Brussels or Hamburg?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Hamburg gets closer. It has its own sand on the Elbe at Oevelgoenne and below Blankenese, good for watching ships at sunset if not for swimming. The Baltic resorts, with their wicker beach chairs, are about an hour away, and there are lakes on the city edge for hot days.

Brussels has nothing like this in the city beyond its pools, some of them handsome Art Deco halls. The wide sands at Ostend or Knokke are just over an hour by train, but the North Sea there is windy and cool, better for a bracing walk than a swim.

Brussels is the better place to eat. Its cooking has real depth, from frites at a corner friterie to carbonnade and waterzooi. Its beer culture is in a class of its own, with lambics and gueuzes brewed only in this corner of Belgium. Praline makers around the Sablon and the Congolese, Moroccan and Turkish cooking of Matonge and Schaerbeek add range.

Hamburg eats well but more simply: fish rolls on the Landungsbruecken piers, Labskaus, Franzbroetchen for breakfast and good coffee in Ottensen and the Schanzenviertel. Food is an enjoyable part of a trip there rather than the reason for one.

Brussels has more to see. The Grand-Place is a finer single set piece than anything in Hamburg. Add the Flemish masters and the Magritte museum in the upper town, Horta's Art Nouveau houses and the Cinquantenaire collections, and you have several full days of looking. Its weak point is a broken historic fabric, with office blocks pressed up against the grand quarters.

Hamburg's appeal is a different one: a working port and its merchant architecture. That means the red-brick Speicherstadt and the Chilehaus, the Elbphilharmonie on its warehouse base and the Kunsthalle's Caspar David Friedrich paintings. War damage left a city of districts and waterside walks rather than one great old core.

Hamburg is the bigger night out. The Reeperbahn is a strip of neon, dive bars, music clubs and cabaret where bars have no fixed closing time. The Schanzenviertel and Ottensen offer a rougher and a calmer alternative, and nights often end at the harbour at dawn.

Brussels is built around the beer bar rather than the club: crowded terraces at Saint-Géry, more local evenings at Flagey and Châtelain, and old taverns pouring lambic. It has a respected techno club in the Marolles and a good queer scene, but it is a city for a long evening, not an all-nighter.

Both cities are flat, and Hamburg makes more of it because of its water. You can sail and paddle on the Alster, take a canoe into the northern canals, cycle through the Altes Land orchards or walk the Elbe path to the wooded bank at Blankenese. Lueneburg Heath is about an hour away.

The best thing Brussels has is the Sonian Forest, a tall beech forest with good trails on the edge of the city, along with the Bois de la Cambre. For hills or kayaking you need a day out to the Ardennes around Dinant.

Brussels is the better base by a wide margin. Ghent is half an hour away, Antwerp about forty minutes and Bruges an hour, Leuven and Mechelen are closer still, and high-speed trains put Paris within reach for a long day. Few cities have so many major towns this close.

Hamburg is a good base too, with a shorter list. Luebeck is the standout trip, Lueneburg, Bremen and Schwerin's lakeside castle are all an hour or less away, and the Baltic resorts make a summer extra.

Hamburg is the easier city with children. Miniatur Wunderland can fill a whole morning, Tierpark Hagenbeck shows its animals across moats rather than behind bars, and a harbour day of ferries, museum ships and the old Elbe tunnel takes little planning. Wide pavements and streets that feel safe help too.

Brussels has good things for children, notably the Iguanodons at the Natural Sciences museum, the Atomium next to Mini-Europe and the comic murals. But cobbled, uneven streets and heavy traffic make a day out with small children more tiring.

Neither city needs a car, and both run trains straight from the airport into the centre, but Hamburg asks less of your legs. The main sights of Brussels are packed close together. Even so, going from the Grand-Place up to the Mont des Arts and the royal quarter means a stiff climb on cobbles and broken paving, which is hard going with a pushchair. Anyone who drives meets tunnels, one-way loops and heavy traffic, so the tram is the better way out to Ixelles and Saint-Gilles.

Hamburg is flat, so the stretch from the Alster to HafenCity is an easy stroll, and the cycle lanes make a bike a real option when the wind allows. Its harbour ferries take the same ticket as the trains, so crossing the Elbe gets you somewhere and shows you the port at once. Brussels has nothing to match that, and in Hamburg even Blankenese or Hagenbeck is just one train ride away.

The two are close for shopping but suit different shoppers. Brussels is for browsing local things: chocolatiers in the Galeries Royales and on the Sablon, antiques, the Jeu de Balle flea market in the Marolles and Belgian designers on Rue Antoine Dansaert.

Hamburg shops like the wealthy merchant city it is. Luxury labels line Neuer Wall, covered arcades help on rainy days and the Alsterhaus stands on the water, while the Karolinenviertel covers vintage and streetwear.

Neither city is cheap, and the money goes on the same things: hotels and sit-down meals. What differs is the timing. Brussels' business hotels empty out at weekends, so a weekend stay is the better buy there, whereas Hamburg's rooms cost most on summer weekends and during trade fairs.

Both have easy ways to save. In Brussels it is frites and the immigrant neighbourhoods. In Hamburg it is fish rolls, bakeries and a day ticket that includes the harbour ferries.

Brussels' music life centres on La Monnaie, an opera house known for adventurous productions. Horta's Bozar is home to the national orchestra, and the Queen Elisabeth Competition brings young musicians to the city each spring. The city is also strong in contemporary dance and in theatre in both French and Dutch.

The Elbphilharmonie alone gives Hamburg the edge. The hall is worth the journey in itself, and the Laeiszhalle, the State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet stand behind it. Add the large theatres with their long-running shows and the small rock clubs of St Pauli, where the Beatles started out, and Hamburg has much more to choose from for an evening out.

Neither city is somewhere to go just to unwind, but Hamburg does it better. It shares the German sauna habit, and locals spend whole winter afternoons in its bath complexes and the art nouveau Holthusenbad. The Alster and the Japanese garden in Planten un Blomen offer a slower pace.

Brussels has a few hammams and hotel spas but no bathing culture of its own. Its quiet moments come from long lunches and terraces in Ixelles, in a capital that otherwise moves at a working pace.