Bamberg or Bern?

Neither city is on the coast, but Bern is much better for swimming. In summer, locals walk upstream from the Marzili baths and let the cold, fast Aare carry them back past the Federal Palace. Riverside lidos have lawns and pools, and Lake Thun, twenty minutes away, has calmer water under the Alps. The river itself is for confident swimmers only.

Bamberg has a bathing spot on the Regnitz in the Hain park and gravel-pit lakes on the edge of town. That is enough to cool off on a hot afternoon, but not something to plan a day around.

Bamberg eats and drinks better, and beer is the reason. It has a very dense cluster of small breweries, Rauchbier poured from wooden barrels and summer Bierkeller under chestnut trees, all of which give eating out a character of its own. Schäufele and dumplings come with it.

Bern is hearty in a similar way, with the Berner Platte, rösti and fondue served in guildhall rooms and arcade cellars, and its chocolate is a real draw. It has a little more international range, but nothing as distinctive as Bamberg's brewing, and meals cost a good deal more.

Both are UNESCO-listed old towns that came through the twentieth century intact, and they are close in what they offer. Bamberg is a townscape to wander. It has seven hills crowned by churches and monasteries, the four-towered cathedral with the Bamberg Horseman, the Old Town Hall on its island and Little Venice along the bank, but its museums are small.

Bern pairs its arcaded streets and the Zytglogge with real collections: the Zentrum Paul Klee, Switzerland's oldest art museum and the Einstein Museum. That gives you more to do indoors on a wet day.

Neither city suits a clubbing trip, and their evenings are similar in scale. In Bamberg the night is about beer: brewery taverns after work, the student bars of the Sand quarter in term time and the hillside cellars in summer. For a big night out, you take the train to Nuremberg.

Bern has a little more edge. There are the vaulted cellar bars under the arcades and the bars along Aarbergergasse, the Reitschule hosts late, rough-edged parties, and in warm weather people gather at the riverside terraces.

Bern wins this clearly. The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau line its skyline and are about an hour away by train, with high-mountain hiking, cable cars and winter skiing. Lake Thun, the Gurten funicular and the wooded Aare paths are closer still.

Bamberg's surroundings are gentle. The limestone valleys and rock towers of Franconian Switzerland are less than an hour east, with the Steigerwald beech woods to the west and cycle paths along the Main and Regnitz. It is good walking country, often from one village brewery to the next, but there are no mountains.

Both are well-placed rail hubs, but Bern reaches further and more easily. Lucerne, Basel and Zurich are each about an hour away, Lake Geneva's Lavaux terraces a little further, and Fribourg, Gruyères, Murten and Thun are close by. The scenery on the way is part of the outing.

Bamberg offers a fine Franconian circuit: Nuremberg in under an hour, Würzburg's Residence, Coburg, Bayreuth and the basilica of Vierzehnheiligen, with Rothenburg for a long day. It is rich in historic towns but has less variety of landscape.

Bern is the easier choice with children. The bear park below the old town, the Dählhölzli zoo along the Aare, the dioramas at the Natural History Museum and the playground on the Gurten fill several days. The mountains are close when you want more.

Bamberg is safe and relaxed, with playgrounds in the Hain park, boat hire on the Regnitz and beer gardens where children play among the tables. Beyond that the sights are churches and townscape, and the cobbles up the cathedral hill are hard going with a pushchair.

Step off the train and the difference shows at once. Bamberg's station is a fair walk from the old town, while Bern's opens straight onto the top of its arcaded centre. Once you reach Bamberg's island town, the cathedral hill and Little Venice are minutes apart on foot. Bicycles suit the flat lower town and buses fan out from a central hub, but the steep, uneven cobbles up to the cathedral and Michaelsberg have to be climbed on foot.

Bern is the smoother of the two. You can walk its centre end to end in about twenty minutes under the arcades. Trams and buses run on a single fare system, and short funiculars and a public lift save you the climb between the old town and the riverside quarter below.

The best things to take home from Bamberg are mostly edible or old. There is produce from the town's own market gardens, bottled Rauchbier from the brewery shops and the antique dealers near the cathedral. The pedestrian streets around Grüner Markt and Lange Strasse are mostly chain stores and a few bookshops, enough for an hour between sights.

Bern gives you more to browse. Spitalgasse, Marktgasse and Kramgasse run in one long arcaded line with watch and chocolate shops. The cellar shops reached by steep steps on Gerechtigkeitsgasse sell antiques, design and crafts, and in late November the Zibelemärit sells woven onion braids. Neither city offers luxury or much fashion.

This is where the two differ most. Bamberg has ordinary Western European prices, kept low by Franconian habits: cheap local beer, inexpensive meals in brewery taverns and moderately priced hotels. Weekends and the Christmas market season are the dearer times.

Bern is very expensive across the board, from plain guesthouses to a beer on a terrace. The tram and bus pass that hotels usually give guests, free pleasures like the bear park and the river paths, and supermarket lunches all help, but the same stay costs far more than in Bamberg.

The two are evenly matched overall, but in different ways: Bamberg has the more celebrated orchestra, while Bern has the wider range. The Bamberg Symphony has a real international reputation and plays its home season in the concert hall on the Regnitz. The ETA Hoffmann Theatre stages drama, and organ and choral concerts fill the cathedral. Bamberg has no opera company of its own, but the Bayreuth Festival is an hour away.

Bern has its own opera and ballet at the Stadttheater, and the Bern Symphony Orchestra plays in the Casino above the Aare. The Dampfzentrale adds contemporary dance and new music, and the Reitschule puts on alternative concerts. A spring jazz festival and the Gurtenfestival in July bring in jazz, rock and pop.

Both are restful by temperament rather than through any bathing tradition. Bamberg's calm comes from mornings by the river and long afternoons in beer gardens once the day visitors have left. For thermal bathing, the warm brine pools of Bad Staffelstein are about half an hour away by train.

Bern's quiet arcades and still Sundays slow you down the same way, and it has more spa options in the city itself: a large thermal complex on the western edge, a hammam-style spa and hotel spas. For serious spa time, the mountain spa hotels of the Bernese Oberland are close.