferries cross to Amalfi and Positano, so you can do a world-class outing every day without a car.

Matera's range is strong too: Alberobello's trulli, Ostuni, Castel del Monte, Craco and the peak villages of Castelmezzano. Nearly all of them need a hire car, though.

Salerno is the easier choice with children. It has a flat, car-free seafront with playgrounds and gelato, shallow sandy beaches to the south and the Luci d'Artista lights in winter.

In Matera, older children enjoy the caves and the cistern, but the Sassi are all steep stone steps that defeat a pushchair, and there is little shade. Families do better there with a short stay and a car.

Salerno is walkable along its seafront strip, and it has a short metro, city buses and direct regional trains to Naples, Pompeii and Paestum, with ferries along the coast in summer. Most visitors never need a car.

Matera is all on foot inside town, with leg-testing stairways down into the Sassi. It sits off the national rail network, so beyond the town a hire car is close to essential.

Salerno offers more: Corso Vittorio Emanuele has a long pedestrian run of Italian chains, Vietri's painted majolica is just outside town, and the coast supplies limoncello and colatura. In Matera, shopping comes down to cuccù whistles, tufa carvings and the high street on Via del Corso. The best things to take home from Matera are dried peppers and Aglianico.

The two cost about the same overall, but you save in different places. In Matera, meals in the upper town's trattorias are cheap and walking the Sassi and the Murgia costs nothing, while cave hotels in the old districts are expensive.

Salerno is cheap because it is a working city and a cheaper base than the cliff villages along the coast. The costs build up elsewhere: ferries, lido sunbeds and entry to the big archaeological sites.

Salerno has a real stage in the gilded Teatro Verdi, with a season of opera, ballet and concerts, and the Ravello Festival's cliff-top concerts are within reach in summer. Matera has conservatory concerts, a summer jazz festival and the Festa della Bruna, but on most nights there is nothing to see.

Both cities offer hotel spas rather than a bathing tradition, but the calm they give is different. Matera's spas include candlelit cave pools, and the town itself is deeply quiet in the early morning and out of season. Salerno has sunset walks on its palm-lined promenade and the open-air sulphur pools of Contursi Terme an hour inland, though port traffic makes the city noisier.