Baden-Baden or Cologne?

Neither city suits a beach trip. Baden-Baden's water culture is thermal and indoors, and on a hot afternoon the options are outdoor pools or the flooded gravel pits out on the Rhine plain. Cologne has slightly more close at hand: Fühlinger See, Escher See and Otto-Maigler-See on the city's edge have grassy banks, small patches of sand and water that warms to about 22°C.

Cologne has the more distinctive food culture and the greater range. The brewhouse ritual is the draw: a Köbes keeps bringing small glasses of Kölsch until you cover yours with a beer mat, alongside sauerbraten, Himmel un Ääd and the Halve Hahn. Beyond that come the bistros of the Belgian Quarter and the Turkish kitchens along Ehrenfeld's Venloer Strasse.

Baden-Baden's strength is in the glass. Riesling and Pinot Noir from Neuweier, Varnhalt and Steinbach, drunk in the village wine taverns, go well with Flammkuchen, venison and Black Forest gateau, with a French touch from across the Rhine. The town itself is small, though, and much of its eating is in hotel dining rooms and cake cafés.

Cologne has more to see. The cathedral and its Shrine of the Three Kings are the main sight, twelve Romanesque churches and Roman remains add depth, and Museum Ludwig, the Wallraf-Richartz and Kolumba make it a real museum city. Its weakness is the plain postwar townscape between these individual landmarks.

Baden-Baden is the opposite. The town is the sight: a complete nineteenth-century spa resort of Kurhaus, Trinkhalle, hillside villas and parkland, with the Frieder Burda museum and Brahms's summer house to add to it. Its beauty holds together, but it fills a day or two rather than a week.

This is where the two cities differ most. Cologne goes out in stages, from the Altstadt brewhouses to the Belgian Quarter's bars, the student crowds on Zülpicher Strasse and the factory clubs of Ehrenfeld, and it has one of Germany's most open gay scenes around Rudolfplatz. At Carnival the whole city is in costume from morning until long after dark.

Baden-Baden's one big night out is the casino in the Kurhaus, with its dress code and gilded rooms. After that come hotel bars and wine bars, and the streets are calm by late evening. Anyone wanting a club has to go to Karlsruhe or Strasbourg.

Baden-Baden is the stronger choice for outdoor time because the forest starts at the edge of town. The Merkur funicular, the Battert climbing cliffs and the Panoramaweg are all close by. Beyond them the Black Forest High Road climbs past the Mummelsee to the moorland of the Hornisgrinde, which has mountain biking and a little skiing in winter.

Cologne is flat. Its green spaces are the Grüngürtel parks and long cycle paths along the Rhine, and real hill walking means a trip of forty minutes or more to the Siebengebirge or the Eifel.

Both are excellent bases for day trips, but in different ways. From Baden-Baden the best outings cross into France: Strasbourg's Petite France, the Alsace wine route and Colmar. Heidelberg, Freiburg, Speyer and Maulbronn are also within reach, though a car makes the Alsace and Black Forest trips much easier.

Cologne's day trips work by fast train and come in short hops. Brühl's rococo palaces, Bonn, Düsseldorf and Aachen's Carolingian chapel are each under forty minutes away, and the castle towns of the Rhine Gorge, Maastricht and Brussels are all reachable within a day.

Baden-Baden is safe, clean and calm. Children can run along the Lichtentaler Allee and the forest trails above town, and Karlsruhe's zoo is a short trip away. Still, the town's quiet, refined mood is set for adults, so families tend to stay here and spend their days somewhere else.

Cologne is the easier city with children and keeps them busy without leaving town. It has an aquarium, traffic-free promenades along the Rhine, science centres, adventure playgrounds in the Grüngürtel and boat trips on the river, and nobody minds children in a brewhouse. The one time to avoid with small children is Carnival, when the streets are crowded and full of drinkers.

Cologne is simpler. Trains arrive right beside the cathedral, the old town and museums are close together on flat ground, and the Stadtbahn and S-Bahn reach Ehrenfeld, the zoo and the suburbs, so a car is never needed. The trams can be crowded, though.

Baden-Baden's centre is compact but hilly, and its station is a bus ride away in Oos. The wine villages, the High Road and Alsace are hard to see without a car.

Cologne is the better shopping city. Schildergasse and Hohe Strasse have the department stores and chains, Ehrenstrasse and the Belgian Quarter have independent fashion and design shops, and the historic perfume houses on Glockengasse still sell Eau de Cologne.

Baden-Baden is smaller and more refined. Its shopping is Sophienstraße and Lange Straße, with jewellers, watchmakers and delicatessens for a wealthy spa crowd, and it is pleasant to browse but soon done.

Cologne costs noticeably less. A brewhouse meal with Kölsch is cheap compared with most big cities, and the cathedral is free to enter. The main thing to watch is hotel rates, which climb steeply during trade fairs at the Messe and during Carnival.

Baden-Baden was built for the rich and still prices itself that way. Every visit to the baths is paid for, and grand hotels set the tone. Simple guesthouses, bakeries and wine taverns help keep a budget in check.

Both are good for classical music, but Cologne has the broader stage life. Its opera and Schauspiel, the Gürzenich and WDR orchestras in the Philharmonie by the cathedral, jazz and electronic music in Ehrenfeld and the Südstadt, and the dialect sessions of Carnival mean something is on most nights.

Baden-Baden is unusually strong for its size. The Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest concert halls, brings in international orchestras and opera, and the legacy of Brahms and Clara Schumann is part of the town. Beyond classical music, though, there is little.

Baden-Baden is in another league. Bathers have used its hot springs since Roman times, the domed Friedrichsbad leads you through its set sequence of hot rooms and pools in silence, and Caracalla adds outdoor pools and a large sauna area. The whole town slows to match.

Cologne has good German sauna complexes and a thermal bath in the Rheinpark with a view of the cathedral. Still, the city around them is busy, and finding real calm takes more effort.