Baden-Baden or Zurich?

Neither city has a coast, but only Zurich makes swimming part of the trip. In summer its clean lake is lined with wooden bathing houses and lawned lidos from Utoquai to Tiefenbrunnen. On the Limmat, swimmers let the current carry them downstream at the Letten river baths.

Baden-Baden has nothing like this. You swim in outdoor pools or in flooded gravel pits out on the Rhine plain, and the town's relationship with water is about warm thermal pools rather than open swimming. Neither city works for a beach vacation.

Zurich has more range within the city itself. You can eat veal with rösti in a guild house in the Altstadt, then visit the Paradeplatz tea rooms and the city's chocolate makers, and Kreis 4 and 5 add casual international cooking. It is expensive at every level and short on street food.

Baden-Baden's strength is its setting in Baden wine country. Flammkuchen, venison and Black Forest gateau come with Riesling and Pinot Noir from Rebland villages such as Neuweier, and those villages' taverns make an easy evening out. The town is small, though, and the most celebrated cooking is a drive away in the Black Forest.

Zurich has a little more depth, and both cities fill only a few days. Zurich's strength is its collections and church history: the Kunsthaus, the Swiss National Museum and the Museum Rietberg, plus the Grossmünster, where the Swiss Reformation began, and Chagall's windows in the Fraumünster.

In Baden-Baden the town itself is the exhibit. It is a Belle Époque spa resort listed among the Great Spa Towns of Europe, with the gilded Kurhaus, the Trinkhalle colonnade and Roman bath ruins under the old town. The Museum Frieder Burda adds modern art, and a day or two covers it.

Zurich is far ahead. Electronic music has deep roots there, with clubs in the old industrial spaces of Zurich West running until morning and the Street Parade taking over the lake shore every August. Langstrasse provides the rougher, later side of the city.

Baden-Baden's night out is a dressed-up visit to the casino's gilded rooms, followed by a hotel or wine bar and quiet streets well before midnight. Anyone after a club has to travel to Karlsruhe or Strasbourg.

Both have good walking on the doorstep, but Zurich has the bigger scenery. The snow-capped Glarus Alps rise at the far end of its lake, the Uetliberg ridge is a short train ride away, and Rigi, Pilatus and ski slopes such as Flumserberg are close enough for a day out.

Baden-Baden has forest and vineyards rather than peaks. The Merkur funicular and the Battert cliffs lead into fir woods, and the Black Forest High Road climbs past the Mummelsee to the Hornisgrinde moorland. It is lovely upland country, especially in autumn, with only modest skiing.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is mostly in how you travel. From Zurich, Switzerland's rail network makes Lucerne, Bern, Basel, St Gallen and the Rhine Falls easy without a car.

Baden-Baden's outings take you across a border and into wine country. Strasbourg and the Alsace villages are about an hour away, Heidelberg and Freiburg are each about an hour by train, and Speyer and Maulbronn are UNESCO sites. For Alsace and the Black Forest, though, a car makes things much easier.

Zurich is the stronger choice with children. Its zoo has a Madagascar rainforest hall and an elephant park, the lake lidos have shallow areas, boat trips suit all ages, and the Technorama science centre and Lucerne's transport museum are easy outings.

Baden-Baden is safe and calm, and the funicular and forest trails go down well with children. But it is built for adults: the Friedrichsbad does not admit young children. Its one card that Zurich cannot match is Europa-Park, a major theme park about an hour south.

Zurich is about as easy as a city gets. Trams, S-Bahn trains, funiculars and lake boats all run on one ticket, the airport is a short train ride from the main station, and a car would only get in the way.

Baden-Baden's compact centre is pleasant on foot, though some streets are steep. Its station is out in Oos, a bus ride from the centre, and the wine villages, the High Road and Alsace are hard to reach without driving.

Zurich offers far more. Bahnhofstrasse is one of the world's great luxury streets, with Swiss watches as the speciality, and there are antique shops in the Niederdorf, design shops in the viaduct arches of Zurich West and flea markets on summer Saturdays.

Baden-Baden's Sophienstraße and Lange Straße carry the same polished mix of jewellers, watchmakers and boutiques on a much smaller scale, with cuckoo clocks and local wine as souvenirs. Serious shoppers go to Strasbourg.

Neither is cheap, but Baden-Baden goes noticeably further. Its grand hotels and baths are expensive, yet simple guesthouses, bakeries and wine taverns are reasonable by German standards, and the buses are cheap.

Zurich is among the most expensive cities in the world, from simple hotel rooms to a casual lunch or a drink. Supermarket picnics by the lake, the free lidos and the visitor card help a little, but costs stay high throughout.

Zurich offers the wider stage. The Opernhaus is one of Europe's leading houses for opera and ballet, and the Tonhalle Orchestra and the Schauspielhaus are both highly regarded. The Rote Fabrik and venues in Kreis 4 and 5 add jazz, indie and touring bands.

Baden-Baden is remarkable for classical music in a town its size. The Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest concert halls, brings in leading orchestras, and Brahms and Clara Schumann both worked in the town. Outside classical music there is little.

Here Baden-Baden is in a different league. The Friedrichsbad's silent sequence of hot rooms, scrubs and pools, and the Caracalla complex next door, are the reason to come, and the whole town is set up for rest.

Zurich has a fine bath in the vaults of the old Hürlimann brewery, with a rooftop pool, and in the cold months its wooden lake bathing houses open as saunas with cold-water dips. For a longer soak, people take the train to the Swiss spa town of Baden, which is a different place from Baden-Baden.