Puglia or Sardinia?

Both are serious beach destinations, but Sardinia has more outstanding beaches. You get the granite coves around La Maddalena, the white pebble bays under the Orosei cliffs, Chia's fine sand and the shallows of La Pelosa, where you can wade far out. With coast on every side, there is usually a sheltered beach when the mistral blows.

Puglia's answer is the long pale sands of the Ionian Salento around Pescoluse and Gallipoli, and rockier swimming from the limestone platforms at Polignano a Mare. Its advantage is convenience: one base in the Salento reaches both seas, whereas Sardinia's best beaches are spread around a large island, and some can only be reached by boat.

Puglia has the better food, both in range and in everyday quality. Think burrata and stracciatella, orecchiette, focaccia barese, raw sea urchins on the Bari waterfront and the butcher-grill houses of the Valle d'Itria, with Primitivo or Negroamaro to drink. You can come across good food almost anywhere.

Sardinia's cooking is more unusual. It is a shepherds' cuisine of suckling pig, pane carasau, culurgiones and seadas, best found at agriturismi in the hills or in Cagliari's Marina quarter. Away from those, the resort strips lean towards generic food, so eating well takes more effort.

Puglia has more to see, and it is easier to string together: Lecce's baroque streets, the trulli of Alberobello, Castel del Monte and a run of Romanesque cathedrals from Trani to Otranto, several of them towns worth visiting in their own right.

Sardinia's heritage is older and stranger. It centres on the Bronze Age nuraghi of Su Nuraxi and the Mont'e Prama giants in Cagliari's archaeological museum, with the ruins of Nora and Tharros and Catalan Alghero besides. A curious visitor will find it rewarding, but the sites are sparser and further apart.

Outside high summer, neither is a place for big nights out, but Puglia offers a little more, for a younger and less dressy crowd. Gallipoli turns into a beach-club party town in July and August, Lecce's squares stay busy late, and Bari keeps the bars of its old town going all year.

Sardinia's big nights are the glamorous, expensive clubs of the Costa Smeralda around Porto Cervo, which suit the yacht crowd more than most visitors. The more ordinary choices are Cagliari's Marina wine bars and Alghero's ramparts at aperitivo hour.

Sardinia is by far the wilder of the two. The Supramonte falling to the Gulf of Orosei, the Gorropu gorge, the Selvaggio Blu trek, the Gennargentu forests and the La Maddalena marine park give hikers, climbers, kayakers and divers real terrain, and Porto Pollo adds kitesurfing and windsurfing.

Puglia is gentle by comparison: olive groves and dry-stone walls, best seen by bicycle. Its one dramatic corner is the Gargano, with the Foresta Umbra, sea caves and the Tremiti islands offshore. It suits easy cycling and coastal walks more than demanding days outdoors.

This is where Puglia pulls clearly ahead. Its small towns sit close together, so from the Valle d'Itria you can see Ostuni, Locorotondo, Cisternino and the sea at Monopoli on short outings, and Matera's cave dwellings are about an hour from Bari.

Sardinia has some good outings, notably the ferry from Santa Teresa Gallura to Bonifacio in Corsica and the Barbagia villages of Orgosolo and Mamoiada. But the places are smaller and the drives slower, so what you can reach in a day depends heavily on which corner of the island you stay in.

For families, both work the same way: a beach vacation at an easy pace, with shallow, sandy water and Italian restaurants that welcome children. Puglia has the one big attraction for children, the safari and amusement park at Fasano, plus the trulli at Alberobello. Sardinia has resort villages with pools and children's clubs, though reaching its Orosei coves can mean steep walks or boats.

Both need a car, but Puglia is the easier of the two. Its roads are flatter and quicker, and the main railway line through Bari, Polignano a Mare, Monopoli and Lecce makes a car-free stay along the Adriatic possible.

Sardinia's winding mountain and coastal roads take longer than the map suggests, trains are of little use and buses rarely reach the beaches. To make up for it, there are three airports, so flying into the one nearest your base saves hours, and boats are the practical way to reach the Orosei coves and the Maddalena islands.

Neither is a shopping destination, and in both the best buys are crafts and food. In Puglia that means ceramics from Grottaglie, Lecce's papier-mache figures and Valle d'Itria linen, with Bari's Via Sparano for the chains. Sardinia has Alghero's red coral, filigree gold and Pattada knives, plus the summer luxury boutiques of Porto Cervo, which Puglia has nothing to match.

Puglia is the cheaper trip overall, mainly because its food and wine are such good value and its inland towns make inexpensive bases. Summer rooms near the Salento beaches and the paid lidos still push costs up.

Sardinia's prices span a wider range and go much higher at the top. The Costa Smeralda in August is one of the most expensive coasts in the Mediterranean, and ferries and car hire climb too. Around Cagliari, Alghero and the inland agriturismi, prices are moderate, and in both places June and September bring the cost down.

Pizzica, the trance-like folk dance of the Salento, gives Puglia a living music tradition. You can hear it at village festivals all summer, and it builds to the huge open-air Notte della Taranta concert at Melpignano each August. Add Bari's Teatro Petruzzelli, one of Italy's largest opera houses, and the Martina Franca festival of rare operas in its ducal palace courtyard, and a music lover has more to choose from here.

Sardinia has Cagliari's Teatro Lirico and the Time in Jazz festival at Berchidda, but its most memorable music is traditional: canto a tenore, the launeddas pipes and the costumed procession of Sant'Efisio. Away from Cagliari, there is little on for most of the year.

Both are restful because of their slow countryside rather than any spa culture. In Puglia that means a converted masseria among the olive groves, many with pools and spas of their own, plus the sulphur springs in the sea caves at Santa Cesarea Terme. In Sardinia it means the quiet of Ogliastra and the inland agriturismi, with Roman-era springs at Fordongianus and thalassotherapy at the big beach resorts.