Chamonix or Colmar?

Neither place is for swimming, but Chamonix has the better options for a summer afternoon. Lac de Passy has a grassy shore facing the Mont Blanc massif, and Lake Annecy is a little over an hour away.

Colmar, out on the Alsace plain, has municipal pools and a few small lakes up in the Vosges valleys, and not much else.

Colmar is the place for a trip planned around meals. Its wood-panelled winstubs serve baeckeoffe, choucroute and tarte flambée, with Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the slopes just outside town and cellar tastings in the wine villages.

Chamonix has hearty Savoyard cooking, fondue, tartiflette and raclette made with alpine cheeses, and it tastes best on a mountain terrace. In town, though, the menus are those of a resort, often alike from one place to the next, and many kitchens close outside the main seasons.

Chamonix tells one story well, the birth of alpinism and the first Winter Olympics, through the Musée Alpin, the pioneers' statues and the climbers' cemetery. Half a day covers all of it.

Colmar's old town is a complete late-medieval and Renaissance townscape, with Maison Pfister, the Koïfhus and the canals of Petite Venise. On top of that, the Unterlinden Museum holds the Isenheim Altarpiece, a painting people travel across Europe to see. It is worth two full days.

Chamonix has the livelier evenings. Après-ski starts in the late afternoon, then guides, seasonal workers and visitors move on to the bars of the old town's narrow lane, and a couple of small clubs stay open into the early hours in winter. It is a young, mostly English-speaking scene, and it shrinks in the shoulder seasons.

Colmar's evenings are a long dinner and a glass of wine by the canals, and the streets are quiet well before midnight.

Chamonix sits at the foot of the highest mountain in Western Europe. Glaciers, granite needles and the Aiguille du Midi at 3,842m are a cable-car ride from the centre, and there is world-class skiing, mountaineering and trail running straight from the valley.

Colmar's countryside is gentler but still very good. There are vineyard paths between wine villages, the Route des Crêtes over the forested Vosges, and good cycling on the plain. Autumn, with the harvest, is its finest season, though you will want a car to get the most from it.

From Chamonix, the best outings cross borders. Courmayeur and Roman Aosta are through the Mont Blanc Tunnel, and the Mont Blanc Express runs to Martigny, while Annecy and Geneva are about an hour away. Beyond those, most places within reach are other ski resorts, and mountain roads make journeys slow.

Colmar is the stronger base by some way. Strasbourg is half an hour by train, Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Kaysersberg are a few kilometres apart along the wine route, and Basel and Freiburg are both about an hour away.

Both work well with children, in different ways. Chamonix suits active families, with nursery slopes, sledging, a summer luge, ibex and marmots at the Merlet park and the little red train to the Mer de Glace. The high cable cars are not for toddlers, though, and there is little to do on wet days.

Colmar is gentler: boat rides through Petite Venise, storks on the rooftops and, beyond town, the monkey park at Kintzheim, the Mulhouse museums and Europa-Park. Most of those need a car.

Chamonix makes it slightly easier to get around without a car. The guest card gives free travel on the buses and the Mont Blanc Express along the whole valley, and the main cable-car stations are in town, though the ski buses are crowded in winter.

Colmar's compact centre and fast trains to Strasbourg and Mulhouse are easy, but the wine villages and the Vosges are poorly served by buses. Most visitors hire a car or a bike.

Neither is a shopping destination, but Colmar has more to browse. There is wine bought from the producers, Soufflenheim pottery, Alsatian linen and gingerbread, and in December the Christmas markets spread across several squares.

Chamonix's strength is narrower. Its long-established climbing and ski shops are where serious mountaineers buy technical gear, and beyond that it is mostly cheese, génépi and souvenirs.

The real gap between the two lies in what an ordinary day costs, more than in the meals. In Chamonix the main attraction has to be paid for: getting up into the high mountains, or doing anything serious once you are there, means paying for the ride up or for someone to lead you, and resort prices follow you back down to dinner. Its expensive weeks also come in both winter and summer, so it has two peak seasons rather than one. Shopping at the supermarket and walking the trails that start from the valley floor keep a stay under control, and late spring and autumn are gentler on the wallet, though some lifts are shut then.

Colmar is clearly the cheaper of the two, because most of what people come for costs nothing to enjoy: the painted lanes of the old town, the canals of Petite Venise and the paths through the vines between villages. The money goes on a bed and, for the wine route, a hire car. The bed is what needs planning, since a town this size fills up fast in summer and at Christmas, and a room in Eguisheim or Turckheim is often the easier choice than one in the old town.

Colmar has a small Italian-style theatre with plays and touring opera, and a classical music festival in early July. Chamonix's offer is a summer jazz festival with some sets played up in the mountains, plus mountain film evenings. For an orchestra or a full opera season you leave either town, for Strasbourg or Basel from Colmar, or Geneva from Chamonix.

Chamonix is better for real pampering. Its large day spa has hot outdoor pools facing the glaciers, which are ideal after a day's skiing, and Saint-Gervais has warm springs in a wooded gorge down the valley. The town itself is busy and starts early.

Colmar has only hotel spas, but its pace is calmer: quiet canal-side evenings and slow walks through the vines once the day-trippers have gone home.