Cambridge or Maastricht?

Both cities are inland and neither is a place for a beach vacation. The difference is in the swimming you can find: Cambridge has the Jesus Green Lido and wild swimming in the Cam at Grantchester Meadows, with the North Sea coast about an hour and a half's drive away.

Maastricht's equivalent is the old gravel-pit lakes along the Maas, with small sandy shores and lifeguarded areas, and the sea is much further off. Cambridge is the one where a day at the coast is at least realistic.

Maastricht is clearly the better place to eat. It has a regional kitchen worth seeking out, Limburg dishes such as zuurvlees and vlaai tart, seasonal asparagus and game, local white wines and Belgian beer, plus a fine-dining tier that punches above the city's size. Long meals on terraces around the Vrijthof are part of the point of going.

Cambridge eats well enough but without a cuisine of its own. Its strengths are old pubs with ales and Sunday roasts, riverside tea rooms and the daily market on Market Hill, and Mill Road gives it more Asian and international variety and street food than Maastricht offers.

Cambridge has the greater sights. Eight centuries of colleges are packed along the Backs, with King's College Chapel, Trinity's Great Court and the Wren Library, and the Fitzwilliam and the other university museums add collections well beyond what a city this size would normally hold.

Maastricht is rewarding in a different register: one of the oldest towns in the Netherlands, with two Romanesque basilicas, medieval walls and the Helpoort, the tunnels of the Sint-Pietersberg and the Bonnefanten. It makes a good two days, but nothing there carries the weight of King's.

Maastricht makes for the livelier evenings. Its life is on the squares and in the brown cafés around the Markt and the Vrijthof, busy late at weekends, and carnival turns the whole city into a street party for days.

Cambridge's nights centre on historic inns and riverside pub gardens, with a few livelier bars on Regent Street and Mill Road. Both have small student-led club scenes that fade outside term, and in both, people after a big night travel elsewhere, London from Cambridge, cities over the border from Maastricht.

Maastricht has far more to offer outdoors, because this is where the Netherlands finally rises. The marl cliffs and paths of the Sint-Pietersberg begin at the city's edge, the Jeker valley runs into Belgium, and the Heuvelland's orchards and steep lanes draw walkers and road cyclists, with Hoge Kempen and the Ardennes further out.

Cambridge's landscape is flat fen edge under wide skies. Its pleasures are gentle ones: punting through the Backs, the meadow path to Grantchester, the commons in town and the birds and wild ponies of Wicken Fen.

Both are excellent bases, but they lead to very different days. From Cambridge, the trips are English: London under an hour by train, Ely's cathedral, the wool towns of Lavenham and Long Melford, Norwich and grand National Trust houses such as Wimpole.

From Maastricht, the appeal is crossing borders. Aachen and Liège are each about half an hour away, Cologne, Brussels and Leuven are within reach, and you can hear three languages in a single weekend.

With children the two are much alike: small, safe, flat and easy with a buggy, with the main family outings just outside town. Cambridge has the free Museum of Zoology, the Sedgwick dinosaurs, punting and the big Duxford airfield of historic aircraft.

Maastricht's offer leans towards caves and parks: the tunnel tours of the Sint-Pietersberg, Valkenburg's show caves, cable car and fairy-tale park, and a large zoo in Kerkrade. Children keen on planes will prefer Cambridge, while younger ones may enjoy Maastricht's day outings more.

Both centres are best walked or cycled, flat and largely pedestrian, and cars are more trouble than help in either. Maastricht has the handier station, in Wyck just over the bridge, while Cambridge's is a walk of about twenty-five minutes from the centre.

The countryside works differently. Maastricht's riverside paths make cycling easy even for occasional riders, and its trains cross into Belgium and Germany, whereas Cambridge's country estates are easier by car.

Maastricht is the better shopping destination, good enough that Dutch, Belgian and German visitors come for weekends of it. The restored houses of the Stokstraat quarter hold fashion and designer boutiques, Wyck has independent interiors and vintage shops, and there is even a bookshop inside a Gothic church.

Cambridge's shopping is smaller and fits around sightseeing. Its real strength is books, from old academic booksellers to second-hand dealers in the lanes, alongside the market on Market Hill and the vintage shops of Mill Road.

Neither is cheap, but Maastricht is the gentler on the budget. Rooms and meals sit at the Dutch norm, below the big Dutch cities, bakery lunches and beer in a brown café are good value, and staying midweek makes a real difference.

Cambridge is the costlier stay, with limited hotels in steady demand and eating out priced like the wealthy south-east of England. Its compensations are free ones: the Fitzwilliam and most university museums, and evensong in the chapels.

Cambridge has the more distinctive live programme, above all choral evensong in the chapels of King's, St John's and Trinity, sung by choirs known worldwide. The Arts Theatre, the student ADC Theatre with its Footlights comedy tradition, the Corn Exchange and the summer Folk Festival fill out the year.

Maastricht's scene is solid but provincial: the theatre on the Vrijthof hosts the regional orchestra and opera, the conservatory adds recitals, and big open-air summer concerts on the square draw a crowd. It does have resident opera, which Cambridge lacks.

Maastricht is the better place to unwind. It has no baths of its own, but the thermal spa above Valkenburg, Aachen's Roman-era springs and the Belgian town of Spa are all within an hour, and the city's unhurried, slightly southern pace suits long lunches and riverside walks.

Cambridge offers quieter pleasures rather than spa culture: a punt on the river, the Botanic Garden, a college bench or tea in an orchard at Grantchester. Its centre around King's Parade can feel crowded in summer, so the calm is found early, late or at the edges.