Matera or Venice?

Venice has the easier beach. The Lido is a short vaporetto ride from San Marco and gives you kilometres of fine Adriatic sand, though much of it is laid out in rows of cabanas and the water is greenish. Pellestrina is wilder if you want space.

Matera's sea is a 45-minute drive away on the Ionian coast at Metaponto and Policoro. The sand there is wide and backed by pines, and the water is just as shallow and warm, but without a car you will hardly see it.

Venice has the more rewarding eating, as long as you know where to go. You can graze on cicchetti at bacari around the Rialto and in Cannaregio, and the fish market supplies cuttlefish risotto and lagoon shellfish. Matera's cooking comes from the land instead: crusty durum-wheat bread, pulse soups, lamb, and crisp fried dried peppers with a glass of Aglianico.

Neither city offers much beyond its regional food. In Venice the main problem is the many tired restaurants along the tourist routes. In Matera it is the narrow range, though the upper town eats well and fairly.

Matera offers one remarkable sight. Its prehistoric cave districts climb the gorge, with frescoed rock churches, the walk-through Palombaro Lungo cistern and sculpture in carved rooms at MUSMA, and two or three days cover it well.

Venice goes much deeper. The whole city is a monument, from the Basilica and Doge's Palace to the palazzi of the Grand Canal. Then come the Accademia, the Frari, San Rocco and modern art at the Guggenheim and Punta della Dogana. A week there still leaves things unseen.

Both cities go quiet early and neither has a club scene. Venice has a little more life. The aperitivo hour fills the bacari along the Fondamenta della Misericordia, and students keep Campo Santa Margherita going later.

In Matera the evening is a passeggiata on Via del Corso, a long dinner and a drink on a terrace above the lit Sassi, with a few cave bars open late in summer. For a real night out from Venice, people head to Jesolo.

Matera has wild country right at its edge. You can walk straight down from Sasso Caveoso into the Gravina gorge and climb onto the Murgia plateau, past abandoned rock churches and Neolithic sites, with kestrels on the cliffs. The jagged Lucanian Dolomites and the Pollino forests make bigger days out.

Venice's outdoors is the flat lagoon. Here you can kayak or row among the salt marshes around Torcello, watch for herons and flamingos, and cycle the sea walls of Pellestrina. Real mountains are more than two hours away.

Both make excellent bases, and Venice has the edge because its outings are so easy to reach. Trains from Santa Lucia reach Padua, Vicenza and Verona quickly, and the boats to Murano, Burano and Torcello need no planning at all.

Matera's list is just as tempting: Altamura and Gravina close by, the trulli of Alberobello, Ostuni and the Valle d'Itria, Castel del Monte, and the ghost town of Craco. Almost all of them need a car.

Venice works better with children, though neither city is easy. Water buses instead of cars, glass-blowing on Murano, dinosaurs at the natural history museum and the shallow Lido beach give families plenty to do. The stepped bridges make pushchairs a struggle.

Matera has less to offer. Older children enjoy the caves, the underground cistern and scrambling into the gorge, but the Sassi stairways defeat pushchairs entirely and the sandy beaches need a drive.

Inside both towns you walk, Venice over endless stepped bridges and Matera up and down steep stairways between the upper town and the Sassi. The real difference comes when you leave the centre.

Venice has vaporetti across the lagoon, trains that end at Santa Lucia and a bus and boat link to the airport. Matera is off the national rail network, with only a slow narrow-gauge line to Bari and sparse buses, so a hire car is close to essential there.

Venice has far more to buy. Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers are made in workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello, and the big fashion names line Calle Larga XXII Marzo. The catch is the imported fakes on the main routes.

Matera's shopping fits into a short stroll. You will find painted cuccù whistles, small tufa carvings of the Sassi and ordinary high-street shops on Via del Corso. The best things to take home are dried peppers and local pasta.

Matera is much the cheaper of the two. Upper-town trattorias and guesthouses cost far less, and walking the Sassi and the Murgia is free, though the cave hotels charge for the experience.

Venice is expensive in almost every way. Rooms near San Marco, water transport, café tables on the piazza and church entry all add up. Eating cicchetti at the counter and sleeping in Mestre are the main ways to save.

Venice is one of Italy's great music cities. La Fenice runs a full season of opera, ballet and concerts, the Goldoni stages drama, and the Biennale adds contemporary music, theatre and dance. Vivaldi concerts in churches are on almost every night, though their quality varies.

Matera has little beyond concerts from its conservatory and summer open-air events, including a jazz festival. Its one big night is the Festa della Bruna, when the papier-mâché float is torn apart.

Neither city has a bathing tradition of its own, so the difference lies in the setting. Matera's hotel spas sit in candlelit caves with pools cut into the rock, and the town is at its calmest in the early mornings before the groups arrive.

Venice's spas are in palazzi and on the Lido and Giudecca, and the thermal pools of Abano Terme, in use since Roman times, are about an hour away. For quiet, stay in Castello, Cannaregio or on Giudecca rather than around San Marco.