Berlin or Amsterdam?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Berlin offers better swimming. Its lakes, from the historic lido at Wannsee to the forest waters of Schlachtensee and the Müggelsee, warm to about 20-23°C in high summer, and Berliners spend hot afternoons in them.

Amsterdam has the real coastline, with long sand and dunes at Zandvoort and Bloemendaal half an hour away by train. The North Sea stays cold and windy, though, so it is a place to walk rather than swim, and the city's own swimming at IJburg and the Sloterplas is a summer-weekend extra.

Berlin has the wider choice. Decades of Turkish migration have filled Kreuzberg and Neukölln with grill houses and bakeries, Vietnamese and Korean cooking is everywhere, and market halls, beer gardens and a serious fine-dining scene fill out the rest.

Amsterdam's strength lies more in drinking than in eating. The brown cafés with their sanded floors, the old jenever tasting rooms and the early-evening borrel with bitterballen are things Berlin cannot match. For food, look for Indonesian rijsttafel and Surinamese roti in De Pijp and Oost, and avoid the tourist menus around Damrak.

Both are first-rate for culture, but you visit them for different things. In Amsterdam the city itself is the main sight: the 17th-century canal ring with its merchant houses, Rembrandt's Night Watch and the Van Gogh collection around the Museumplein, and the Anne Frank House. It is all close together and can be seen properly in a few days.

Berlin's appeal lies in its collections and in recent history. Museum Island holds the bust of Nefertiti and the Pergamon antiquities, and the Gemäldegalerie rivals the Rijksmuseum for old masters. What sets the city apart is seeing the twentieth century where it happened, at the Wall Memorial, the Reichstag and Karl-Marx-Allee, even though its cityscape is patchier than Amsterdam's.

Berlin is in a different league. Its techno clubs in old power stations and warehouses have no fixed closing hours, and parties run from Saturday into Monday behind strict doors. Around them, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Neukölln have bars open at almost any hour.

Amsterdam has a strong electronic music scene of its own, with several all-night clubs in Noord and the Amsterdam Dance Event every October. For most visitors, though, the best of it is a candlelit brown café or a canal-side terrace in the Jordaan, and on weekdays most bars close around one.

Both are flat and the outdoors is gentle, so the difference is in the type of landscape. Amsterdam's countryside is polders, dykes and windmills, best seen by bike in Waterland just across the IJ, with dunes and grazing bison at Zuid-Kennemerland near the coast.

Berlin has more woodland and water. The Grunewald and the Havel lakes are good for long walks and sailing, the Tempelhof runways are open for cycling and kite-surfing, and the Wall Trail and Brandenburg's lake country are good for paddling and multi-day rides.

Amsterdam is the far better base for day trips. The Netherlands is small and its trains are frequent, so Haarlem is a quarter of an hour away. Leiden, Delft, Utrecht, The Hague with Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, and Rotterdam are all an easy hop, and Antwerp is under two hours.

Berlin has one outstanding outing, Potsdam, whose Sanssouci palaces and gardens can fill a whole day. Leipzig, Wittenberg and the Spreewald are worth the journey, and Dresden makes a long day. After that, the choices thin out quickly.

Both work well with children, and the main difference is what you need to watch out for. Amsterdam offers the NEMO science museum, the old Artis zoo, pancake houses and canal boats, but fast bikes and unfenced canal edges mean you have to keep hold of small children, and canal houses often have steep stairs.

Berlin has two large zoos, a dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum and trains and planes at the Museum of Technology. Its wide pavements and lakeside parks are easier with a pram, although some of its history is heavy going for young ones.

Both are easy to get around, but at a different scale. Amsterdam's flat centre is small enough to walk, trams cover the canal ring and the museum quarter, and free ferries cross the IJ. The real adjustment is the volume of bikes.

Berlin is a large city made up of several centres, with Mitte, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Charlottenburg each walkable on its own. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn link them quickly on one ticket and run all night at weekends. Its wide bike lanes are calmer for visitors on two wheels.

Both cities are good for independent shops, and they differ in what you come home with. Amsterdam is stronger at the polished end, with the Nine Streets boutiques, the luxury labels on PC Hooftstraat, and Delft blue, cheese and bulbs from the floating Bloemenmarkt.

Berlin is better for second-hand finds. Its Sunday flea markets at Mauerpark and Boxhagener Platz turn up vinyl, East German curios and old furniture, and KaDeWe's food hall is a sight in its own right. It has less luxury and fewer traditional crafts than Amsterdam.

Berlin is much easier on the wallet. Its hotels are cheaper than those of most big capitals, and döner, Vietnamese canteens and corner bars make eating cheaply simple. Rates do climb during trade fairs and on summer weekends.

Amsterdam is one of Europe's costlier stays. Rooms near the canal ring are expensive, a substantial tourist tax comes on top, and the good-value options book up early. Staying in Haarlem or Utrecht and walking or cycling a lot are the main ways to keep costs down.

Berlin has far more on stage. It has three full opera houses, the Berlin Philharmonic in Scharoun's Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus and a deep circuit of jazz cellars and experimental venues. Even with most plays in German, there is opera, dance or the Friedrichstadt-Palast revue to see on any night.

Amsterdam's highlight is a single great hall, the Concertgebouw, with its famous acoustics. Opera and ballet on the Amstel, the Bimhuis for jazz, and Paradiso and the Melkweg for touring bands round it out, along with the Holland Festival in June.

Berlin is better for unwinding. Its large sauna complexes offer infusion rituals and quiet rest rooms, the columned halls of Stadtbad Neukölln make for an atmospheric swim, and Brandenburg's thermal resorts are about an hour away. Slow Sunday mornings in café gardens are part of local life.

Amsterdam has good day spas on its outskirts, but no bathhouse tradition. The calm moments come from an early walk along a quiet canal or a ferry across the IJ, because the centre is crowded with visitors and bikes for most of the year.