Bratislava or Vienna?

Neither city has a sea, but Vienna's summer swimming is easier to reach and has more variety. The Danube Island gives 20km of grassy and gravel banks, and the warmer, calmer Alte Donau is lined with old lidos, all reachable by U-Bahn after a day of sightseeing.

In Bratislava the Danube itself is off-limits for swimming. Bathing means the sandy lake shore at Zlate piesky, reached by tram, or the Senec lakes half an hour out, and both get crowded at weekends.

Vienna has a whole cuisine of its own, from schnitzel and Tafelspitz to Sachertorte. It also has two lasting rituals: the grand coffee house, and the Heuriger taverns in vineyards inside the city limits. Bratislava's cooking is simpler and more rural, with bryndzove halusky, roast duck with lokse and Bratislava rolls, served in hearty Old Town pubs that brew their own beer.

Wine links the two, with Veltliner poured on both sides of the border, and Bratislava's Small Carpathian bottles rarely reach export shelves. Neither city offers much international range. In Bratislava the tourist menus on the central squares make good meals harder to find.

These two are far apart here. Bratislava's attractions are compact: the coronation cathedral with brass crowns in the pavement, the Primate's Palace, the Blue Church, the white castle and the ruins at Devin, all of which fit into a day or two.

Vienna was built as the capital of an empire. The Hofburg and Schönbrunn alone take up a day. Add the Kunsthistorisches Museum's Bruegels, Klimt at the Belvedere, Schiele at the Leopold and the Jugendstil buildings of the Secession and Otto Wagner, and a week passes without repeating anything.

Bratislava's nights are a weekend pub crawl through a few Old Town streets. They are loud and cheap on Fridays and Saturdays, popular with students and stag groups, and quiet the rest of the week.

Vienna has more choices and a calmer pace. There are late bars and small clubs under the Gürtel railway arches, deckchair bars on the Danube Canal in summer, and long evenings over wine at a Heuriger. In winter the ball season offers something Bratislava has no answer to: formal balls in palaces, with tickets on sale to visitors.

The two share a landscape: low beech hills at the city edge and the wild Danube floodplain between them. Vienna has slightly more. The Vienna Woods and vineyard trails climb to the Kahlenberg, the Prater's meadows reach into the centre, and real limestone mountains at Rax and Schneeberg are about 90 minutes away.

In Bratislava, trails from Koliba climb the Little Carpathians to Kamzik, and Devinska Kobyla looks out over the meeting of the Morava and Danube. The whitewater course at Cunovo adds rafting. The nearest high mountains, the Tatras, are a full day's journey away.

Both are well placed, and each is the other's best day trip. The difference is direction. From Bratislava, short trips cross borders: Roman Carnuntum and Lake Neusiedl in Austria, Lednice-Valtice in the Czech Republic, Pannonhalma in Hungary, plus Slovakia's own wine route through Pezinok and Modra.

From Vienna, the classic outing heads up the Danube into the Wachau, with Melk abbey, Dürnstein and terraced vineyards. Closer outings include Klosterneuburg, Heiligenkreuz and Haydn's Eisenstadt, all mostly in Austrian country.

Vienna is much the stronger choice with children. Schönbrunn Zoo, the Prater's Ferris wheel and rides, the shark tanks at Haus des Meeres and the dinosaurs and hands-on exhibits in its museums easily fill a week, rain or shine.

Bratislava is safe and gentle. Children can hunt for the bronze statues in the pedestrian Old Town, ride the chairlift at Kamzik and visit the hillside zoo. With a water park at Senec as the treat, it works well for a weekend but not much longer.

Both centres are easy to walk. Vienna adds five U-Bahn lines, a dense tram network and night trains at weekends, so Schönbrunn, the Danube Island and the vineyard villages are all a simple ride away.

Bratislava has no metro. Its trams and buses reach the zoo, Devin and the lakes, but crossing the river or heading out to the suburbs takes longer than the map suggests. The main station sits uphill from the Old Town.

Vienna offers far more. Luxury houses line the Graben and Kohlmarkt, Mariahilfer Strasse covers everyday fashion and Neubau has independent designers. Augarten porcelain, Loden and crystal make gifts with real local roots.

Bratislava's best buys are small and specific: Modra majolica, lace and blue-print cloth from the state folk-craft centre, and a few bottles of Small Carpathian wine. Beyond that its malls carry the usual chains, and locals go to Vienna for serious fashion.

Bratislava is the cheaper city. Beer, wine, trams and museum tickets cost little, weekday pub lunches are generous, and a modest budget covers a central room and good meals. Prices only rise on the main squares and along the glass-fronted riverside complexes.

Vienna costs more overall, mostly for rooms and the full entry fees at the big palaces and museums. Set lunches, sausage stands, free palace gardens and opera standing places help keep it manageable.

Music is one of the main reasons to visit Vienna. The State Opera stages a different work most nights, and the Vienna Philharmonic plays in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein. The Volksoper, Konzerthaus and Burgtheater fill the rest of the week, and the Boys' Choir sings Sunday Mass.

Bratislava offers a solid, unhurried version of the same thing: opera and ballet at the Slovak National Theatre and the Philharmonic in the Reduta, with tickets easy to get. Many of its own visitors take the train upriver when they want a major international programme.

Vienna makes rest easy. Long coffee-house afternoons are part of daily life, and there are thermal pools and saunas at Therme Wien, the tiled Art Deco Amalienbad, and Baden's sulphur springs half an hour away.

Bratislava is calm for a capital, and its forest paths are quiet on weekdays, but it has no baths of its own. A proper soak means a day out, to the water park at Senec or by train to the historic mud and sulphur cures of Piestany.