Berlin or Munich?

Neither city has a coast, but Berlin makes more of its water. Strandbad Wannsee, with its long sandy shore and wicker beach chairs, and forest lakes such as Schlachtensee and Plötzensee are inside the city and reached by S-Bahn or bus, so you can fit a swim around an afternoon of sightseeing.

Munich's swimming lakes, the Starnberger See and the Ammersee, are a trip out of town of under an hour, and the Isar's gravel banks are better for sunbathing than swimming. The alpine-fed water also feels fresher. In both cities a swim is a bonus for July and August.

Both cities eat heartily, but in different directions. Berlin's strength is range: Turkish bakeries and grill houses in Kreuzberg and Neukölln, good Vietnamese, Levantine and Korean cooking, street-food evenings in the market halls and natural wine bars, with currywurst as the local signature.

Munich does one tradition thoroughly. Roast pork with crackling, white sausage before noon and Obatzda come with Helles in the beer halls and the beer gardens under the chestnut trees, and the Viktualienmarkt is the place to graze. Go to Munich for Bavaria at the table and to Berlin for the world.

Berlin's sights are as much about history as art. Museum Island holds Nefertiti and the Pergamon collections, and the Gemäldegalerie matches Munich's Alte Pinakothek for old masters. Above all, the twentieth century is told at the places where it happened: the Reichstag, the Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the socialist boulevard of Karl-Marx-Allee. That gives Berlin the edge.

Munich's strength is its royal collections, spread across the city. The Residenz is in the centre, Nymphenburg is out to the west, the Kunstareal museums are in Maxvorstadt and the Deutsches Museum sits on its island in the Isar. The old town around Marienplatz and the Frauenkirche hangs together better than Berlin's patchy centre, though much of it was rebuilt after the war, and a visit here feels lighter.

This is where the two cities differ most. Berlin's techno clubs in old power stations and warehouses draw people from around the world, with no fixed closing hours, parties running into Monday and strict doors. Behind them is a deep layer of Kneipen in Neukölln and Wedding and canal-side drinking in Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg.

In Munich, an evening usually starts in a beer hall and ends there too. The Glockenbachviertel has good cocktail and gay bars and a few clubs keep going at weekends, but many districts are quiet by midnight. The city only really lets go at the Oktoberfest.

Munich has the Alps on its skyline and the foothills about an hour away. That means a city trip can include summer hiking around Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Zugspitze, skiing in winter, or sailing on the Five Lakes. Even in town, surfers ride the Eisbach wave at the edge of the English Garden.

Berlin's green spaces are pleasant but flat: the Tiergarten, the runways of Tempelhof, the Grunewald and the Havel lakes, and canoeing in Brandenburg's lake country. They are good for cycling the Wall Trail, not for anyone who wants a climb.

Munich is the better base by some way. Salzburg and Innsbruck are just across the border, Nuremberg, Regensburg and Augsburg are each a simple train ride away, and Neuschwanstein and the island palace of Herrenchiemsee make the classic castle days.

Berlin's best excursion is excellent: Potsdam and Sanssouci are only half an hour away. Wittenberg, Leipzig, Dresden and the Spreewald fill a few more days, but after those the choice runs out quickly.

Both cities are easy with children and full of playgrounds, so the difference is in how the days are spent. Berlin has two zoos, the Zoologischer Garten with its aquarium and the vast Tierpark, plus the dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum and the trains and planes of the Museum of Technology.

Munich pairs the Deutsches Museum and the Hellabrunn zoo with beer gardens that have their own playgrounds. Legoland Deutschland is also within driving distance, which Berlin has no match for.

Both cities have integrated networks of U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses on flat streets that suit cycling, and in neither is a car worth having. The difference is scale. Munich's main sights sit together in a compact, largely pedestrianised old town, and regional trains run out to the lakes and mountains.

Berlin is spread across several separate centres, Mitte, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Charlottenburg, so you will ride between them, although the trains run all night at weekends.

Neither city is far ahead, but they suit different shoppers. Munich is the place for luxury, with the big houses on Maximilianstrasse, and for Tracht: dirndls and lederhosen from specialist tailors. In December the Christmas markets add craft stalls.

Berlin is better for rummaging. The Sunday flea markets at Mauerpark and Boxhagener Platz sell East German curios, vinyl and old furniture, and Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg have vintage, record and book shops.

Berlin is easier on the wallet. Its hotels are cheaper than in most big capitals, and cheap food, from döner to Vietnamese canteens, is easy to find. Museum entry and fine dining still add up on a trip full of culture.

Munich is Germany's most expensive city, and the room is where you feel it most, especially during the Oktoberfest and the trade fairs. Picnics in beer gardens, free parks and lakes, and token museum fees on Sundays bring the bill down a little but do not close the gap.

Both cities take opera and orchestral music very seriously, but Berlin has more going on and more variety. It keeps three opera houses running, while Munich has one leading company and an operetta house, and the Berlin Philharmonic is one of the great orchestras of the world. Berlin's lead grows away from the concert halls. Jazz cellars, rock venues and experimental music spaces mean a quiet weeknight still offers a real choice, and the Friedrichstadt-Palast revue needs no German at all.

Munich has fewer stages, but they are very polished. The Bavarian State Opera in the National Theatre is one of the world's leading companies and has a long-established summer festival, three orchestras of real standing share halls such as the Herkulessaal, and chamber opera in the gilded rococo Cuvilliés Theatre is an occasion in itself. Drama is the same story in both cities: the Berliner Ensemble and the Schaubühne, like the Residenztheater and the Kammerspiele, play in German, so visitors who don't speak it will get most from the music and the opera.

Munich has the edge. The Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad has a Roman-style steam bath, the huge thermal complex at Erding is about forty minutes away, and spa towns such as Bad Tölz lie towards the mountains. Lazy afternoons on the lawns of the English Garden help too.

Berlin has no springs of its own, but its sauna complexes keep up the German infusion ritual, and the columned halls of the Stadtbad Neukölln are a fine place to swim and sweat. For thermal water you travel about an hour into Brandenburg.