Brno or Rothenburg ob der Tauber?

Neither is a place to swim on vacation, and there is little between them. Brno at least has water inside the city: the reservoir on the Svratka, reached by tram and river boat, with grassy banks and small beaches, though algae can spoil it in a hot spell. Rothenburg has its outdoor pool, and like Brno with the Nove Mlyny lakes it has an hour's drive to bathing lakes, here the Franconian ones such as the Altmühlsee.

Both cook the same core of roast pork and dumplings, but Brno makes more of it, mainly through drink. It has specialty coffee, careful cocktail bars and Moravian whites and Frankovka by the glass from vineyards close by. The Zelny trh market and a few modern bistros widen the choice, even if fine dining is thin.

Rothenburg's food is narrower: Schäufele, bratwurst, Silvaner in its squat Bocksbeutel bottle and the sugary Schneeball, and many inns near the Marktplatz cook for coach parties. Good meals are found in family-run guesthouses and Tauber valley wine taverns away from the square.

Rothenburg comes out ahead because the whole town is the sight. The walls with their covered walkway, the Plönlein, the view from the Rathaus tower and Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar in St Jakob's make up an intact medieval scene that Brno cannot match. The visit is short, though, and the Medieval Crime Museum is the one substantial museum.

Brno's appeal is of a different kind and spread wider. Mies van der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat and a rich stock of interwar functionalist buildings stand alongside the Gothic cathedral and Spilberk Castle. With the Capuchin Crypt, the Moravian Gallery and the Mendel Museum, it has more variety, though no single setting as striking as Rothenburg's.

After dark the two could hardly be more different. Brno is a university city. During term the bars around Jakubske namesti stay full until late, with serious cocktail bars behind unmarked doors, Moravian wine bars and cheap student cellars, although clubbing is modest and July and August go quiet.

In Rothenburg an evening means dinner in an inn, a glass in a wine tavern and the night watchman's tour, and the lanes are silent by eleven. For anything more you have to go to Würzburg or Nuremberg.

Brno has the more striking outdoors. The Moravian Karst, half an hour north, has more than a thousand caves, a boat ride on an underground river below the Macocha Abyss and wooded trails. To the south are the Palava limestone ridge, the Nove Mlyny lakes and the Dyje valley in Podyji National Park.

Rothenburg's countryside is gentler and starts right at the walls. Paths drop into the Tauber valley with its mills and meadows, and the Tauber valley cycle path is an easy family ride. It looks lovely in spring blossom and autumn colour but has nothing as dramatic as the karst.

Both make good bases, but Brno reaches more places. Lednice-Valtice, Kromeriz, Trebic, Telc and Zelena Hora are all UNESCO sites within an hour or two, with the Austerlitz battlefield even closer. Olomouc, Vienna and Bratislava each fit into a day by train.

Rothenburg's strength is the Romantic Road. Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen, a ring of walls inside a meteorite crater, compete with it for medieval charm, and Würzburg's Residenz and Nuremberg's castle are about an hour away. Most of these trips are far easier with a car.

Brno gives children more to do over several days. There are the hands-on VIDA science centre, the hillside zoo, the mammoths at the Anthropos pavilion, the planetarium on Kravi hora and the boat through the Punkva Caves, and trams make it all easy to reach.

Rothenburg is more of a one- or two-day storybook adventure: the ramparts, the Rathaus tower, the night watchman with his lantern and, for older children, the torture devices in the Medieval Crime Museum. Beyond that there is little aimed at them, and the cobbles and steep valley paths are hard on pushchairs and small legs.

Inside both old towns you can walk from one side to the other in about a quarter of an hour, on cobbles and with some steep climbs. The real difference starts outside the centre. Brno has a dense network of trams, trolleybuses and buses on one ticket that also covers regional trains across South Moravia, and night buses run late.

Rothenburg sits at the end of a branch line, where most journeys need a change at Steinach and buses to the villages are sparse, especially at weekends. A car is the practical way to explore the area.

Neither town is worth the trip for shopping, but what you take home differs. Brno has ordinary chains on Ceska and Masarykova, malls, a few independent design, vintage and book shops, and Moravian wine bought straight from the cellars. Rothenburg sells almost entirely to visitors, but its year-round Christmas shops, with glass baubles, nutcrackers and Erzgebirge carvings, and its Christmas market on the Marktplatz draw people in their own right.

Brno is clearly the cheaper stay. Rooms cost little for central Europe, weekday pub lunch menus are very good value, and beer, wine, transport and museum entry are all inexpensive. Big trade fairs are the main thing that fills hotels.

Rothenburg adds a tourist premium to rooms inside the walls and meals around the Marktplatz, highest in December and on summer weekends. Staying outside the walls or in a nearby village brings the cost down, and walking the town is free.

Brno has a real stage life, built around Janacek. There is opera and ballet at the Janacek Theatre, drama at the ornate Mahen Theatre, the historic Reduta where the young Mozart played, a Philharmonic season and a festival devoted to the composer. Plays are mostly in Czech, so music and dance suit visitors best.

In Rothenburg, performance mostly means history in costume, above all the annual Meistertrunk play, along with summer open-air theatre and organ and choral concerts in St Jakob's. On most evenings there is no show at all.

Rothenburg is the better place to unwind, mainly because of its quiet. In the early morning, and again once the coach groups leave, the walls and the Tauber valley are almost empty. Thermal bathing is within about an hour, in the salt-water pool of Bad Windsheim's Franken-Therme or the old spa town of Bad Mergentheim.

Brno has swimming complexes with saunas, a few day spas and calm green spaces such as Luzanky park. It has no springs or spa tradition, and taking the waters means travelling further afield.