Baden-Baden or Milan?

Neither place is for a beach trip, but Milan has the better swimming within reach. Lake Como and Lake Maggiore are about an hour away by train, with pebbly lidos and swimming platforms where the water warms to about 23°C in August. The Idroscalo basin covers a hot afternoon closer to the city.

Baden-Baden has only outdoor pools and flooded gravel pits on the Rhine plain. Water here means thermal bathing rather than a swim in the open air.

Milan is the far richer place to eat. Saffron risotto and cotoletta sit alongside Neapolitan pizza, Sicilian pastry and serious fine dining, while aperitivo in Brera, Isola and on the Navigli shapes the evening.

Baden-Baden's strengths are regional and rural: Flammkuchen, venison and Black Forest gateau, plus the Riesling and Pinot Noir of the Rebland villages, drunk in their wine taverns. The town itself offers little choice, and its best tables lie a drive away in the northern Black Forest.

Milan's sights are of a different rank. The Duomo's rooftop, the Last Supper, the Brera gallery and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà at the Castello Sforzesco could fill several days, although they come in clusters within a largely modern city.

Baden-Baden is a single, well-preserved piece of nineteenth-century spa history: the Kurhaus, the Trinkhalle, hillside villas and Roman bath ruins, with the Frieder Burda museum for modern art. It is charming, but a day or two covers it.

Milan has a real night out and Baden-Baden mostly does not. Milan's evenings run from Navigli bars and Porta Venezia's mixed and gay scene to dressy clubs and warehouse parties on the edges of the city.

In Baden-Baden the signature evening is the gilded casino in the Kurhaus, with a dress code, followed by a hotel bar. The streets are calm by late evening, and anyone wanting clubs takes the train to Karlsruhe or Strasbourg.

Both give good access to the outdoors, but in Baden-Baden it starts at your door, while in Milan you take a train first. From Baden-Baden the Merkur funicular, the Battert cliffs and the Panoramaweg lead straight into fir forest and vineyards, and the Black Forest High Road climbs to the Hornisgrinde moorland.

Milan itself is flat and often hazy, but within an hour the lakes and the Prealps offer steeper and more dramatic country: sailing, via ferrata on the Grigne and proper ski resorts in the Valtellina in winter.

Both make excellent bases, and Milan is even better. Its high-speed lines put Verona, Turin and Bergamo about an hour away, with Bologna, Mantua, Parma and the Borromean Islands also within reach, all without a car.

Baden-Baden's range crosses a border: Strasbourg, Colmar and the Alsace wine route, Heidelberg and Freiburg. Many of the best outings, especially into Alsace and the Black Forest, are far easier by car.

Neither is designed around children, and each makes a reasonable base for different kinds of family days. Baden-Baden is safe and calm, with the funicular and forest trails close by and Europa-Park about an hour south, but the Friedrichsbad does not admit young children.

Milan offers more inside the city itself, including the science museum with its submarine, the aquarium and the playgrounds of Parco Sempione, with Leolandia and Gardaland for theme-park days. Its sticky summer heat is the main drawback.

Milan is easier to get around. A flat, walkable centre, five simple metro lines and a dense tram network mean you never need a car, and the lakes are a direct train ride away.

Baden-Baden's centre is small enough to walk, but some streets are steep, and the station is a bus ride out in Oos. For the wine villages, the High Road or Alsace, hiring a car is the practical choice.

Milan is one of the world's fashion capitals, and shopping can be the whole point of a trip there. Via Montenapoleone, the Galleria, La Rinascente, the vintage shops of Porta Ticinese and the Navigli antique markets cover every budget and taste.

Baden-Baden offers polished browsing on Sophienstraße and Lange Straße, with jewellers, watchmakers and delicatessens, but there are no department stores or markets. Serious shoppers go to Strasbourg.

Both are expensive, for different reasons. In Baden-Baden the grand hotels set the tone, and each visit to the baths adds to the bill, although simple guesthouses, bakeries and wine taverns are fairly priced.

In Milan, hotel rooms are the main cost and are hard to find at sensible rates during the trade fairs and fashion weeks. Aperitivo snacks, office-worker set lunches and a room near a metro stop outside the centre help keep spending down.

Small as it is, Baden-Baden takes classical music seriously. The Festspielhaus, built into the old railway station, is a concert hall on a scale you would expect in a major city, and it brings international orchestras and opera productions to town. The summers that Brahms and Clara Schumann spent here are still part of the town's identity. Beyond the classical repertoire, though, there is little to go out for.

Milan works on a much larger stage. La Scala is one of the world's great opera houses, and around it are the Piccolo Teatro, a fine symphony orchestra, jazz rooms and big summer concerts at San Siro, so there is far more to choose from on any given evening.

This is Baden-Baden's reason for being, and Milan cannot compete. The silent Roman-Irish sequence of the Friedrichsbad, the pools and saunas of Caracalla and a whole town paced for rest make it one of Europe's classic places to take the waters.

Milan has a good thermal spa complex and the summer pools of the Bagni Misteriosi, but it remains a working city. For real calm, its visitors head to the lakes.