Annecy or Baden-Baden?

Annecy has a real summer swimming scene without a sea. The lake is clean and clear and reaches the low twenties by July, with lawn-and-shingle beaches in town and small village beaches at Talloires and Sevrier. The season is short, roughly late June to early September.

Baden-Baden has nothing comparable. Its water culture is indoors and hot, in the thermal baths, and outdoor swimming means a pool or a flooded gravel pit out on the Rhine plain.

The two eat about equally well, but differently. Annecy's table is Savoyard and heavy on cheese, with tartiflette, fondue and raclette, plus féra and char from the lake, and its old-town market mornings are the best food experience in town.

Baden-Baden draws on Baden's regional cooking with a French accent: venison, Flammkuchen and Black Forest gateau. Its real strength is wine, at the Riesling and Pinot Noir taverns of the Rebland villages just outside town. In both, the most ambitious cooking is outside the centre, in Annecy's lakeside villages and in the northern Black Forest.

Baden-Baden has more to see. Its whole spa quarter survives from the nineteenth century, from the Kurhaus and Trinkhalle to the villas on the hillsides, and it adds two good art museums, Roman bath ruins and the house where Brahms spent his summers.

Annecy's heritage is prettier at first sight but smaller. The canals, the Palais de l'Isle and the château museum make a lovely, unhurried day, and after that the setting is the attraction rather than the sights.

Neither town suits a late night, but Annecy has a little more going on. Canal-side terraces, a handful of wine and cocktail bars and a student crowd keep the old town and lakefront lively on summer evenings.

Baden-Baden's evenings are smart and end early, centred on the Kurhaus casino and hotel bars, with an older crowd. For clubs, Annecy looks to Geneva or Lyon and Baden-Baden to Karlsruhe or Strasbourg.

Annecy's outdoors are Alpine. Mountains rise straight from the lake, with hiking on the Semnoz and the Tournette, paragliding from the Col de la Forclaz, sailing and paddleboarding on the water, and the Aravis ski resorts under an hour away.

Baden-Baden's Black Forest is gentler, all fir woods, vineyards and waymarked trails. The Merkur funicular climbs to long views over the Rhine plain, and further in the Black Forest High Road runs past the Mummelsee up to the moorland of the Hornisgrinde. It is excellent walking country, especially in autumn colour, but it is wooded upland rather than Alpine peaks.

Baden-Baden's list goes deeper into history. Strasbourg and the Alsace wine villages, Heidelberg's castle, Freiburg's minster and the UNESCO sites at Speyer and Maulbronn give you cathedrals, palaces and old towns on both sides of the Rhine, most of them within about an hour.

Annecy's outings lean towards lakes and mountains: Geneva, Chamonix under Mont Blanc, Chambéry and Aix-les-Bains, and Yvoire on Lake Geneva. Lyon makes a longer day for anyone who travels for food.

Annecy is the easier family base. In summer the lake does most of the work, with beaches, pedal boats, cruises and a flat cycle path along the shore, and the nearby mountains add toboggan runs and treetop courses.

Baden-Baden is calm and safe, but it is made for adults, and the Friedrichsbad does not admit young children. Its trump card is Europa-Park about an hour south, which Annecy cannot match, so families staying there tend to spend their days out of town.

Getting around works the same way in both: walk the compact centre, take a bus for the gaps, and hire a car for the countryside. Annecy is flat and adds bikes and summer lake boats, though traffic around the lake can be heavy in summer. Baden-Baden's streets climb in places and its station is a few kilometres out in Oos, but trains to Karlsruhe and Freiburg are easy.

Neither is a shopping destination, and both send serious shoppers elsewhere, Annecy to Geneva and Baden-Baden to Strasbourg. What differs is the style.

Annecy is about market days and things to eat later, such as Savoyard cheese, génépi and honey, plus independent shops around Rue Sainte-Claire. Baden-Baden is polished rather than earthy, with jewellers, watchmakers and fashion boutiques on Sophienstraße but no real markets.

Both are expensive, and there is little between them. Annecy's prices come from summer resort rates and wealthy Geneva next door, but much of what you come for is free: the lake beaches, the trails and the cycle path. Shoulder seasons ease the bill.

Baden-Baden was built for the rich and still prices for them, and because the baths charge for every visit, a stay built around them adds up. Simple guesthouses, wine taverns and bakeries are its more affordable side.

For music, Baden-Baden is well ahead. The Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest opera and concert houses, brings leading orchestras and opera productions, the town's philharmonic plays in the Kurhaus, and the nineteenth-century theatre adds drama. Brahms and Clara Schumann both worked here.

Annecy's offer centres on Bonlieu, a respectable stage for contemporary theatre, dance and circus, with a summer classical festival and the Fête du Lac fireworks in August. For opera or a major orchestra, you go to Geneva or Lyon.

Here the two are far apart. Baden-Baden exists for its hot springs: the Friedrichsbad's silent, unclothed sequence of hot rooms and pools, with the modern Caracalla complex next door, in a town paced entirely for rest.

Annecy relaxes you through its setting instead, with slow mornings by the lake and long lunches in Talloires, and it has hotel spas but no public baths. For thermal water you go to Aix-les-Bains or Saint-Gervais, and the summer crowds make the town less calm.