Annecy or Zurich?

Both lakes are clean and warm up to about 24-24°C in high summer, and both have a short season. Annecy has the edge for a swimming vacation. Its town beaches at Albigny and the Marquisats are lawns with strips of shingle, and the village beaches at Talloires, Sevrier and Doussard let you swim with the mountains standing right above the water.

Zurich's swimming is more urban. You go in from wooden bathing houses, piers and concrete decks along Utoquai or Mythenquai, or float down the Limmat at the Letten river baths. It is a good dip after a day of sightseeing, but it is not a lakeside beach day.

The two are broadly level, though they eat very differently. Annecy cooks hearty Savoyard food, tartiflette, fondue and lake féra with Savoie whites. Its best moments are the market mornings in the arcaded old town and the gastronomic tables in lake villages like Talloires, not the canal-side terraces.

Zurich is more polished and more varied. There is veal with rösti in guild-house dining rooms, international and casual places around Kreis 4 and 5, and chocolate and confectionery from the old Paradeplatz tea rooms. What it lacks is the market life that is Annecy's highlight.

Zurich has much more to see. The Kunsthaus collection, the Swiss National Museum and the Museum Rietberg's world art are proper museum visits, and the Altstadt adds the Grossmünster, where the Swiss Reformation began, and the Chagall windows of the Fraumünster.

Annecy's charm lies in the old town as a whole: pastel houses along the canals, the island Palais de l'Isle and the château museum above. It is lovely, but one unhurried day covers it, where Zurich fills two or three.

This is where the two differ most sharply. Zurich has a deep electronic music scene, with clubs in Kreis 4 and 5 and Zurich West running until morning at weekends, the rough-edged bars of Langstrasse, and summer drinks at the lake bathing houses.

Annecy's evenings are a glass of wine on a canal terrace or by the lake, with a few late bars thanks to the students. Outside summer it is quiet by midnight, and anyone wanting a real night out has to go to Geneva or Lyon.

Both have a lake with mountains behind it, but in Annecy the mountains come right down to the water. You can walk up Mont Veyrier or Mont Baron straight from town, spend longer days on the Tournette or in the Bauges park, cycle the shore path or paddle the lake. The paragliders over Talloires sum the place up.

Zurich's own landscape is gentler: lakeside promenades and the forested Uetliberg ridge. The high Alps of Rigi, Pilatus and Glarus are about an hour away by train, and winter fog often hangs over the city while the peaks stay in sunshine.

Zurich is better placed. From its main station, Lucerne, Bern, Basel, St Gallen and the Rhine Falls are all an hour or less by train, so a week can take in much of Switzerland without a car.

Annecy has good outings too. Geneva, Chambéry and Aix-les-Bains are close, and Chamonix under Mont Blanc and Yvoire on Lake Geneva make fine days out. Several of these, the mountain ones especially, are much easier with a hire car.

Zurich gives children more to do. The zoo with its indoor Madagascar rainforest is a full day, the Technorama science centre and Lucerne's Swiss Museum of Transport are easy train trips, and the lidos have shallow water for small children.

Annecy is safe and relaxed, with parks at Le Pâquier, pedal boats and summer toboggan runs in the hills. But it has no zoo or aquarium, and outside the summer months there is far less to keep children busy.

Zurich is about as easy as cities get. Trams, S-Bahn, funiculars and even the lake boats share one ticket, and the airport is a short train ride from the centre, so a car would only get in the way.

Annecy's centre, lakefront and station are all within walking distance, and bikes and summer lake boats work well along the shore. For the trailheads, passes and Chamonix, though, most visitors end up hiring a car, and they then sit in the summer traffic around the lake.

Zurich is the serious shopping destination. Bahnhofstrasse runs from the station to the lake past watchmakers, jewellers and department stores, and the railway viaduct arches in Zurich West hold design shops.

Annecy's shopping is mostly edible: Reblochon, sausages and génépi from the markets, plus cutlery shops and outdoor gear around Rue Sainte-Claire. People who want luxury go to Geneva.

Annecy is expensive by French standards, but Zurich is expensive by anyone's, and the difference shows in almost every bill. A room in Annecy costs about what it would in a well-off French resort, and it is dearest in July and August, when the lakeside and old-town hotels fill. A dinner of tartiflette with a bottle of Apremont is a resort-priced meal, not a ruinous one, and walking or cycling around the town costs next to nothing. The extra cost to watch for is the hire car many visitors take for the mountains.

In Zurich the prices stay high all year. A night's sleep, a plain lunch and a round of drinks each cost well above what the same thing would in Annecy. Tram rides and museum tickets add up too, so a travel pass or the visitor card is worth buying on the first day. For what a week in Zurich costs, most travellers could stay a good deal longer by Lake Annecy.

Zurich is in another league. The Opernhaus has full seasons of opera and ballet, the Tonhalle Orchestra plays in its restored nineteenth-century hall, and the Schauspielhaus is a leading German-language stage. The Rote Fabrik and the Kreis 4 venues cover jazz, indie and electronic music.

Annecy relies on Bonlieu, its national stage by the lake, for theatre, dance and circus. On top of that come a summer classical festival and the Fête du Lac fireworks in August. For opera or a major orchestra you would travel to Geneva or Lyon.

Zurich has the stronger bathing culture. There are thermal pools in the stone vaults of the old Hürlimann brewery, and in the colder months the wooden lake and river bathing houses become saunas with cold plunges. Baden's hot springs are only about twenty minutes away by train.

Annecy relaxes you through its pace instead: slow lunches in lake villages and quiet mornings by the water. Spa options are lakeside hotel spas, or a trip to the thermal baths at Aix-les-Bains or Saint-Gervais.