Basel or Milan?

Neither city has a beach, but Basel has something Milan lacks: a river you can swim in right through the centre. On summer afternoons people float down the Rhine past the old town and dry off on the gravel banks, though the current is only for confident swimmers.

In the city itself, Milan has the Idroscalo basin and its public pools. Proper swimming means a train to the pebbly lidos of Lake Como or Lake Maggiore, about an hour away. That makes a lovely outing, but it takes a whole day, where in Basel you can swim in a spare hour after the museums.

Milan is a city worth travelling to for food. Its own rich, buttery cooking, from saffron risotto to ossobuco, comes alongside some of the best regional Italian cooking in the country, and aperitivo turns the early evening into a meal of its own.

Basel eats well, but much of its menu comes from Alsace and Baden, and Läckerli and the browned-flour soup of Fasnacht are among its few local dishes. The Markthalle is its best casual stop, and everyday restaurants can feel expensive for what arrives on the plate.

Milan's best sights carry more weight: Leonardo's Last Supper, the Duomo with its rooftop among the spires, the Brera collection and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà in the Castello Sforzesco. They come in clusters, though, spread across a largely modern city.

Basel has a great deal for a city its size, from Holbein at the Kunstmuseum to the Fondation Beyeler and the Vitra campus. Its old town around the Münster and up the Spalenberg is also more complete as a place to wander. Milan has the bigger names, and Basel has the more unbroken historic centre.

Milan has far more going on after dark. Aperitivo along the Navigli carries on into the bars that line the canals. Isola and Porta Venezia are relaxed and mixed, and the clubs range from dressy venues around Corso Como to warehouse nights on the edge of the city.

Basel's evenings are quieter. In summer they centre on the riverside buvettes, and the rest of the year on the bars around the Kaserne and Rheingasse. Its one big exception is Fasnacht, three days of drums, piccolos and lanterns that begin at four in the morning, and Milan has nothing like it.

Both cities sit on flat ground, and in both the good scenery is a train ride away, but the scenery is different. Basel looks out to the wooded hills of the Jura, the Black Forest and the Vosges, with gentle marked trails and flat Rhine cycle paths into Germany and France.

Milan's outdoors is steeper and has more water. Lake Como and Lake Maggiore offer ferries, sailing and lakeside paths, the Grigne ridges above Lecco have hard hiking and via ferrata, and in winter there is proper skiing in the Valtellina for a long day out.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference lies in where the trains take you. From Basel you cross borders: the Alsace wine villages and Colmar, Freiburg in Germany, then Lucerne, Bern and Zurich, each about an hour away.

From Milan you stay mostly in northern Italy, which has a longer list of famous cities: Bergamo, Verona, Turin and Bologna on fast trains, plus the villages of Lake Como and the Borromean Islands. Basel gives you three countries, and Milan gives you more big-name towns.

Basel is the easier of the two with children. The Zolli is a short walk from the station, the river ferries are a treat for younger children, and the small, safe centre is easy with a pram on the trams.

Milan has the Science and Technology Museum with its submarine and trains, and Parco Sempione has playgrounds, but most of the big sights are for adults and summer is hot. For a big day out, both rely on theme parks: Europa-Park from Basel, and Leolandia or Gardaland from Milan.

Basel is about as simple as a city gets. Both banks of the Rhine are walkable, the green trams cover the rest and even cross into Germany and France, and hotel guests travel free.

Milan works well too, with a flat, walkable centre, five clear metro lines and its old orange trams. But the heat in the metro in summer and the long trip in from Malpensa make it harder going than Basel.

In Milan, shopping is a reason to come, and in Basel it is not. Milan has the flagships of the great Italian houses in the Quadrilatero, the old shops of the Galleria, La Rinascente beside the Duomo and design showrooms across the city, plus vintage shops in Porta Ticinese and antique markets on the Navigli.

Basel's shopping is tidy and limited: watches, chocolate and chains on Freie Strasse, small craft and design shops on the Spalenberg, and a pretty Christmas market around the Münster.

Neither city is cheap, but Basel is much harder on a budget, with Swiss prices for rooms, meals, drinks and museums. Free transport for hotel guests and cheaper meals over the border in Germany or France help a little.

Milan is expensive by Italian standards rather than by Swiss ones, and aperitivo snacks, set lunch menus for office workers and fairly priced public transport bring the cost down further. In both cities rooms get scarce during the big fairs, Art Basel in one and the fashion weeks in the other.

Milan has La Scala, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, and around it the Piccolo Teatro, a fine symphony orchestra at the Auditorium and big summer concerts at San Siro.

Basel takes its stage seriously for its size, with Theater Basel's bold opera and ballet, the Stadtcasino's fine acoustics and a strong early-music tradition, but everything happens on a smaller scale. In both cities, opera and classical music go quiet in summer.

Basel is the more restful city, with quiet Sundays and a riverside made for doing nothing. The saline thermal baths at Rheinfelden are about twenty minutes away, and the German spa towns of southern Baden are close behind.

Milan has a thermal spa complex in the city and the restored Bagni Misteriosi pools in summer, but the city moves at a working pace, and for real rest most visitors leave for the lakes.