Baden-Baden or Nuremberg?

Neither city is a place to swim, and both send you somewhere else on a hot day. Baden-Baden has outdoor pools and the flooded gravel pits of the Rhine plain. Nuremberg offers a little more with the Franconian Lake District about an hour south, where the Brombachsee has grassy shores, small sandy strips and room for an afternoon with children.

Baden-Baden's strength is its region rather than the town itself. It has Flammkuchen and venison with a French touch, Riesling and Pinot Noir from the Rebland villages, and Germany's top restaurants a drive away in the hills. In town, though, the choice is mostly smart hotel dining and cafés selling cherry gateau.

Nuremberg gives you more to eat and drink within walking distance. Its cooking is heavier and centres on pork: plates of small bratwurst, crackling Schäufele and Lebkuchen. Franconia's many small breweries give it a beer culture that Baden-Baden, a wine town, has no answer to.

Baden-Baden is a single, well-preserved piece of the nineteenth century. The Kurhaus, the Trinkhalle, the hillside villas and two good art museums are enough for a day or two.

Nuremberg covers far more ground. There is the Kaiserburg above a walled medieval old town, the churches of St Sebaldus and St Lorenz, and Dürer's house. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum alone could fill a day, and the Rally Grounds and Courtroom 600 add a sobering chapter of history that has no counterpart in a spa resort.

A night out in Baden-Baden means dressing up for the gilded casino in the Kurhaus, then a hotel or wine bar, and the streets are quiet by late evening. Nuremberg is livelier. Students fill the squares and riverbanks in summer, and Gostenhof's small bars and alternative venues keep going late. It is still a city of bars rather than clubs, but it has a real evening scene.

Baden-Baden has the better countryside right outside the door. The Merkur funicular and the Battert cliffs lead straight into the northern Black Forest, and the High Road climbs to the Mummelsee and the Hornisgrinde moorland, with mountain biking in summer and some skiing in winter.

Nuremberg's outdoors is gentler and further away. The Reichswald pine forest is good for easy rides, and Franconian Switzerland, an hour out, offers limestone towers, caves and excellent climbing. The lakes add sailing in summer.

Both are excellent bases, but they lead to different countries and styles. From Baden-Baden you can cross into France for Strasbourg's cathedral and the Alsace wine villages, or head to Heidelberg and Freiburg. Many of those outings are easier with a car.

Nuremberg's trips are almost all by train. Bamberg is under an hour away, Regensburg and Würzburg are about an hour each, Rothenburg and the Romantic Road are a little further, and Munich is about an hour by fast train.

Baden-Baden is calm and safe, but it is a town for adults. Young children are not admitted to the Friedrichsbad, so families mostly use it as a base for Europa-Park. Nuremberg keeps children busy without leaving town. It has the Toy Museum, full-size locomotives at the railway museum, a zoo in old quarries with dolphins and manatees, and a children's Christmas market in Advent.

Baden-Baden's compact centre is pleasant to walk, if hilly. But the station is in Oos, a bus ride out, and the wine villages, Black Forest roads and Alsace are much easier by car. In Nuremberg you can walk across the old town in minutes, and a single ticket covers U-Bahn, trams, buses and S-Bahn, out to Fürth and Erlangen and on to the day trips, so you can leave the car at home.

Neither is a shopping destination, but Nuremberg offers a bit more choice. Baden-Baden's Sophienstraße and Lange Straße have jewellers, watchmakers and boutiques for well-off spa guests, and almost nothing else. Nuremberg's main streets have ordinary chain and department stores, plus things to take home: Lebkuchen tins, wooden toys, crafts from the Handwerkerhof and, in Advent, the stalls of the Christkindlesmarkt.

A stay in Baden-Baden costs noticeably more than one in Nuremberg, mostly because the town still sets its prices for the wealthy guests it was built for. Each session at the Friedrichsbad or Caracalla is paid for separately, and the grand hotels push room rates up across town. Only the simple guesthouses, the bakeries and the Rebland wine taverns come close to Nuremberg's level.

Nuremberg is cheaper day to day, from plates of bratwurst in the old-town taverns to sights that charge little to get in. Its weak point is hotels. Rooms fill up and get much dearer during the big trade fairs, the toy fair among them, and through the Advent market. Book outside those weeks and Nuremberg is the cheaper of the two by a clear margin.

Baden-Baden has the edge for classical music. The Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest concert and opera houses, brings in international orchestras and soloists, and the town is still proud of its links with Brahms and Clara Schumann. Nuremberg's Staatstheater and two orchestras are solid regional institutions, and the city adds a wider mix in summer: open-air concerts in the Luitpoldhain, free folk at the Bardentreffen and a large rock festival.

This is where the two differ most. Baden-Baden exists because of its Roman hot springs. A visit centres on the silent sequence of rooms in the Friedrichsbad and the indoor and outdoor pools at Caracalla, and the whole town runs at the same slow pace.

Nuremberg has no baths of its own. You go to the thermal spa in Fürth, saunas on the edge of town or the saline pools at Bad Windsheim, or you simply unwind with a slow afternoon in a beer garden.