Amsterdam or Vienna?

Neither city is a place to plan a swimming vacation around, but the water is different. Amsterdam has the real coast: sand and dunes at Zandvoort and Bloemendaal, half an hour away by train. The North Sea stays cold and windy, though, so most people walk the beach rather than swim, and IJburg and the Sloterplas serve for a dip in town.

Vienna has no sand or sea but better summer swimming. The gravel shores of the Danube Island and the calmer, warmer Alte Donau with its old lidos are a U-Bahn ride away, and the Neusiedler See adds lake bathing an hour out.

Vienna has a cuisine of its own, and that gives it the edge. There is schnitzel and Tafelspitz in wood-panelled Beisl taverns, a serious pastry tradition, grand coffee houses, and wine grown on the city's own slopes and poured at Heuriger taverns in Grinzing and Nussdorf.

Amsterdam's strengths lie elsewhere. Dutch cooking is plain, so the dishes worth seeking out arrived through trade: Indonesian rijsttafel and Surinamese roti, plus herring stalls and stroopwafels at the Albert Cuyp. Its drinking culture of brown cafés, jenever and early-evening borrel is the more sociable of the two, and De Pijp and Oost bring a mix of flavours that Vienna's more traditional table lacks.

Both are first-rate, but Vienna goes deeper. Amsterdam's riches are concentrated: Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House and the canal ring itself, all seen properly in three or four days.

Vienna was built as an imperial capital and fills a week. There are the Hofburg and Schönbrunn, St Stephen's and the Ringstrasse, then Bruegel at the Kunsthistorisches, Klimt at the Belvedere and Schiele at the Leopold, with Jugendstil and Otto Wagner as a second great period. Amsterdam is the intimate city of merchant houses; Vienna is the grand one of palaces.

Amsterdam is much the better night out. Its electronic music scene has an international reputation, with all-night clubs in old industrial buildings and in Noord and the Amsterdam Dance Event each October. For a drink, the Jordaan and De Pijp have canal-side terraces where locals gather.

Vienna is quieter and slower: late bars under the Gürtel arches, the Bermuda Triangle in the old town, deckchair bars on the Danube Canal and long evenings at a Heuriger. Its club scene is small, but the winter ball season, with formal balls in palaces and halls, is something Amsterdam has no answer to.

Vienna has the more varied country on its doorstep. The beech-covered Vienna Woods and the vineyard trails up to the Kahlenberg give real hill walking from the edge of town, and the Donau-Auen protects wild floodplain forest. The Rax and Schneeberg bring Alpine plateaus within about an hour and a half.

Around Amsterdam the land is flat and its pleasures are quieter. You can cycle into Waterland past dykes and wooden villages, walk the Amsterdamse Bos, or see the dunes and bison of Zuid-Kennemerland. It is lovely by bike, but there are no hills at all.

Amsterdam comes out clearly ahead because the Netherlands is small and its trains are fast. Haarlem is a quarter of an hour away, and Leiden, Delft, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam each offer a different city within the hour. The windmills at Zaanse Schans and Kinderdijk, the old Zuiderzee villages and the Keukenhof in spring are easy outings too.

Vienna's trips are good but more spread out. You can take the train or a Danube boat to Bratislava, see the Wachau with Melk and Dürnstein, or visit the abbeys of Klosterneuburg and Heiligenkreuz. Here the appeal is crossing borders and wine country rather than stringing historic towns together.

Both are safe, calm cities that are easy with children, and the difference lies in the kind of day out. Vienna has the bigger set pieces: Schönbrunn Zoo in the palace grounds, the Prater's rides and Ferris wheel, the Haus des Meeres in a wartime flak tower and strong rainy-day museums, plus summer swimming on the Danube Island.

Amsterdam works on a smaller scale, with Artis, the hands-on NEMO, canal boats, pancake houses and city farms. Its fast bike traffic and unfenced canal edges mean holding on to small children, which is less of a worry among Vienna's parks and pram-friendly trams.

Both are very easy to move around, in different ways. Amsterdam is a city for walking and cycling: the centre is small and flat, trams cover the canal ring, free ferries cross to Noord and the train to Schiphol is quick. The bike lanes are the main thing to watch.

Vienna relies more on public transport. Five U-Bahn lines run through the night at weekends, and a dense tram network reaches Schönbrunn, the Prater and the vineyard villages, all on one ticket.

Amsterdam has the slight edge for browsing, thanks to the independent boutiques and vintage shops of the Nine Streets and the Jordaan, and markets such as Waterlooplein, the Noordermarkt and the floating Bloemenmarkt. Delft blue and Dutch cheese are the classic things to take home.

Vienna is more about quality and craft. The luxury houses line the Kohlmarkt and Graben, everyday fashion is on Mariahilfer Strasse and young designers are in Neubau, and Augarten porcelain, crystal and Loden make fine gifts. Its Christmas markets give winter shopping a pull that Amsterdam lacks.

Vienna is noticeably easier on the wallet. Hotel rooms in Amsterdam's canal ring are among the dearest in Europe, a hefty tourist tax comes on top, and good-value rooms book up early. Staying in Haarlem or Utrecht helps.

In Vienna, rooms are reasonable for a capital outside the ball season and the Christmas market weeks. Set lunches and Heuriger buffets keep meals sensible, and standing places at the State Opera put a great night out within reach.

This is Vienna's great strength. The State Opera changes its programme almost every night, the Vienna Philharmonic plays in the Musikverein's Golden Hall, and with the Konzerthaus, the Volksoper, the Theater an der Wien and the Boys' Choir, the city of Mozart and Beethoven has music every night of the year.

Amsterdam is strong but narrower. The Concertgebouw is one of the world's great halls, with the opera house on the Amstel and the Muziekgebouw and Bimhuis on the IJ. Where it pulls ahead is touring rock and pop, at Paradiso and the Melkweg.

Vienna is the easier place to slow down. Long coffee-house afternoons and vineyard evenings are part of daily life, and it has real thermal water: Therme Wien in Oberlaa, the Art Deco Amalienbad and the sulphur springs of Baden, half an hour away.

Amsterdam has no thermal tradition, though large day spas on the city's edges carry on the Northern European sauna culture, usually mixed and nude. Calm comes from early mornings on the canals and the Vondelpark rather than from the crowded centre.