Salerno or Trieste?

Both cities give you the sea on the doorstep, but the swimming is very different. In Salerno it means sand: grey city beaches east of the centre for a quick dip, then the long sandy stretch with lidos and pines towards Paestum, plus the clear pebble coves of the Amalfi Coast by ferry.

Trieste has almost no sand at all. Locals spread towels on the concrete terraces and lawns of Barcola and climb down ladders into clear water, or head for the pebble coves at Sistiana and Duino. If you like swimming off rocks, it is a pleasure. If you want to build sandcastles, Salerno is the place.

You will eat well in either city, but they hardly overlap. Salerno is southern and sea-driven: fried fish, pasta with clams, colatura from Cetara, mozzarella made that morning on the plain, and lemon pastries in the old-town lanes.

Trieste cooks like a Central European port. You will find boiled pork carved at the counter of a buffet, jota soup, strudel and presnitz, and a coffee culture with its own vocabulary. The seasonal osmize on the Karst, where farmers pour their own wine, have no equivalent near Salerno, though Trieste's restaurant range is narrower.

Salerno's sights are medieval and compact. The highlights are the Norman cathedral with its bronze doors and the crypt of Saint Matthew, the terraced medicinal garden linked to Europe's earliest medical school, and the Lombard-era Arechi Castle above the gulf. The stepped lanes of the old town connect them all. A day or two is enough, and the region's great ancient sites lie outside the city.

Trieste has far more to see within the city itself, built on a grander, imperial scale. Piazza Unità opens onto the sea, the Borgo Teresiano grid runs along the Canal Grande, and San Giusto hill brings together a mosaic-lined cathedral, a castle and a Roman theatre. Miramare Castle, the Revoltella museum, one of Europe's largest synagogues and the memorial at the Risiera di San Sabba fill several more days.

Neither city is built for clubbing, but Salerno has more life after dark. On weekends and summer nights, young locals pack the small squares around Largo Campo and Via dei Mercanti with drinks in hand until late, and Naples is close enough for a bigger night.

Trieste's evenings revolve around a spritz on Piazza Unità or by the canal, then summer kiosks at Barcola. With an older population, the streets are usually quiet by midnight outside the summer months.

Salerno sits next to some of Europe's most spectacular coastal scenery. Limestone cliffs, lemon terraces and the old paths of the Lattari mountains rise straight from the sea, and the Cilento's wooded hills and wild headlands lie to the south. Boat trips along the coast are the classic summer outing.

Trieste's landscape is gentler but closer to hand. The Karst plateau begins right behind the houses, with the Strada Napoleonica, Val Rosandra and huge caves such as the Grotta Gigante, while the gulf offers serious sailing and snorkelling in the Miramare reserve.

This is where Salerno pulls ahead. Paestum's Greek temples and Pompeii are each about half an hour by train, ferries reach Amalfi and Positano in season, and Naples, Herculaneum and Caserta are all simple days out. Few bases in Italy have so many world-famous sites this close.

Trieste's appeal is variety rather than fame. Aquileia, Cividale and star-shaped Palmanova are in Friuli, Piran and Ljubljana are across the Slovenian border, and the Istrian towns can be reached by car. Venice is possible, but at about two hours each way it makes a long day.

Both cities are manageable with children rather than geared to them, and each works best for a different age. Salerno suits younger children: a flat, car-free promenade with playgrounds and shallow sandy beaches to the south. Trieste suits older ones better, with a cave big enough to amaze them, Miramare's gardens, a small aquarium and a science centre, but swimming there means rocks and ladders.

Both centres are compact and walkable, and each has steep upper quarters. Salerno lies along one long strip from the station to the old town. Regional trains to Pompeii and Paestum, plus summer ferries, are the real workhorses, since the Amalfi coast road is slow and crowded.

Trieste's flat waterfront core is slightly easier to manage day to day. There is no metro, but dense buses run out to Barcola, Miramare and up onto the Karst, and boats cross the bay to Muggia.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Salerno gives you more to do with an afternoon and a bag. Its main pedestrian street, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, fills with locals for the evening stroll, so browsing its Italian clothing chains feels like part of the city's social life rather than an errand. The real draw is craft. The hand-painted majolica of Vietri sul Mare, just along the coast, is the region's signature souvenir, and limoncello from the terraced coast travels home well. For a bigger shopping day, Naples is a short train ride away.

Trieste's shopping is quieter and narrower, with ordinary clothing and shoe shops around Corso Italia and no local craft to set beside Vietri's ceramics. Its own pleasure is rummaging in the antique and second-hand shops of the old town, left over from its merchant-port past. Beyond that, the things worth carrying away are edible, such as freshly roasted coffee, Karst wine and honey.

Both are sensibly priced for Italy, and Salerno is slightly easier on the wallet. It costs much less to sleep there than in the cliff villages along the Amalfi Coast, though summer ferries, lido sunbeds and entry to the ancient sites add up. Trieste is fair rather than cheap. Buffet meals and coffee at the bar cost little, and Barcola and the Karst walks are free, but rooms tighten around the autumn regatta.

Both cities have a nineteenth-century Teatro Verdi, but Trieste's sits at the centre of a more serious stage life. It runs a proper opera and ballet season, keeps up a Habsburg fondness for operetta, and adds prose theatre at the Politeama Rossetti and a Slovenian-language theatre.

Salerno's opera house runs a respectable but smaller season. Its standout extra is in summer, when the Ravello Festival's cliff-top concerts are within reach for a special night.

Neither city has a spa culture beyond hotel spas, so relaxation comes from the pace of life. Trieste is a little more restful, with old coffee houses where people linger over a newspaper and sunsets on the Molo Audace. Salerno offers a palm-lined promenade and long lunches, but its port traffic is noisier, and the nearest thermal pools, at Contursi Terme, are about an hour inland.