Bamberg or Interlaken?

Neither is a beach destination, but Interlaken at least gives you a proper lake swim in high summer. Lake Thun warms up enough for the grassy lidos and shingle shores at Neuhaus and towards Spiez. The colder turquoise water of Lake Brienz at Bönigen makes for a bracing dip beneath snow peaks.

Bamberg has the river bathing spot in the Hain park, the gravel-pit lakes on the edge of town and its public pools. They are fine for cooling off but have none of the scenery.

Bamberg is the better place to eat and drink, as long as beer and pork appeal. Its dense cluster of small breweries, Rauchbier poured from wooden barrels and summer evenings in the hillside Bierkeller give meals a strong sense of place, and the Schäufele and dumplings match them.

Interlaken has more international kitchens but serves little you would remember, mostly fondue, rösti and curries for visitors. Its best food is out in the region: cheese from the mountain dairies, a hut terrace above Grindelwald or Mürren, a glass of white wine from Lake Thun.

Here the gap is wide. Bamberg's old town came through the war intact and is listed as a whole. You can spend a day on the Imperial Cathedral with the Bamberg Horseman, the rose garden of the Neue Residenz, the frescoed Town Hall on its island and the fishermen's houses of Little Venice. The museums are modest, but the townscape itself is the sight.

Interlaken has the grand hotels and the Kursaal on the Höheweg and a few timber houses in Unterseen, and not much more. For history and architecture, visitors take the train to Bern or Thun.

Bamberg has the longer evenings, though they revolve around beer rather than dancing. The brewery taverns fill up after work, the student bars of the Sand quarter below the cathedral keep going late in term time, and in summer people linger at the long tables of the hillside beer cellars. Clubs are few and small, so for a big night out people take the train to Nuremberg.

Interlaken winds down early, because most of its visitors are up at dawn for trains, hikes and paragliding. A handful of backpacker pubs and basement clubs near the hostels get livelier in summer and in the ski season. Otherwise the evening means a drink along the Höheweg after dinner or the casino in the Kursaal, and the streets fall quiet long before midnight.

Interlaken is in another league. The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, the waterfalls of the Lauterbrunnen valley and the Jungfraujoch above the Aletsch glacier are all within an hour. The town is also a major centre for paragliding, canyoning and rafting, and in winter for skiing at Grindelwald, Wengen and Mürren. Low cloud is the only real catch.

Bamberg's countryside is pleasant rather than spectacular. It has the limestone valleys and rock towers of Franconian Switzerland, the beech woods of the Steigerwald and flat cycle paths along the Main, many of them linking one village brewery to the next.

Both make excellent bases, and Interlaken has a slight edge for the variety on its doorstep. Bern's arcaded old town is under an hour away, and paddle steamers call at the castle towns of Thun, Spiez and Oberhofen. Ballenberg, Brienz and Lucerne add rural buildings, woodcarving and a lakefront.

Bamberg's outings are mostly to towns with deep history: Nuremberg's castle, Würzburg's Residence, Coburg, Bayreuth and the baroque basilica of Vierzehnheiligen. Rothenburg is within reach on a long day.

Interlaken is much the easier sell to children. Rack railways, gondolas and steamers are an adventure in themselves, and the summit stations above Grindelwald and at Harder Kulm add playgrounds, cliff walks and toboggan runs. The St Beatus caves and the farm animals at Ballenberg add variety, though wet days and high altitude with toddlers are the weak points.

Bamberg is safe and gentle but has less for children: the playgrounds in the Hain park, boats on the Regnitz, a leisure pool with slides and beer gardens where children play among the tables. The cobbles up the cathedral hill are hard going with a pushchair.

Both are easy without a car, and both have centres you can walk. Bamberg's island town, cathedral hill and Little Venice are minutes apart, although the climbs are steep and cobbled and the station is a fair walk out.

Interlaken pulls ahead on how far you can go. Its flat town links two stations along the Höheweg. From there, narrow-gauge lines, cog railways, gondolas and lake steamers connect smoothly across the whole Jungfrau region, though the busiest mountain trains get crowded in summer.

Bamberg's best buys are grown, brewed or collected in the town itself, while Interlaken's shops mostly sell national souvenirs to tour groups. Around Grüner Markt and Lange Strasse, Bamberg has independent bookshops and boutiques among the chain stores, antique dealers near the cathedral quarter, and produce from the market gardens and bottled smoked beer from the brewery shops to take home.

Interlaken's Höheweg is lined with big watch and jewellery stores, army knives, cuckoo clocks and chocolate, plus outdoor gear for anyone short of a rain jacket. Carved wood from Brienz is the one local craft worth looking for.

The difference in cost is stark. Bamberg has ordinary Western European prices, with cheap local beer, modest tavern meals and moderately priced rooms outside busy weekends. You walk everywhere, so transport costs little.

Interlaken is expensive at every turn. On top of Swiss hotel and restaurant prices, the mountain railways and cable cars you go there for add a heavy extra cost. Hostels, picnics and regional passes help, but only so far.

Bamberg has a real classical music scene for a town of its size. The Bamberg Symphony plays its home season in the concert hall on the Regnitz, the ETA Hoffmann Theatre stages drama, and the churches hold organ and choral concerts. The Bayreuth Festival is an hour away.

Interlaken has a seasonal, homespun programme: the amateur open-air William Tell in the woods each summer, folklore evenings with alphorns and yodelling, and the odd concert in the Kursaal. For serious music you go to Bern.

Rest takes different forms in the two towns. In Bamberg the calm comes from the pace: slow mornings by the river and long afternoons in the beer gardens, in a town that grows quiet once the day visitors leave. For proper thermal bathing, the warm brine pools of Bad Staffelstein are half an hour away by train.

Interlaken has no thermal tradition either, but the grand hotels on the Höheweg have sizeable spas. Steamer crossings, early mornings on the lakeshore and the mountain villages above are restful too. The centre itself is busy and geared to activity, so people who want quiet stay by the lakes or up in Wengen or Mürren.