Berlin or Karlovy Vary?

Neither has a sea, but Berlin at least has proper lake bathing. There is Strandbad Wannsee with its sandy shore and wicker chairs, the Müggelsee, and forest lakes such as Schlachtensee that you can reach by S-Bahn. In July and August a swim fits easily into a city day.

In Karlovy Vary, swimming mostly means a pool, though some are warm and fed by the springs. The nearest open water is Lake Medard, a flooded mine near Sokolov, about half an hour away.

Berlin has far more variety. There are Turkish grill houses and bakeries in Kreuzberg and Neukölln, plenty of Vietnamese and Levantine cooking, street-food evenings in the market halls and a serious fine-dining tier, so you could eat something different at every meal.

Karlovy Vary sticks to hearty Czech cooking: roast pork, dumplings and svíčková with Pilsner-style beer. Its own specialities are the warm spa wafers and Becherovka, which is still distilled in town. It is lovely for cake and coffee on the promenade, but a few days covers it.

Berlin has much more to see. Museum Island holds five museums, the Gemäldegalerie has its old masters, and the Wall Memorial, the Reichstag and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe tell the twentieth century's story where it happened. You could spend a week without running out.

Karlovy Vary is a single, coherent sight rather than a collection. Pastel Belle Époque hotels climb the valley sides, and the colonnades and the Vřídlo geyser sit below them, all listed by UNESCO among the Great Spa Towns of Europe. The town is prettier than patchy Berlin, but its museums are small and a day or two is enough.

This is where the two differ most. Berlin's techno clubs fill old power stations and warehouses, and parties run from Saturday night into Monday. Away from the clubs, the smoky Kneipen of Neukölln and the summer beers along the canal mean there is always somewhere open.

Karlovy Vary is mostly asleep by eleven, with hotel bars, Czech pubs and casinos. Only the film festival week in early summer brings parties and outdoor bars to the valley.

Karlovy Vary has the better outdoors on its doorstep. Beech and spruce forest rises straight out of the spa quarter, and graded paths lead up to the Diana tower and the stag-leap rock. The Ore Mountains, about forty minutes away, offer hiking in summer and skiing at Klínovec in winter.

Berlin's green spaces are flat: the Tiergarten, the old runways of Tempelhof, the Grunewald and the Havel lakes, with the Wall Trail for cycling. They are fine for a bike ride or a sail, but there are no hills to climb.

Both towns have a good handful of outings, but of different kinds. From Berlin the trips lean towards history and other cities: Potsdam's palaces half an hour away, then Wittenberg and Leipzig, and Dresden for a longer day.

From Karlovy Vary the trips are smaller and closer. Loket's castle is twenty minutes away, the sister spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně are about an hour, there is the medieval reliquary at Bečov nad Teplou, and Plzeň has its beer. Prague is possible, but it makes a long day.

Berlin is much easier with children. It has two large zoos, the towering dinosaur at the Natural History Museum and the hands-on Museum of Technology, as well as playgrounds everywhere and flat streets for prams.

Karlovy Vary is safe and clean, and children enjoy the geyser, the funicular and the spa wafers, but those fill an afternoon or two. The town is built for adults taking cures, and the steep valley sides are hard work with a pushchair.

In Berlin, the U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams share one ticket, trains run through the night at weekends, and the flat streets suit cycling, so a big city is easy to cross. Its separate centres mean you will ride between neighbourhoods rather than walk.

Karlovy Vary is small enough to explore on foot along the promenades, with buses and the funicular for the climbs. Its weakness is getting further afield: regional trains are slow and the coach to Prague takes two hours, so a car helps for the villages and forests.

Berlin is the place to rummage, and Karlovy Vary the place to buy one good piece to take home. Berlin's Sunday flea markets at Mauerpark and Boxhagener Platz turn up vinyl, old furniture and East German curios. The Kurfürstendamm and KaDeWe's food hall cover the big names, and young designers cluster around Hackescher Markt.

Karlovy Vary's shops line two promenades, Stará louka and Tržiště, and much of what they sell is spa cups, wafers and Becherovka. The real finds are Moser crystal from its own showroom, Karlovy Vary porcelain and Bohemian garnets. Beyond those the range is small.

Karlovy Vary is the somewhat cheaper stay if you step one street back from the colonnades. There, pubs and canteens serve Czech food and beer at local prices. The springs and promenades cost little or nothing to enjoy, though festival week is the dearest time to book.

Berlin is mid-priced for a capital. Döner and Vietnamese canteens keep everyday meals cheap, but museum tickets and fine dining add up on a culture-heavy trip.

Berlin is one of the world's great cities for the stage. It has three opera houses, the Berlin Philharmonic in Scharoun's Philharmonie, the Berliner Ensemble and a deep circuit of jazz and experimental music. Most plays are in German, but opera and dance need no translation.

Karlovy Vary offers a pleasant evening out rather than a scene. The symphony orchestra plays light classical concerts, some of them outdoors on the colonnades in summer, and touring operetta comes to the Fellner and Helmer theatre.

Here Karlovy Vary is in a different league. Thirteen springs feed the colonnades, and the spa hotels and sanatoria offer carbonated baths, peat wraps and doctors' consultations. The whole day slows down to walking between the springs with a spouted cup.

What Berlin has is a solid German sauna culture, mixed and clothes-free, and the columned halls of Stadtbad Neukölln are the most atmospheric place to try it. For spring water you would have to go an hour out into Brandenburg.