Baden-Baden or Maastricht?

On swimming the two are level, and neither is a place to come for it. Both are far from any coast, and in summer locals head to old gravel-pit lakes, along the Rhine plain near Baden-Baden and along the Maas around Maastricht. The difference is that Baden-Baden has thermal water as well: the outdoor pools at Caracalla are where most visitors there will actually swim.

Maastricht is the better place to eat in town. Limburg cooking, Belgian beer and a fine-dining tier that is strong for a city this size all sit within a short walk, on terraces around the Vrijthof and the Markt or across the river in Wyck.

Baden-Baden's centre is mostly hotel dining and cake-and-coffee cafés, although Baden cooking is excellent and leans towards France. Its real asset is wine. The Riesling and Pinot Noir taverns of the Rebland villages just outside town make a better evening than anything Maastricht's own hillsides offer, and the famous restaurants of the northern Black Forest are within a drive.

Maastricht offers more to see, and from a deeper past. Two Romanesque basilicas, the Helpoort and the old walls along the Jeker, a 13th-century bridge and guided walks through the Sint-Pietersberg tunnels add up to around a thousand years of history. The Bonnefanten covers both old masters and contemporary art.

Baden-Baden's appeal is narrower and more unified. The whole town is a preserved Belle Époque resort, with the Kurhaus, the Trinkhalle and the hillside villas, and the Museum Frieder Burda for modern art. In both places two days is enough to see the main sights.

Baden-Baden's evenings are an occasion rather than a session. The big outing is the Kurhaus casino, where you dress for the gilded rooms, then perhaps a nightcap in a hotel bar or a glass of local Riesling in an old-town wine bar. The company is mostly middle-aged and up, and the town has largely gone to bed by the hour Maastricht's cafés are at their fullest. Dancing means a trip to a bigger city.

Maastricht has far more going on after dark, and its students are the reason. In term time the brown cafés and squares around the Markt, the Platielstraat and the lanes off the Vrijthof stay busy late at weekends, with Belgian beer on every table and a young, mixed crowd. There are only a few clubs, so a big night still often means crossing the border. In the days before Lent, though, carnival turns the whole city into a street party that runs day and night.

Baden-Baden has the bigger landscape on its doorstep. The Merkur funicular and the Battert cliffs open onto fir forest, and the Black Forest High Road climbs past the Mummelsee to moorland at over 1,100m, with waterfalls, mountain biking and some winter skiing.

Maastricht's countryside is gentler. There are the marl cliffs of the Sint-Pietersberg, orchards and sunken lanes in the Heuvelland, and heath in the Hoge Kempen across the border. It is lovely on a bike, but it is farmland and low hills rather than forest upland.

Both are superb bases for day trips, and what differs is the choice on offer. From Baden-Baden it is Strasbourg and the wine villages of Alsace, Heidelberg, Freiburg and UNESCO sites such as Speyer and Maulbronn, and many of these are much easier with a car.

Maastricht's trips are shorter and easier by train. Aachen and Liège are each about half an hour away, Tongeren and Valkenburg are closer still, and Cologne, Brussels and Leuven work as longer days out across three countries.

Neither town is designed for children, and families in both spend their best days just outside. Maastricht is the easier base: it is flat and good with a buggy, the Sint-Pietersberg tunnels make a real adventure, and the caves, cable car and fairy-tale park at Valkenburg are about twenty minutes away.

Baden-Baden is quieter and built for adults, and young children are not allowed into the Friedrichsbad. Its trump card is Europa-Park, about an hour south, along with the Merkur funicular and forest trails for active children.

Maastricht is the easier town to get around. Its centre is flat and largely pedestrianised, everything is within about a fifteen-minute walk, riverside paths make cycling simple, and the station is a short stroll over the bridge in Wyck.

Baden-Baden's centre is also small, but some streets climb steeply and the station is a few kilometres out in Oos, so arriving means taking a bus. Its best outings, to the High Road, the wine villages and Alsace, really need a car.

Maastricht is a shopping destination, and visitors from three countries come for it. It has designer boutiques in the old houses of the Stokstraat, chains on the Grote Staat, vintage and interiors shops in Wyck and a weekly market on the Markt.

Baden-Baden is more refined but much smaller in scale. Sophienstraße and Lange Straße have jewellers, watchmakers and delicatessens for a wealthy spa crowd, but there is no market and no department store, and keen shoppers drive to Strasbourg.

Neither is cheap, but Maastricht is the gentler of the two. You pay the normal Dutch prices, the walkable centre means transport costs almost nothing, and staying from Sunday to Thursday helps a great deal.

Baden-Baden was built for the rich, and grand hotels set its prices. Every visit to the baths costs extra, so a stay built around them adds up fast. Guesthouses and wine taverns keep things manageable for anyone who chooses carefully.

Baden-Baden is the clear choice for music lovers. The Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest opera and concert houses, brings leading international orchestras and soloists. Add the town's own philharmonic in the Kurhaus, a small nineteenth-century theatre and the legacy of Brahms and Clara Schumann.

Maastricht's scene is busier but more local. The Vrijthof theatre hosts the regional orchestra and opera, students from the conservatory give recitals, there are small jazz cafés, and big open-air concerts fill the square in summer.

Here Baden-Baden is in a class of its own. Roman hot springs rise beneath the old town, the Friedrichsbad leads you through a silent sequence of hot rooms and pools, and Caracalla adds large saunas and outdoor thermal pools. The whole town keeps to the same unhurried pace around them.

Maastricht has no baths of its own. Its spa options are trips out: thermal pools above Valkenburg, Aachen's Roman-era springs, and the Belgian town of Spa within an hour. What it offers in town is long lunches and slow walks along the Maas.