Amsterdam or Heidelberg?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Amsterdam at least has a real coast within reach. The long, dune-backed sand at Zandvoort and Bloemendaal is about half an hour away by train. The North Sea is cold and often windy, though, so most visitors walk the beach rather than swim, and in town there are the small IJburg beaches and the Sloterplas lake.

Heidelberg has no sea for hours in any direction, and the Neckar is not for swimming. Summer swimming there means outdoor pools or the gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain.

Amsterdam eats more widely, mainly thanks to its trading past. Indonesian rijsttafel, Surinamese roti, herring from street stalls and the borrel hour in old brown cafés give it real character, and De Pijp, the Jordaan and Oost have the most interesting neighbourhood restaurants.

Heidelberg's strength is wine rather than range. Riesling and Pinot from the Bergstrasse and the Palatinate go with hearty Baden dishes such as Schäufele and Flammkuchen, and with white asparagus in spring. In both places, avoid the tourist strip: Damrak in Amsterdam, the Hauptstrasse in Heidelberg.

Amsterdam has art collections of world rank. Rembrandt's Night Watch, the largest Van Gogh collection anywhere and the Stedelijk are all on one square, and the Anne Frank House is the most moving visit in either city. Add the UNESCO canal ring of merchant houses, and there is enough for three or four full days.

Heidelberg offers a smaller, very romantic set of sights. There is the red sandstone castle ruin with its Great Tun, a baroque old town along the Neckar, and Germany's oldest university, founded in 1386, with its graffiti-covered Student Prison. It is beautiful, but most visitors have seen it in a day or two.

Amsterdam gives you a proper night out at any scale. Several clubs have all-night licences, many of them in old industrial buildings on the edge of the centre and across the IJ in Noord, and the electronic music scene draws people from abroad, especially during the Amsterdam Dance Event in October. If you just want a drink, skip the crowds at Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein and head for the canal-side terraces of the Jordaan, De Pijp and Oost.

Heidelberg's nights are much smaller and fit into a few lanes of the Altstadt. The narrow Untere Strasse, packed with little bars, is the heart of it, and the old student taverns with their carved tables are a few steps away, so you can walk the whole scene in one evening. There are only a handful of clubs. For a serious dance night you need to take the train to Mannheim or Frankfurt and plan your journey back.

Heidelberg is the greener base, because the wooded Odenwald hills begin right at the edge of the old town. The Philosophers' Walk gives the classic view of the castle, and the funicular climbs the Königstuhl to 568m, where forest trails go on for hours. Celtic ramparts sit on the Heiligenberg, and the Neckar valley and the Palatinate Forest offer longer walks and rides.

Amsterdam's countryside is flat and calm: polders, dykes and windmills, best seen by bike in Waterland across the IJ. The Amsterdamse Bos and the dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland, with their bison, add variety, but there are no hills at all.

Both make excellent bases, but Amsterdam has the denser choice and everything is reached by fast, frequent trains. Haarlem is a quarter of an hour away. Leiden, Delft, Utrecht, Vermeer at the Mauritshuis in The Hague and modern Rotterdam all make easy days, along with the windmills of Kinderdijk and Zaanse Schans and the Keukenhof in spring.

From Heidelberg the outings are more about cathedrals and monasteries: Romanesque Speyer, Worms, Lorsch and walled Maulbronn, plus the palace gardens at Schwetzingen and the castle villages up the Neckar. The half-timbered Palatinate wine villages are easiest by car.

Amsterdam has more for children within the city itself. There is the Artis zoo, one of the oldest in Europe, the hands-on NEMO science museum, park playgrounds, city farms, pancake houses and canal boats. The catch is the fast bike traffic and the unfenced canal edges, so small children need holding on to.

Heidelberg's best family days are mostly just outside town. The funicular up to the small fairy-tale park on the Königstuhl is a treat, but the highlight is climbing into the space shuttle and submarine at the Technik Museum Speyer. Cobbles and slopes make the Altstadt hard work with a pushchair.

Amsterdam is the easier city to get around. Its flat centre puts the main sights within half an hour's walk of each other. Trams, a metro line and free ferries across the IJ cover the rest, and Schiphol is a short direct train ride away. Hiring a bike is the natural way to explore, if you can handle the busy lanes.

Heidelberg's Altstadt is a long, walkable strip along the pedestrianised Hauptstrasse. The station is well to the west, though, the streets are cobbled and the walk up to the castle is steep unless you take the funicular. Its strong point is one fare system across the Rhine-Neckar region.

Amsterdam is much the better place to shop, especially for independent shops. The Nine Streets and the Jordaan are full of boutiques and vintage shops, PC Hooftstraat has the luxury labels, and the Albert Cuyp, Waterlooplein, Noordermarkt and the floating Bloemenmarkt add markets with real character.

In Heidelberg, shopping mostly means one long street. The Hauptstrasse goes from high-street chains at one end to cuckoo clocks and beer steins at the other, with a few bookshops and boutiques in the side lanes. A bottle of Bergstrasse wine is the best thing to take home, and serious fashion means a train to Frankfurt.

Heidelberg is noticeably easier on the wallet. Its prices are normal for western Germany, meals in student cafés and simple taverns are cheap, and the castle and museums charge modest entry. Rooms are the weak point, since there are few of them and conferences and graduations fill them up, and many visitors stay in Mannheim instead.

Amsterdam is in a different bracket. Its canal-ring hotels are among the costliest in Europe, a heavy tourist tax comes on top, and museum tickets soon add up. Staying in Haarlem or Utrecht is the usual way round it.

Amsterdam belongs among Europe's great music cities. The Concertgebouw and its orchestra are famous for their sound, Dutch National Opera and Ballet perform on the Amstel, and the Muziekgebouw and Bimhuis cover contemporary music and jazz. Paradiso and the Melkweg bring in international bands, and the Holland Festival fills June.

Heidelberg has a full programme for a small town, built around its municipal theatre and philharmonic orchestra. It is at its best in its festivals: chamber music at the Heidelberger Frühling in spring and open-air shows in the castle courtyard in summer. For larger opera, Mannheim is twenty minutes away.

The two are about level for relaxing, but in different ways. Amsterdam relies on the Dutch love of the sauna. It has large day spas on the city's edges, usually mixed and nude, but its crowded central streets are seldom restful.

Heidelberg has no baths of its own, though thermal pools in the Kraichgau are half an hour away and Baden-Baden is about an hour. The town itself is calmer to stay in, with evenings on the Neckar meadows, forest paths and unhurried wine taverns.