Austrian Alps or Swiss Alps?

Austria has the better swimming, thanks to Carinthia. The Wörthersee, Millstätter See and Faaker See warm up to the mid-twenties in high summer. Velden and Pörtschach build whole summers around lidos with lawns and diving boards, so a lake vacation there works on its own terms.

Swiss lakes are spotless but cooler, with Thun and Brienz reaching about 20°C in a good August. You need to go south to Lugano or Maggiore in Ticino to approach Carinthian warmth. In Switzerland a swim fits between hikes rather than being the reason for the trip.

The two are broadly level, and both serve hearty mountain food best eaten on a hut terrace. Austria leans on dumplings, Kaiserschmarrn, Gröstl and Käsespätzle, with pine schnapps afterwards, and Salzburg adds a proper café and cake tradition. Switzerland is cheese country, with fondue, Valais raclette and rösti. Its real extra is wine, from the terraced Valais vineyards above the Rhône, plus Merlot and polenta in Ticino.

Austria is far stronger for sightseeing. Salzburg alone has the cathedral, the Residenz, Mozart's birthplace and the Mirabell and Hellbrunn gardens beneath its fortress. Innsbruck adds the Golden Roof and Ambras Castle, and Hallstatt and the Admont abbey library are worth the detours.

On the Swiss side the heritage is woven into the landscape: sgraffito houses in Guarda, Bellinzona's three castles and the Carolingian frescoes at Müstair. These are pleasant stops on a mountain trip, but there is no city of Salzburg's weight to anchor them.

Austrian après-ski is louder and more widespread. Ischgl, St Anton, Saalbach, Sölden and Mayrhofen fill their slopeside huts by late afternoon and keep the village bars going late all winter. Innsbruck's students keep some life in town even in summer.

Switzerland's going-out is concentrated in a few places. Verbier is the rowdiest and Zermatt has a cluster of bars by the pistes, while St Moritz and Gstaad offer a glossier and pricier evening in hotel bars. Out of season, most Swiss villages are asleep by eleven.

These are two of the finest mountain regions anywhere, so the choice comes down to which landscape appeals. Austria offers the Hohe Tauern around the Grossglockner, the Krimml waterfalls and the long Tyrolean valleys, with Innsbruck putting high peaks right above a city. Carinthia's lakes add paddling and sailing.

Switzerland has the more famous summits and ice: the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau above Lauterbrunnen, the Matterhorn and the Aletsch, the longest glacier in the Alps. The Swiss National Park in the Engadine is also one of the easiest places to see ibex.

Austria has a small lead, mostly because its outings include bigger names. From Salzburg you can reach Hallstatt, Bad Ischl, the Königssee and even Munich. From Innsbruck, Hall in Tirol, the Bavarian royal castles and Bolzano and Merano across the passes are all within reach.

The Swiss list is longer but quieter. From the Bernese Oberland you can visit arcaded Bern, Thun and Lucerne, and further west lie Gruyères, the Lavaux vineyards and Chillon. Trains make each one easy, even if few are famous in their own right.

Many Austrian resorts are planned around children. Hotels with kids' clubs, playrooms and pools are a national speciality, and places such as Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis are set up for small skiers. Innsbruck's Alpine Zoo, the crystal world at Wattens and Hellbrunn's trick fountains fill a rest day, though when it pours, Austrian families mostly end up in the pool.

Switzerland works well for families without being designed for them. For a small child, cogwheel trains and lake steamers are a day out in themselves, and the car-free streets of Zermatt and Wengen are safe to wander. There is no zoo or theme park to fall back on, and the higher resorts need some care with very young children.

Switzerland is the easier region to travel without a car. Main lines, narrow-gauge railways, postbuses, steamers and cable cars all run on connected timetables, and several resorts ban private cars altogether. Crossing between the big regions is slow, but nearly every village is reachable.

In Austria the trains through the Inn valley, Salzburg and the Arlberg work well, and guest cards cover local buses. Side valleys may see only a few buses a day, though, and linking lakes, towns and passes is much simpler with a hire car.

Austria offers more to browse. Salzburg's Getreidegasse and Innsbruck's old town have real makers of dirndls, loden coats and felt hats. Add Tyrolean woodcarving, Wattens crystal and the Christmas markets, and there is plenty with local character.

Swiss shopping belongs mostly to the resorts. You will find luxury boutiques in St Moritz and Gstaad and watch and outdoor-gear shops in Zermatt and Interlaken. The best things to take home are dairy cheese, Valais wine and Brienz carvings.

Austria is expensive, but Switzerland belongs in another bracket, among the costliest places in the world to visit. In Austria, farm stays, family guesthouses, smaller ski areas and half-board in Carinthia or quieter Tyrol keep a trip within reach.

In the Swiss Alps even a simple hut lunch costs a lot, and the mountain railways that make the region so easy to explore add up fast. Self-catering, supermarket picnics and travel passes help, as do Goms or the Ticino side. Still, no version of the trip comes out cheap.

For music, Austria is the stronger destination by some distance. The Salzburg Festival and the opera on Bregenz's floating lake stage are among the great summer events in classical music. Salzburg also keeps a calendar outside the summer, with Mozart Week, the Easter festival and the Landestheater, and Innsbruck has its state theatre.

Switzerland's highlights are the Verbier Festival and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad's churches, both excellent but limited to summer. With no resident opera or theatre in the mountains, the rest of the year comes down to brass bands and alphorns.

Both are excellent places to rest, and the difference is in the style. Austria's strength is everyday sauna culture, with large sauna areas in hotels in almost every valley. On top of that come Belle Époque Bad Gastein with its radon gallery inside the mountain and the outdoor pools of the Aqua Dome facing the Ötztal peaks.

Switzerland has the more striking individual baths, such as Leukerbad's open-air pools under sheer cliffs and the stone bath cut into the hillside at Vals. Its car-free villages make the quiet complete.