Antwerp or Stuttgart?

Neither city is worth choosing for swimming, but Antwerp has slightly more to offer. It has a sandy riverbank at Sint-Annastrand across the Scheldt, and trains reach the North Sea resorts of Blankenberge and Knokke in under two hours. Stuttgart has nothing like that, since Lake Constance is more than two hours south, so summer swimming there means outdoor pools, some of them fed by the city's mineral springs.

Both eat well, and the real difference is beer against wine. Antwerp is a beer city, with amber ale in its round bolleke glass, long Trappist lists in the brown cafés near the cathedral, and Flemish dishes such as stoofvlees, mussels and frites. Its more ambitious cooking is in Het Zuid and Het Eilandje.

Stuttgart drinks its own wine. Trollinger and Riesling come from vineyards inside the city limits, and growers open seasonal Besen taverns in their homes. The food is Swabian and filling: Maultaschen, Käsespätzle and onion-topped roast beef, with the Art Nouveau Markthalle for browsing local produce. It has less cheap street food than Antwerp's friteries.

Antwerp has the deeper historic and artistic heritage. The wealth of its sixteenth-century port paid for the Flemish Baroque, and you can see it in the Rubens altarpieces of the cathedral, the painter's own house and the UNESCO-listed Plantin-Moretus printing house. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, the domed Central Station and the Art Nouveau streets of Zurenborg add to it.

Stuttgart's sightseeing is more modern. The Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums and the Le Corbusier houses of the Weissenhof Estate are the highlights. Wartime bombing left the old core in fragments, so the Neues Schloss and Schlossplatz have to stand in for the intact historic streets that Antwerp still has.

Antwerp is the better city for a night out. Belgian bars have no fixed closing time, so brown cafés and student streets stay busy well past midnight. The city also has an established house and techno scene in dockside warehouses and one of the best-known gay scenes in the Low Countries.

Stuttgart's evenings are sociable but shorter. The bars along Theodor-Heuss-Strasse fill at weekends, and the wine bars of the Bohnenviertel suit a quiet evening. Outside the Cannstatter Volksfest beer tents and the late-summer wine village, the city tends to go to bed early.

Stuttgart is far better placed for time outdoors. It sits in a basin of wooded hills and vineyards, so a walk out of the centre soon reaches wine trails and the forests of the Rotwildpark and Schönbuch. The Swabian Jura's escarpments and caves and the fir-covered ridges of the northern Black Forest are each about an hour away.

Antwerp's surroundings are flat, low and built up. The Kalmthoutse Heide heathland and the dyke roads through the Scheldt polders make good bike rides, but that is about the extent of it.

Both are excellent bases, and Antwerp has a slight edge because so many major cities are packed so close. Ghent, Brussels, Leuven and Mechelen are each under an hour by train, Bruges is about an hour and a half away, and Rotterdam, Delft and the Kinderdijk windmills put a second country within easy reach.

Stuttgart's list leans more towards castles and small towns: Heidelberg's castle and old town by fast train, Tübingen's lanes and punts, the Ludwigsburg palace, Hohenzollern on its hilltop and the abbey at Maulbronn, with Strasbourg possible on a long day.

Both work well with children, in different ways. Antwerp's historic zoo is right next to Central Station, its flat centre is easy with a pushchair, and the free foot tunnel under the Scheldt and the MAS rooftop make simple outings. Damp weather means you will need indoor plans.

Stuttgart's Wilhelma, a zoo and botanical garden among Moorish pavilions, easily fills a day. Killesberg park has a miniature railway and animal enclosures, and the rack railway and outdoor pools add more. The hills are harder going with a pushchair.

Getting around is easy in both, but the terrain differs. Antwerp is flat, so most of a visit can be done on foot or by shared bike from Central Station to the river and Het Zuid, with the trams and premetro covering the rest. Stuttgart's centre is flat only at the bottom of its basin. Beyond that the Stadtbahn, S-Bahn, a rack railway and a funicular handle the slopes on one ticket, and the public stairways called Stäffele are steep shortcuts for walkers.

Antwerp is the more distinctive place to shop. The designers who came out of its fashion academy shaped the conceptual boutiques of the Nationalestraat and Kammenstraat, and the diamond quarter, the antique shops of the Kloosterstraat and the secondhand auctions on the Vrijdagmarkt add plenty to browse.

Stuttgart is more about brands. Königstrasse is a long pedestrian high street, Breuninger covers luxury fashion, and many shoppers head to the outlet village at Metzingen.

Neither is a budget city, and costs end up similar. In Antwerp, rooms are usually cheaper than in the nearby capitals, and because the centre is compact, much of the getting around costs nothing, though sit-down dinners are expensive. In Stuttgart, hotel prices follow the trade-fair calendar, so a weekend or quiet-month stay saves most, while tavern and beer-garden meals give generous portions for the money.

Stuttgart has the stronger stage. The Stuttgart Ballet, respected across Europe since the Cranko years, shares the state theatre with an opera company known for bold productions. The Liederhalle adds orchestral music and a serious Bach tradition, and the Möhringen theatres run long seasons of big musicals.

Antwerp's scene is smaller but has its specialities. You can see contemporary dance at deSingel, early music in the Baroque church of AMUZ, and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in the house on the Frankrijklei. Most of its theatre is in Dutch.

Stuttgart is much the better city for unwinding. The springs at Bad Cannstatt and Berg are among Europe's most productive mineral sources, and baths like the Mineralbad Leuze let you soak in naturally carbonated warm water indoors and out. Antwerp has no springs or bathhouses, so relaxing there means a hotel spa, a sauna complex out of town reached by car, or a slow afternoon in a park or a brown café.