Basel or Brussels?

Neither city has a beach, but Basel has a real summer swimming culture. From June to early September locals walk up the Kleinbasel bank and float back past the old town on the Rhine current, then dry off on the gravel banks. The current is strong, so this is one for confident swimmers.

Brussels has nothing like it. Swimming there means Art Deco indoor pools or the summer open-air basins. The sandy coast at Ostend is a little over an hour away by train, but the North Sea stays cool and windy, so it makes a day out rather than a swim.

Brussels is a city people travel to for food, and Basel is not. In Brussels, mussels, carbonnade stewed in beer, shrimp croquettes and frites from a friterie sit alongside one of the world's great beer cultures, with lambics and gueuzes brewed only in this corner of Belgium. Matonge, Saint-Josse and Saint-Gilles add Congolese, Moroccan and Turkish cooking.

Basel eats well but carefully. It has few specialities of its own beyond Läckerli and Fasnacht flour soup, and it borrows from Alsace and Baden. Its fine dining is very good, but everyday meals feel pricey, which is why many locals cross the border to eat.

Both are excellent for culture, but in different ways. Basel's strength is its art collections. The Kunstmuseum's Holbeins, the Fondation Beyeler in its Renzo Piano building, the Museum Tinguely and the Vitra campus over the German border make an unusually rich run for a small city, and they are set in an old town of red sandstone and guild houses that is still intact.

Brussels has the bigger single showpiece in the Grand-Place. It also has Bruegel and Magritte on the upper town hill, and Horta's UNESCO-listed Art Nouveau houses in Saint-Gilles and Ixelles. Its historic fabric is patchier, though, broken up by office blocks, where Basel's centre is whole and easy to take in within a few days.

Brussels has much the livelier evenings. Bars spill out around Saint-Géry and the Bourse, Place Flagey and Châtelain draw a local crowd, and a well-known techno club in the Marolles and the queer scene on Rue du Marché au Charbon give it some depth after midnight. Beer in century-old taverns ties the whole night together.

Basel is pleasant but quiet. In summer people drink on the Kleinbasel steps by the river, and in winter the bars are around the Kaserne, all at Swiss prices. Its great night out is Fasnacht, three days of drums and lanterns in late winter that nothing in Brussels matches.

Basel has far better countryside on its doorstep. The Jura ridges start just south of town, the Black Forest summits rise above 1,400m within an hour, and the Vosges lie to the west, all with marked trails. Flat Rhine paths make easy cycling into Germany and France.

Brussels has one fine asset in the Sonian Forest, with its tall beech stands. Beyond that it is surrounded by flat farmland, and the Ardennes valleys around Dinant are a longer day out.

Both are first-rate bases, and the difference is what lies around them. From Brussels, short train rides reach Belgium's great historic towns: Ghent in about half an hour, Antwerp and Bruges soon after, and Leuven and Mechelen closer still. Paris is within about an hour and a half by high-speed train.

Basel opens instead onto three countries and three kinds of scenery. Colmar and the Alsace wine villages, Freiburg and the Black Forest, then Lucerne, Bern and the Rhine Falls offer mountains and vineyards where Brussels offers mostly cities.

These are about equal for children, with different highlights. Basel is small, clean and calm. The Zolli is one of Europe's best zoos, the current-driven ferries delight small children, and Europa-Park is about an hour away by car.

Brussels has more for indoor days, which its weather often calls for. There are the Iguanodon hall at the Natural Sciences museum, the Atomium and Mini-Europe, and comic murals across the centre, with Walibi and Pairi Daiza nearby. Cobbles and heavy traffic make it harder going with a pushchair than Basel.

Basel is the easier city to move around. Its compact centre and both river banks are walkable, green trams reach everywhere, some lines cross into France and Germany, and hotel guests ride free. The main station puts most of Switzerland a short train ride away.

Brussels works well enough, with metro, trams and contactless payment. But the climb between the lower and upper town is steep, the pavements are rough, and driving is a trial.

Brussels is the better place to browse. Master chocolatiers line the Galeries Royales and the Sablon, which also has a weekend antiques market. The Jeu de Balle flea market runs daily in the Marolles, and Rue Antoine Dansaert has Belgian designers.

Basel's shopping is neat but thin. Watches and chocolate line Freie Strasse, and there are small design shops around Spalenberg. Its Christmas market by the Münster is the one real draw.

Brussels is clearly the cheaper stay, though neither is a budget city. Weekends are the bargain there, when the business hotels empty, and frites, immigrant-quarter cooking and good-value beer keep daily spending down.

In Basel nearly everything costs Swiss prices, from rooms and meals to museum entry, and rooms become scarce during the big trade fairs. The free transport card helps, and so does slipping over the border to eat or even to sleep.

Brussels has the slightly broader stage. La Monnaie has adventurous opera and a place in Belgian history, Bozar and Flagey host major orchestras, and the Queen Elisabeth Competition is a fixture each spring. Add contemporary dance and theatre in two languages, plus rock tours.

Basel is impressively serious for its size, with bold work at Theater Basel, the fine Stadtcasino hall and a strong early-music tradition. Its season goes quiet in high summer.

Basel is the better place to unwind, mostly because of what lies just beyond it. The saline baths at Rheinfelden are a short train ride away. Over the German border, Badenweiler and Bad Krozingen have warm mineral pools and saunas, and Baden-Baden is within reach if you give it the whole day. Back in town, slow Sundays and the river steps set an unhurried rhythm that Brussels rarely matches.

Brussels has nothing like that spa country close by. Its own spa town is too far for an easy outing. The closest it comes to a bathing culture is the North African hammams, along with a swim in one of its Art Deco pools. Rest there comes more from lingering at the table and from green space, chiefly the beech woods on the city's south-eastern edge, and the noise of a busy capital is never far off.