Black Forest or Cinque Terre?

Swimming in the Black Forest means a lake or an outdoor pool. Titisee and Schluchsee have small bathing beaches, but the water stays cool even in high summer. It is a pleasant extra after a walk, not a reason to come.

Cinque Terre has the open sea, clear and warm enough from June to September, although most of its shore is cliff. Monterosso is the one village with real sand and pebble at Fegina. Elsewhere you swim off the rock shelves below Manarola or from Vernazza's harbour, which is lovely for a quick dip but not for a lazy day on a beach.

The Black Forest eats better and more widely. Its cooking leans towards France, the village of Baiersbronn is known for its top-level restaurants, and country inns serve smoked ham, trout and venison. The wines of the Kaiserstuhl and Markgräflerland and the seasonal farm wine taverns make the region worth visiting for its food alone.

Cinque Terre has a few excellent things rather than a whole cuisine: trofie with pesto, focaccia, Monterosso's anchovies and the rare sweet Sciacchetrà. Many menus in the busiest villages are aimed at day-trippers, so the better meals are in Monterosso and the hilltop settlements.

The Black Forest gives you more to visit. Freiburg's red sandstone Minster and its car-free old town, the spa quarter of Baden-Baden, half-timbered Gengenbach and Schiltach, and the UNESCO-listed monastery at Maulbronn can fill several days, and the open-air museum at Gutach explains the farmhouses and cuckoo clocks.

In Cinque Terre, the sight is the whole coast: five villages stacked above the sea, ringed by dry-stone terraces. The striped parish churches and Vernazza's watchtower are modest, there are no real museums, and most people have seen it in a day or two.

Neither is a place for big nights out, but the Black Forest has an option that Cinque Terre lacks. In Freiburg, student pubs, wine bars and a few clubs keep the old town lively at weekends in term time, and Baden-Baden adds its casino. In Cinque Terre, the evening is a glass of white wine on a harbour wall at sunset, a few late bars in Monterosso and Riomaggiore, and the train to La Spezia for anything more.

Both are excellent for walkers, but the walking is very different. The Black Forest offers mountain forest on a large scale. You can climb the Feldberg for views to the Alps, follow the Westweg for days or explore the Wutach Gorge. Mountain biking is strong, and winter brings cross-country skiing.

Cinque Terre is coastal and compact. The Sentiero Azzurro runs along the cliffs between the villages, short but steep and stony, and the Sentiero Rosso follows the ridge above it. The marine reserve also lets you go out by kayak or dive among the grottoes, something the forest can't match.

The Black Forest has the wider reach because it sits where three countries meet. Basel and Strasbourg are each under an hour from a base in the region, Colmar and Riquewihr are an easy drive away, and Lake Constance with the Rhine Falls lies to the south-east. In a week you can see Swiss, French and German cities.

Cinque Terre's choice is also good, just narrower. Boats run to Portovenere, Pisa and Lucca are a train ride away, and Genoa and Portofino lie up the Riviera. Most of the variety is Italian coast and Tuscan towns.

The Black Forest is the much easier place with children. Europa-Park at Rust can fill several days, and the forest adds summer toboggan runs, treetop walks, cable cars and pedal boats on Titisee. Farm stays keep things simple, and the only real effort is the driving.

Cinque Terre is built of steps, so a pushchair is useless and summer trains are packed. With small children it only works from Monterosso, which is flat and has a gently shelving beach. Older children who like walking and swimming off rocks will enjoy it more.

Cinque Terre is simpler to get around without a car. A coastal train links all five villages a few minutes apart, ferries call at the harbours in season, and you can walk between villages. A car is a burden here. The downsides are crowded summer platforms and stairways that need sure feet.

In the Black Forest, the Rhine valley line and the scenic railways through Triberg and up to Titisee work well, and many hosts give guests a free local transport card. Beyond those lines buses are sparse, and combining lakes, waterfalls and small towns in a day really calls for a car on winding roads.

The Black Forest offers more, though it is still regional. You can buy cuckoo clocks and wood carvings around Triberg, browse the independent shops of Freiburg's old town or try the small upmarket fashion quarter in Baden-Baden. In Cinque Terre, the things worth bringing home are edible: pesto, jarred anchovies, lemon liqueur and the terraced wines, with nothing in the way of fashion or design.

The Black Forest is the gentler on the wallet. Family guesthouses and farm stays in the valleys are fairly priced, inn meals are filling and the free transport cards save real money, although Baden-Baden and the famous northern restaurants are expensive.

In Cinque Terre, rooms are the problem. Village rooms are few and small and much in demand in the visiting season, and the park paths charge an entry fee. Food and trains are cheap, so budget travellers often stay in La Spezia or Levanto and come in by train.

This is a real strength in the Black Forest and almost absent on the Ligurian coast. Baden-Baden's Festspielhaus, one of Germany's largest opera and concert halls, brings international orchestras and holds an Easter festival, and Freiburg adds its municipal theatre, a baroque ensemble and a summer tent festival.

Cinque Terre offers little beyond the odd church or village-square concert in summer and the bands at saints' day processions. For an opera or a play you have to go to La Spezia or Genoa.

Taking the waters has been the Black Forest's tradition for centuries. Baden-Baden has the domed Friedrichsbad and the Caracalla thermal baths, and smaller spa towns such as Badenweiler and Bad Wildbad lie nearby. Forest bathing trails and hotel saunas add to the slow pace.

Cinque Terre has no bathing culture beyond a massage in a guesthouse. Its calm comes from car-free villages and terraces above the sea, and you mostly get it in spring, in autumn or early in the morning, before the day visitors arrive.