Basel or Paris?

Neither city has a beach, but Basel has the better swimming. Floating down the Rhine past the Münster with your clothes in a waterproof swim bag is a real summer ritual, and the water is often above 20°C in August. The current is strong, so it is a thing for confident swimmers.

Paris offers a summer cool-off rather than a swim worth travelling for. It has sand laid along the riverbanks, swimming spots on the Bassin de la Villette and in the Seine, and handsome Art Deco pools. Its nearest real sea is the cool Channel at Deauville, about two hours away.

Basel eats well but narrowly. Its own specialities are few: Läckerli biscuits, the browned-flour soup of Fasnacht and riverside sausages in summer. Restaurants borrow tarte flambée from Alsace and wines from Baden, and everyday meals feel expensive for what they are. The Markthalle is the best casual stop, and many locals cross the border to eat in the wine villages.

Paris is a city people plan whole trips around eating in. It has zinc-counter bistros and haute cuisine, natural-wine bars and inventive neo-bistros in the eastern arrondissements, couscous in Belleville and pho in the Asian quarter to the south-east. Every neighbourhood has its bakery, cheese shop and market mornings, so eating well takes no effort at all.

Basel is a fine museum city for its size. The Kunstmuseum's Holbeins, the Fondation Beyeler in its Renzo Piano building and the Museum Tinguely could each justify a day, and the red sandstone Münster and the Spalenberg lanes give the old town real charm. Three or four days covers it.

Paris works on another level. The Louvre alone could fill a week, and the Orsay, the Orangerie, the Sainte-Chapelle and the Marais townhouses all come on top. The trade-off is queues and booking ahead, which Basel's museums rarely ask of you.

Basel's going out is gentle and seasonal. In summer people drink on the steps by the riverside buvettes on the Kleinbasel bank, there are bars around the Kaserne, and a few clubs play in harbour buildings at weekends. Its one great blow-out is Fasnacht, three days of drums and lanterns that start at four in the morning.

Paris offers far more on any ordinary night. Bars fill Oberkampf, Belleville and the Canal Saint-Martin, Pigalle has its cocktails, and the Marais has its gay scene. When the bars close around 2am, clubs and summer barges carry on until dawn.

Basel has the stronger countryside on its doorstep. The Jura begins just south of the city, and the Black Forest's Feldberg and the Vosges are about an hour away, with good trails, winter walks and some light skiing. The Rhine paths make easy cycling into Germany and France.

Paris is a city of gardens and woods. The Buttes-Chaumont, the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes serve for runs and rowing, and Fontainebleau's boulders and oak forest are forty minutes out. It is pleasant, but the land around it is flat and tame by comparison.

Both are superb bases, and Paris has a slightly deeper list. Its trips are mostly about France at its grandest: Versailles, Chartres, Monet's garden at Giverny, Champagne in Reims, and the Loire châteaux from Tours.

Basel's appeal is that one week takes you through three countries. It offers the Alsace wine villages and Colmar, Freiburg and the Black Forest, then Lucerne, Bern and the Rhine Falls back in Switzerland. Its short train rides mean less time in transit for each outing.

Paris has much more to fill a family week. It has Disneyland and Parc Astérix, the hands-on Cité des Sciences, the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and carousels and toy sailboats in the Luxembourg. The cost is everyday hassle: metro stairs with a pushchair, small hotel rooms and long queues.

Basel is the reverse, easy but quickly exhausted. It is small, safe and simple to handle with a pram on its trams, and the Zolli is one of Europe's best zoos. After the zoo, the Natural History Museum and the current-pulled ferries, the big outing is Europa-Park, about an hour away by car.

Both are easy to get around, in different ways. Basel is small enough that its green trams and walkable riverbanks cover everything, and hotel guests ride free. Some lines even cross the border, and the main station sends direct trains into three countries.

Paris is a great walking city backed by a metro that is dense but demanding. It has long corridors, stairs without lifts, packed lines at rush hour and pickpockets on the tourist routes. In Basel, none of that is an issue.

Basel's shopping fits into an afternoon. Freie Strasse and Gerbergasse have Swiss watches, chocolatiers and the usual chains, and Spalenberg adds a few design and craft shops. The Christmas market around the Münster is the prettiest reason to shop there in December, and many locals do their high-street buying in Germany.

In Paris, shopping alone can carry a whole trip. The great fashion houses have their flagships on Avenue Montaigne, Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché are worth visiting just for the buildings, and the Marais is full of independent designers and vintage shops. Beyond fashion, there are the covered passages, the Saint-Ouen flea market and the bouquinistes' green boxes along the Seine.

Neither is cheap, but Basel is harder on the wallet. Hotels, meals, drinks and museum tickets all cost Swiss prices, and rooms become scarce during the big trade fairs. The free transport card and cheaper meals over the border in Germany and France soften it a little.

Paris gives a careful traveller more ways to save. It has free permanent collections in the city's own museums, bakeries and markets for lunch, picnics by the river, and cheaper rooms in the outer arrondissements.

Paris has the bigger and broader stage. It offers ballet at the Palais Garnier, opera at the Bastille, the Philharmonie, chamber music in the Sainte-Chapelle, cellar jazz around the rue des Lombards and cabaret in Pigalle. Much of its theatre is in French, though.

Basel punches above its size. Theater Basel is known well beyond Switzerland for bold opera and ballet, the Stadtcasino has fine acoustics, and there is a strong early-music tradition. It falls quiet in July and August, when the river takes over.

Basel is the more restful choice. The city runs at an easy pace, Sundays are quiet, and the Rhine banks are made for idling. The saline thermal baths at Rheinfelden are about twenty minutes away, and German spa towns such as Badenweiler are just over the border.

Paris is fast and loud, and you find rest in pockets: the tiled hammam of the Grande Mosquée, an hour on a café terrace, a chair in the Luxembourg gardens.