Bergamo or Frankfurt?

Neither city has a coast, but Bergamo has the better summer water. Lake Iseo and the Lecco arm of Lake Como have lidos and grassy shores that reach about 23°C by July, though you swim from pebble or concrete platforms rather than sand.

Frankfurt has only outdoor pools and gravel-pit lakes such as the Langener Waldsee. Its sandy shore is pleasant on a hot day, but it is a local swim, nothing like a day at an Alpine lake.

Bergamo has a slight edge at the table, and its cooking is the more distinctive: casoncelli in butter and sage, polenta with braised game, and valley cheeses like Taleggio and Strachitunt sold from the counters of the upper town. Valcalepio and Franciacorta round it off, though there is little beyond Italian food.

Frankfurt's own repertoire is smaller, apple wine with Grüne Soße at long tables in Sachsenhausen, but the city makes up for it with variety. Turkish, Asian and Italian kitchens and the cheap global food of the Bahnhofsviertel give you far more choice from night to night.

Bergamo has the stronger sights, because the Città Alta is a real survivor: an almost complete walled town inside its Venetian fortifications, with the Cappella Colleoni and Santa Maria Maggiore around Piazza Vecchia. The Accademia Carrara adds Raphael and Bellini, and the whole visit fits into a day or two.

Frankfurt's appeal is its museums rather than its streets. The Städel and the Senckenberg anchor the Museumsufer, while the Römer and the old-town lanes were rebuilt after 1944. It offers more breadth of collections, but less sense of place.

Frankfurt is clearly the better night out. Together with Offenbach it has a serious techno and house club scene, cocktail bars in the rough-edged Bahnhofsviertel and relaxed bars along Berger Straße. Weekends are when it is busiest.

Bergamo's evening is a long aperitivo, a glass of wine on Via XX Settembre or the walls of the upper town, and bed around midnight. Locals who want clubs go to Milan.

Bergamo is the place for real landscape. Woodland paths climb straight from the upper town into the Colli park, and Val Brembana and Val Seriana lead into the Orobie Alps, with rifugi, high lakes and the Serio falls. The two lakes add sailing and lakeside cycling, though a car helps for the higher valleys.

Frankfurt's countryside is gentler and easier to reach without a car. There is beech forest and Roman frontier trails on the Großer Feldberg, the large Stadtwald, and flat cycle paths along the Main, all by S-Bahn.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is in what lies around them. From Bergamo, the outings are Lombard: Milan's Duomo and Last Supper within an hour, Lake Como and car-free Monte Isola, then Cremona, Verona and Mantua further out.

Frankfurt has the faster rail network and a longer list. Heidelberg, the castle-lined Rhine Gorge, Cologne Cathedral and Würzburg's Residenz are all within about an hour or so. Pick by whether you would rather spend your days among Italian lakes and art cities or along the German Rhine.

Frankfurt is the easier city with children. The dinosaur hall at the Senckenberg, a central zoo, the Palmengarten glasshouses and boat trips past the skyline are all close together, and trams take a pushchair without trouble.

Bergamo charms children with its funiculars and gelato on the walls, but the cobbled upper town is hard going with a buggy. Its best family days, Leolandia and the Le Cornelle wildlife park, are outside the city.

Frankfurt is simpler to get around. Its U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams form one network reaching as far as the Taunus and Mainz, and the airport is a quarter of an hour from the centre by train.

Bergamo is small and walkable on each of its two levels, with funiculars linking the lower town, the Città Alta and San Vigilio. Getting between them on foot is a steep climb, though, and the mountain valleys and lake shores are much easier with a car.

Frankfurt gives shoppers more range: chains and malls on the Zeil, luxury jewellers around Goethestraße, and design shops and delis on Berger Straße and Schweizer Straße. Even so, nothing in it is a reason to make the trip.

Bergamo's lower-town arcades are mainly mid-range chains. The real pleasure is the Città Alta's main lane of cheese shops, bakeries and wine sellers, which is ideal for edible souvenirs. For fashion, people take the train to Milan.

Bergamo is the gentler city on the wallet. Lower-town hotels are fair for what you get, and buses and the funicular cost little, although rooms inside the Città Alta and summer weekends cost more.

Frankfurt's hotels are aimed at business travellers and become scarce and very expensive in trade-fair weeks. Eating out in cider taverns and at Turkish grills is cheap, so the dates of your stay decide the bill more than anything else.

Frankfurt has the much fuller stage. A highly respected opera company with adventurous productions, concerts at the Alte Oper, serious drama at the Schauspiel, contemporary dance and jazz in cellar clubs keep the calendar busy from autumn to early summer.

Bergamo's stage life centres on Donizetti, its native composer. The Teatro Donizetti and its autumn festival are a draw for devoted opera lovers, and Bergamo Jazz brightens the spring. Otherwise the programme is that of a provincial city.

The two are evenly matched, and in both the real bathing is in spa towns outside the city. From Bergamo, it is the Belle Époque grandeur of San Pellegrino Terme up Val Brembana, or the old sulphur springs at Trescore Balneario. The quiet mornings in the Città Alta are relaxing in themselves.

Frankfurt's choice is wider and more German in style, with thermal baths and saunas at Bad Homburg and Wiesbaden's Art Nouveau Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme. In town, the Palmengarten is its calmest corner.