Bratislava or Munich?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, but Munich makes more of summer water. Locals sunbathe on the Isar's gravel banks at the Flaucher, and the Starnberger See and Ammersee have lawns, jetties and clear alpine water within an S-Bahn ride.

In Bratislava, the Danube is too fast and too busy with barges for swimming, so bathing means the sandy lake at Zlate piesky, reached by tram, or the Senec lakes further out. The water is pleasantly warm in high summer, but the season is short and weekends are crowded.

Munich's eating revolves around beer. You can sit in the great brewery halls and chestnut-shaded beer gardens with a picnic, have white sausage before noon, snack your way round the Viktualienmarkt and pick from a solid tier of starred restaurants. It has more depth and more occasions to eat well.

Bratislava's trump card is wine. The Small Carpathian vineyards start at the city's edge, and wine bars pour Veltliner and Frankovka you will rarely find abroad, alongside bryndzove halusky and roast duck in Old Town pubs. Beyond Slovak cooking the choice is thin, and the best meals are found away from the main squares.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Bratislava's appeal is a compact, well-kept baroque old town where Hungarian kings were crowned in St Martin's Cathedral, with the castle, the Blue Church and the ruins of Devin, all seen comfortably in a day or two.

Munich has royal collections of European rank. The Kunstareal groups the Alte Pinakothek's old masters with modern art, Greek sculpture and the Blue Rider painters, while the Residenz, Nymphenburg and the Deutsches Museum could each fill a morning. A culture-led visit here lasts days, not hours.

Munich offers more range at night. Evenings often begin and end in a beer hall, but the Glockenbachviertel has cocktail and gay bars, Schwabing has student pubs, and a few serious techno clubs run until morning, while Oktoberfest takes over the city each autumn.

Bratislava's night out is a pub crawl through a few Old Town streets, loud on Friday and Saturday with students and weekend groups, stag parties included, and quiet the rest of the week. Expect a lively bar crawl rather than clubbing.

Munich has the Alps. Trains reach Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Zugspitze and Tegernsee in about an hour or two for proper mountain hiking in summer and skiing in winter, and the city itself has the vast English Garden, the Eisbach surfers and cycle paths along the Isar.

Bratislava's outdoors is gentler and closer to home. Forest trails climb from Koliba to Kamzik and along the vine-covered Little Carpathians, the Danube floodplain forests and cycle route lead into Austria, and Cunovo has whitewater rafting. These are pleasant hills rather than mountains, and the Tatras are a full day away.

Both are excellent bases, with Munich slightly ahead for sheer choice. Bratislava's prize is Vienna, about an hour by train or a boat ride up the Danube, plus the Small Carpathian wine villages, Trnava and Austrian and Hungarian sights across two nearby borders.

From Munich, the list is longer and more varied: Augsburg, Nuremberg and Regensburg by fast train, Salzburg and Innsbruck across the border, the fairy-tale castle of Neuschwanstein, and painted alpine villages such as Oberammergau.

Munich is much better set up for children. A large zoo along the Isar meadows, hands-on sections in the Deutsches Museum, a transport museum, an aquarium, beer gardens with playgrounds and summer lake beaches give a family plenty to do, and Legoland is within reach by car.

Bratislava is safe and calm, and its mostly pedestrian Old Town with bronze statues to spot is easy with a pushchair. The Kamzik chairlift, the zoo, the lake at Zlate piesky and the Senec water park fill a short stay, but there is little more after that.

Both centres are walkable, but Munich is easier once you leave the old town. Its U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams reach the museums, Nymphenburg, the airport and the lakes quickly, and the flat city is made for cycling.

Bratislava's main sights lie within a twenty-minute walk, apart from a short, steep climb to the castle. Without a metro, trams and buses are slower for trips across the river or out to the edges, and the wine villages are easier to reach by car.

Munich is a proper shopping city. Maximilianstrasse has the luxury houses, Kaufingerstrasse has the department stores, Glockenbach and Schwabing have independent boutiques, and you can buy dirndls and lederhosen from specialist tailors along with fine food at the centuries-old Dallmayr.

Bratislava's shopping is modest. Its malls carry international chains, and the things worth taking home are folk crafts such as Modra majolica and blue-print cloth from the state craft centre, plus a few bottles of Small Carpathian wine. For serious fashion, locals take the train to Vienna.

This is the one area where Bratislava clearly comes out ahead. A modest budget covers a central room, good pub meals, cheap local wine and beer and transport, and only the main squares and riverside complexes charge Western prices.

Munich is Germany's most expensive city, and you feel it most in hotel rooms, which become very dear during Oktoberfest and the big trade fairs. Beer-garden picnics, free parks and lakes and token Sunday museum entry help, but the overall bill is far higher.

Munich is one of Europe's great music cities. The Bavarian State Opera on Max-Joseph-Platz is among the world's leading companies, three orchestras of real standing play in the Herkulessaal and the Prinzregententheater, and the rococo Cuvilliés Theatre stages chamber opera.

Bratislava offers solid opera and ballet at the Slovak National Theatre and concerts by the Slovak Philharmonic in the Reduta, and tickets are easy to come by. It makes a pleasant evening rather than a reason to visit, and for a major international programme people go to Vienna.

Munich has a real bathing culture of its own. The Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad has vaulted pools and a Roman-style steam bath, public saunas hold infusion rituals, and the huge thermal complex at Erding is about forty minutes away.

Bratislava has no thermal baths in town, so relaxing there means cafes, the riverbank and quiet forest paths. For proper bathing, take a day out to the Senec water park or the historic spa town of Piestany, about an hour away by train.