Baden-Baden or Bruges?

Neither is a beach destination, but only Bruges has the sea within easy reach. A short train ride to Blankenberge puts you on wide, sandy North Sea beaches, cool and often windy but fine for a paddle on a summer afternoon. Baden-Baden is far from any coast and its water is thermal, so on a hot day the choice is an outdoor pool or a flooded gravel pit on the Rhine plain.

Bruges eats and drinks better, mostly because of its beer. Brown cafés pour Trappist and abbey ales alongside mussels with frites, beef stewed in beer and waterzooi, and there is chocolate in shop window after shop window. To avoid the set menus aimed at day-trippers, eat a street or two away from the Markt.

Baden-Baden's strength is wine rather than beer. Riesling and Pinot Noir come from the Rebland slopes, and the Baden cooking has a French accent, from Flammkuchen to venison. The town is small, though, and much of its eating is hotel dining or cake in cafés. The most celebrated restaurants are a drive away in the forest.

Bruges has much more to see. The whole canal-ringed centre is medieval and protected, with the Belfry, the Burg and the Begijnhof, and the art is first-rate: van Eyck in the Groeninge, Memling in St John's Hospital and Michelangelo's Madonna in the Church of Our Lady.

Baden-Baden belongs to a later era. It is the nineteenth-century spa resort of the Kurhaus, the Trinkhalle and the Lichtentaler Allee, with modern art at the Museum Frieder Burda and the house where Brahms spent his summers. It is elegant and worth a day or two, but there is less of it, and nothing with the old-master weight of Bruges.

Neither town stays up late, but Bruges has more going on after dark. Its brown cafés and cellar bars around the Eiermarkt and 't Zand stay busy into the night with students and beer lovers, and a couple of small clubs open at weekends. Baden-Baden's evenings are formal and short: smart dress for the Kurhaus casino, a hotel bar or wine bar, and quiet streets well before midnight.

Baden-Baden is much better for the outdoors. The Black Forest starts where the streets end, with the Merkur funicular, the Battert cliffs for climbers and the Panoramaweg through woods and vines. Further up, the High Road leads to the Mummelsee and the Hornisgrinde, with some skiing in winter.

Bruges sits in flat polder country of canals, poplars and dykes. It is lovely by bike, especially along the towpath to Damme, and the Zwin salt marsh draws birdwatchers, but there are no hills or forests to walk in.

Both make excellent bases, and Bruges has the edge mainly because its trips need no car. Ghent is under half an hour by train and Brussels about an hour, and Antwerp, the coast and the First World War sites around Ypres are all close.

Baden-Baden's list is also long and rewarding. It runs from Strasbourg and the Alsace wine villages to Heidelberg, Freiburg, Speyer and Maulbronn, but the Alsace and Black Forest outings work far better with a hire car.

Both towns are safe, compact and calm, so the difference is where children spend their days. Bruges keeps them busy in town with canal boats, the Belfry climb, the chocolate and frites museums and Boudewijn Seapark, plus sandcastles on the coast. The cobbles are hard work with a pushchair, though.

Baden-Baden has the funicular and the forest trails, but the Friedrichsbad does not admit young children and the mood is grown-up. Its big family draw is Europa-Park, about an hour south, so it works more as a base than as a destination in itself.

Bruges is easier to get around. It is flat and largely car-free, you can cross it on foot in about half an hour, bikes are easy to hire, and frequent trains leave from a station just outside the canal ring. Only the cobbles are a nuisance.

Baden-Baden's centre is walkable too, but some streets climb steeply and the station is a bus ride away in Oos. The High Road, the wine villages and Alsace all really need a car.

Baden-Baden has less to buy than Bruges, but what it has is polished: jewellers, watchmakers and fashion boutiques on Sophienstraße and Lange Straße, aimed at a well-off spa crowd. There are no real markets, and local craft goes little further than cuckoo clocks and wine.

Bruges gives a shopper more to do, though mostly things to eat and drink. There are chocolate makers on almost every street, and beer shops sell bottles from across Belgium with the glasses to match. Bobbin lace is the old local craft, although much of what fills the windows near the Markt is imported. The Saturday market on 't Zand and the flea market along the Dijver are good for a browse.

Both are expensive, but Bruges is a little easier on the budget. The old town costs nothing to wander, beer is fair value and trains for day trips are reasonably priced, and staying midweek or outside the canal ring helps further.

Baden-Baden was built for the wealthy and is still priced that way. Every visit to the baths is paid for separately, so a stay centred on the spas adds up quickly, although simple guesthouses, wine taverns and bakeries soften the cost.

Baden-Baden is the stronger choice for music. The Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest opera and concert houses, brings in leading orchestras and opera productions. The philharmonic in the Kurhaus and the small nineteenth-century theatre continue a tradition that goes back to Brahms and Clara Schumann.

Bruges has a fine Concertgebouw known for early music and contemporary dance, a respected summer early-music festival and carillon and church concerts. It has no opera company, though, so for a wider choice of evenings you take the train to Ghent or Brussels.

This is where the two differ most. In Baden-Baden the thermal waters are the whole point: the silent, domed Friedrichsbad with its set sequence of hot rooms and pools, the Caracalla complex with its saunas, and a town that winds down early.

Bruges has no bathing tradition and only hotel and day spas. Its calm depends on timing: the Begijnhof, the Minnewater and the Sint-Anna quarter early or late in the day, once the crowds have gone.