Matera or Skopje?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Matera at least has sand within reach. The long, pine-backed beaches of the Ionian coast near Metaponto and Policoro are about three-quarters of an hour away by car, with calm, shallow water that suits children. With a hire car, a beach afternoon fits easily into a stay.

Skopje has nothing like it. Summer swimming means hotel or public pools, the reservoir at Matka is cold, and Lake Ohrid is three hours away. Swimming there means moving on for a few nights rather than going for the day.

Both cities serve rustic regional cooking with little range beyond it, so the difference is one of style. Matera's table is built on bread, pulses and pasta: the horn-shaped pane di Matera, crapiata, hand-made cavatelli and crackling peperoni cruschi, with Aglianico to drink, often eaten in cave rooms in the Sassi.

Skopje's food is meatier and more sociable. There are grill houses and burek bakeries in the Old Bazaar, beans baked in clay dishes, ajvar with sheep's cheese, and long tavern tables in Debar Maalo with Tikves wine and rakija. It also has the everyday market life Matera lacks, with Bit Pazar piled high with produce.

Matera's Sassi are unique. Whole ravine-side districts of cave houses and rock churches with Byzantine frescoes have been lived in since prehistoric times. The walk-through Palombaro Lungo cistern and the sculpture in MUSMA's carved rooms add to them. The collection is small, but the setting is the draw, and it is best at dusk.

Skopje offers more variety but less sense of wonder. The Ottoman Old Bazaar with its caravanserais and the carved iconostasis of the Holy Saviour are its highlights, while the Skopje 2014 statues south of the river divide opinion. The story of the 1963 earthquake gives the city depth, and two or three days covers it.

Skopje has the livelier evenings. Its café-bars in and around Debar Maalo fill up at weekends, with terraces moving from coffee to rakija and cocktails. In summer the Old Bazaar courtyards stay busy late and there are a few open-air parties, though weeknights are quiet.

In Matera, the evening is a passeggiata along Via del Corso, a long dinner and a drink above the floodlit Sassi, with a few cave bars staying open late in summer. There are no clubs, and outside the warm months the town goes quiet soon after dinner.

Skopje has more of the outdoors close at hand. Mount Vodno rises straight from the suburbs, with a cable car to the summit. Matka Canyon, with its cliffs, kayaking and Vrelo Cave, is half an hour away, and Mavrovo and the Sar mountains add high ridges and winter skiing.

Matera's landscape is starker and closer still: the Gravina gorge below the Sassi and the Murgia plateau opposite, where paths lead past abandoned rock churches and Neolithic sites. The Lucanian Dolomites and Pollino need a long drive, and there is no skiing.

Matera is the stronger base. Within about an hour you can reach the trulli of Alberobello, Ostuni and the other Valle d'Itria towns, old Bari, Castel del Monte and Polignano a Mare. Altamura and Gravina are closer still, and Craco and the mountain villages of Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa lie on the Basilicata side. Nearly all of them need a car.

Skopje's outings are fewer and further apart: the painted mosque at Tetovo, the mosaics of Stobi, the Tikves wineries and the crater town of Kratovo, plus Pristina and Prizren across the border. Ohrid, the country's best-known town, is too far for a day trip.

Neither city is built around children, though both welcome them warmly, and the difference lies in the ground underfoot. Matera's Sassi are steep stone steps where a pushchair is useless. Older children love the caves and the cistern, and the shallow Ionian beaches are a short drive away.

Skopje's centre is flatter, with a riverside promenade, City Park, a small zoo and funfair, and the Vodno cable car. Busy roads, hot afternoons and no swimming nearby make long days tiring all the same.

Both are walking cities with poor links beyond the centre. Matera's flat upper town drops to the Sassi by stairways that tire the legs. The town is off the national rail network, so a hire car is the practical way to reach the coast and Puglia.

Skopje's centre is a flat stroll along the Vardar. Plentiful, inexpensive taxis cover Vodno, Matka and the bus station, so a car only matters for the mountains and the wine country.

Skopje has more to browse. Workshops in the Old Bazaar sell silver filigree, copperware and embroidery, Bit Pazar is a real working market, and there are malls for chain fashion.

Matera's shopping is small-scale and aimed at visitors: cuccù whistles, tufa carvings and ceramics in the Sassi, and an ordinary high street in the upper town. Dried peppers and Aglianico are the best things to take home.

Skopje is clearly the better choice on a tight budget. Tavern meals with wine, coffee, burek, taxis and central hotels all cost little, even in summer, and most sights are free or nearly so.

Matera costs less than Italy's big cities, especially in the simple trattorias of the upper town. But the cave hotels in the Sassi are its speciality and are priced to match, and summer pushes rates higher. Staying in the newer town keeps costs down.

Skopje has a proper season. The Macedonian Opera and Ballet, the Philharmonic and the National Theatre all perform there. There is also a jazz festival held every autumn since the early 1980s, a summer festival at the fortress and in the bazaar, and starogradska music in the taverns of Debar Maalo.

Matera offers conservatory concerts, open-air events in summer and a small jazz festival. Its big night is the Festa della Bruna, when the papier-mâché float is torn apart.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, but Matera offers the more memorable way to unwind. Some hotel spas are set in candlelit cave rooms with pools cut into the rock, and the town moves slowly, from quiet early mornings in the Sassi to evenings watching the gorge darken.

Skopje's hamams serve as galleries rather than baths, and its thermal option, Katlanovska Banja, is a plain sanatorium half an hour out of town. Its real rest is a long coffee on a shaded terrace.