Bled or Nuremberg?

Neither city has a sea, but in Bled the swimming is right in front of you. In July and August you can step off a pier or a grassy lido into a warm Alpine lake, with the castle cliff above you and the island close enough to swim to. Colder, wilder Lake Bohinj is about half an hour away.

In Nuremberg, a swim on a hot day means a city pool or about an hour's trip to the Brombachsee and the other Franconian reservoirs. They are pleasant enough, but they make a side trip rather than a reason to choose the city.

Nuremberg is clearly the better place to eat and drink. It has its own cooking, from the small beechwood-grilled bratwurst to Schäufele and Lebkuchen, and a beer culture built on dense clusters of small breweries, poured in old-town taverns and riverside beer gardens.

Bled's cooking is mostly simple and aimed at day visitors: trout, žlikrofi and buckwheat dishes, with the famous cream slice on a lakeside terrace. The more rewarding meals are in the valley farm inns, and anyone who travels to eat will run out of options after a couple of days.

Nuremberg has much more to see, and it carries more weight. You can walk the walled old town, the Kaiserburg, St Sebaldus and St Lorenz, and Dürer's house, and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum could take a whole day. The Rally Grounds and Courtroom 600 add a sombre twentieth-century layer that few cities can match.

Bled's sights are a matched pair, the cliff-top castle and the baroque island church reached by pletna boat. They make a memorable morning or afternoon, but they are done in a day.

Nuremberg has a proper night out, mostly in bars. You can choose between taverns and wine bars in the old town, students drinking on the riverbanks in summer, and the smaller alternative places in Gostenhof, with a few clubs for later.

Bled's evenings come down to a drink on a terrace and a walk along the lit shore, and the village is asleep before midnight. Anyone after more has to go to Ljubljana.

This is Bled's great strength. The Julian Alps start at the edge of the village, so the lake circuit, the climbs to Ojstrica and Osojnica, the Vintgar Gorge, Bohinj and the Pokljuka pastures are all within a short drive. Beyond them come hut routes, canyoning, paragliding, the Vršič pass and winter skiing.

Nuremberg's outdoors are pleasant but tame: the Reichswald pine forest at the edge of town, cycling along the Pegnitz, and the limestone towers, caves and climbing crags of Franconian Switzerland about an hour away. It is good country for walkers and cyclists, but there are no peaks.

Both make good bases, but Nuremberg has the richer choice and an easier way of getting to it. Bamberg, Regensburg, Würzburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Bayreuth are all on regional rail lines, and Munich is about an hour away by fast train, so a different old town each day is easy.

From Bled you see more of a small country: Ljubljana and Radovljica close by, the Postojna cave and Predjama Castle further off, Piran on the Adriatic, and Carinthia in Austria through the tunnel. Several of these trips work much better with a car.

The two are close for families, but they offer different kinds of day. In Bled the fun is outdoors: rowing to the island, ringing the wishing bell, swimming from shallow lidos and riding the toboggan on Straža. With no zoo or big indoor attraction, a wet day is hard to fill.

Nuremberg has more for rainy days, including the Toy Museum, full-size locomotives at the railway museum, and the quarry zoo with its dolphin house. There is also a children's Christmas market in Advent. The cobbled climb to the castle is the main effort with a pushchair.

Nuremberg is much easier without a car. You can walk the old town in an afternoon, the main station sits by its southern gate, and a single ticket system covers the U-Bahn, trams and S-Bahn out to the Rally Grounds, Fürth and Erlangen.

Bled's lakeshore is easy on foot, and buses run to Ljubljana and Bohinj. The mountain trailheads, Pokljuka and the Soča valley are poorly served, though, so most people who come for the Alps end up hiring a car, and lakeside parking is tight in summer.

Nuremberg has far more to buy. Königstraße has chain stores and department stores, and the more memorable things are Lebkuchen in tins, wooden toys and crafts from the Handwerkerhof. In Advent the Christkindlesmarkt adds plum-figure dolls and ornaments.

In Bled there is little beyond lakeside stalls selling honey, lace and painted beehive panels, plus a supermarket for the basics.

The overall cost is similar, but the money goes in different places. In Bled you pay for the view, at lakeside hotels and terraces, especially in July and August. The best things there cost nothing, from the lake path to the viewpoints and trails, and staying in Radovljica, Bohinj or at the campsite brings the bill down.

In Nuremberg the food, beer and transport are cheap. Hotels are the risk, because rooms become scarce and expensive during trade fairs and the Advent market, so it pays to check the dates before booking.

Nuremberg has a real season: opera, ballet and drama at the Art Nouveau Staatstheater, two orchestras, a big open-air concert in the Luitpoldhain, and the free Bardentreffen folk weekend in the old-town squares. Bayreuth's festival theatre is within reach too.

Bled has no venue at all. There are the odd summer concerts in the castle or the churches and folk evenings put on for visitors, and anything more serious means going to Ljubljana.

Bled is the more restful of the two, mainly because of its pace. The resort began with Rikli's nineteenth-century air and sun cures, and some lakeside hotel spas use the mild springs at the eastern end and sometimes take day guests. Early walks around still water do the rest.

Nuremberg's relaxation is German sauna culture: the thermal spa with sauna gardens in Fürth, a short U-Bahn ride away, mixed nude saunas at the leisure pools, and the saline float pools at Bad Windsheim about an hour west.