Berlin or Wroclaw?

Neither city has a sea, and the Baltic is a long way from both. Lake swimming makes the difference: Berlin has real bathing lakes inside the city, from the long sandy shore of the Wannsee lido to Schlachtensee and Plötzensee, all reachable by S-Bahn and pleasant to swim in during high summer.

Wroclaw's Oder beaches are deckchairs and drinks stands by the river, made for lounging rather than swimming, so a dip means an outdoor pool or a trip out to a reservoir in the countryside.

Berlin wins on range. Turkish bakeries and grill houses in Kreuzberg and Neukölln, good Vietnamese and Korean cooking, street-food evenings in the market halls and a serious fine-dining tier mean you can eat something different every night.

Wroclaw is narrower and more traditional: pierogi, żurek in its bread bowl, roast duck and cheap canteen lunches in the milk bars, with brewpubs in old cellars as the best of the drinking. It is hearty and satisfying, but you eat Polish for most of the trip, and the Market Square terraces are better for the view than the plate.

Berlin has far more to see. The five museums of Museum Island, with Nefertiti and the Pergamon collections, the old masters of the Gemäldegalerie, and the twentieth century told on the spot at the Reichstag, the Holocaust memorial and the Wall on Bernauer Strasse could fill a week. What it lacks is a handsome old core.

That is exactly where Wroclaw is strong. The great Market Square with its Gothic town hall, the brick lanes of Ostrów Tumski at lamplighting time and the gilded Aula Leopoldina make a beautiful walk, and the Centennial Hall and the Racławice Panorama add more. But it is a city of two or three days for sights, where Berlin keeps going much longer.

Berlin is in another class. Its techno clubs in old power stations and factories, with strict doors and parties running from Saturday night into Monday, are the reason many people visit at all, and the corner Kneipen of Neukölln and the bars of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg are just as deep.

Wroclaw offers a good student night out instead: drifting between the small bars in the courtyard passage off Ruska Street and the cellars around the square until after 2am. Its clubs are modest, though, and the town goes quiet between university terms.

Both are flat cities with plenty of green, so the difference lies in what surrounds them. Berlin's outdoors is water and woodland: sailing on the Havel lakes, walks in the Grunewald, paddling on the Müggelsee, the long Berlin Wall Trail by bike and cycling on the old Tempelhof runways.

Wroclaw has its river islands and Szczytnicki Park with the Japanese Garden in town, but its advantage is hills within reach. Ślęża is a half-day climb, and the Karkonosze and the sandstone Table Mountains, about two hours away, offer real hiking and winter skiing that Berlin cannot match.

Berlin edges it, mainly thanks to Potsdam: the Sanssouci palaces and gardens are half an hour away by train and fill a whole day. Fast trains also make Wittenberg, Leipzig and even Dresden easy outings without a car.

Wroclaw's trips are more rural and romantic: Książ castle above its wooded gorge, the wooden Churches of Peace at Świdnica and Jawor, and the Baroque abbey at Krzeszów. They are rewarding, but spread out, so a hire car helps if you want to combine several in one day.

Berlin gives children more to do. Two large zoos, the towering dinosaur in the Natural History Museum, the trains and planes of the Museum of Technology and dedicated children's museums can fill a week, and prams cope easily on the flat streets and trains.

Wroclaw is easy and safe with children, and hunting for the bronze dwarfs, the shark tunnel in the Afrykarium and the summer fountain shows by the Centennial Hall are real treats. After a few days, though, the list runs short.

Berlin's U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses cross a big city quickly on one ticket, with trains through the night at weekends, and you will use them, because Mitte, Kreuzberg and Charlottenburg are separate centres some way apart.

Wroclaw works the other way round. Most sights sit in a compact, partly pedestrianised centre you can cover on foot, but the trams beyond it are slow at rush hour, and the castles and mountain villages are much easier by car.

Berlin has much more to browse. The big brands of the Kurfürstendamm, the KaDeWe food hall, young designers around Hackescher Markt and the Sunday flea markets at Mauerpark and Boxhagener Platz, good for vinyl and East German curios, make shopping a real part of the trip.

Wroclaw is mostly malls, though the 1930s Renoma building is worth seeing for its ceramic facade. Its better finds are things to take home: Bolesławiec blue-and-white stoneware, Baltic amber and little dwarf figurines.

Wroclaw is clearly the cheaper trip. Central hotels cost a fraction of Western capital rates, a milk bar lunch and a beer are very cheap, and trams, museums and the zoo are modestly priced; only the terraces on the square charge more.

Berlin is reasonable for a capital, and döner, Vietnamese canteens and corner bars keep everyday meals cheap. Museum tickets, fine dining and hotel rates during trade fairs add up much faster, though.

Berlin is one of the great stage cities: three opera houses, the Berlin Philharmonic in Scharoun's Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus on the Gendarmenmarkt and the Friedrichstadt-Palast revue, with jazz cellars and experimental venues on top.

Wroclaw does well for its size, with a full concert season at the National Forum of Music, an opera house by the moat and festivals such as Wratislavia Cantans and Jazz on the Oder. In both cities most theatre is in the local language, so music and opera are the easiest way in for visitors.

Berlin has a real sauna culture, with large clothes-free sauna complexes offering infusion rituals and quiet rest rooms, and the columned halls of the Stadtbad Neukölln for an atmospheric swim. Slow Sunday mornings in café gardens are part of local life.

Wroclaw has hotel spas and an aquapark with saunas, but no bathing tradition of its own. Both have spring-water resorts about an hour out; Wroclaw's are the old Lower Silesian spa towns such as Szczawno-Zdrój, with pump rooms and spa parks in the Central European style.