Colmar or Cologne?

Neither city is a place for swimming, but Cologne at least gives you a decent summer afternoon in the water. The flooded gravel pits on its edge, such as Fühlinger See and Otto-Maigler-See, have grassy banks and small sandy patches. Colmar has municipal pools and a few small mountain lakes up in the Vosges valleys, which take a drive to reach.

Colmar eats better. Alsace cooking sits between French and German traditions, with choucroute, baeckeoffe, tarte flambée and munster cheese, all served alongside Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the slopes outside town. Cellar tastings are a short drive away, and a few ambitious tables add a fine-dining tier.

Cologne's best food experience is a ritual more than a cuisine. The Köbes keep bringing glasses of Kölsch in the Altstadt brewhouses, and the food is hearty Himmel un Ääd and sauerbraten. Its wider range is better than Colmar's, though, especially the Turkish and Middle Eastern cooking along Venloer Strasse.

The two are broadly matched, but the experience is quite different. Colmar's strength is the whole townscape: painted half-timbered streets, the Maison Pfister and the canals of Petite Venise. Above all there is Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece in the Unterlinden Museum. It is compact, and two days covers it.

Cologne gives you landmarks set in a plain post-war city. The cathedral and its Shrine of the Three Kings come first, followed by the ring of Romanesque churches and the Roman remains. Museums of real depth add more: Museum Ludwig for Pop Art, the Wallraf-Richartz and Kolumba.

This is the widest gap between the two. In Colmar an evening means a long dinner, then perhaps a glass in a wine bar near Petite Venise before the streets go quiet. Anyone who wants more takes the train to Strasbourg.

Cologne likes going out. People start in the brewhouses, move on to the Belgian Quarter's cocktail bars or the student crowds of Zülpicher Strasse, and finish in Ehrenfeld's factory clubs. Its gay scene around Rudolfplatz is one of Germany's largest, and during Carnival the whole city sings in costume from morning to night.

Colmar has much better scenery close at hand. Vineyard paths start within half an hour, and above them the Munster valley climbs to the Hohneck and the Grand Ballon. From the ridge you can see the Black Forest, and on clear days the Alps. There is cycling on the wine route and modest skiing in winter.

Cologne's green space is more urban: the Grüngürtel parks, the Rhine meadows and long riverside cycle paths. The wooded Siebengebirge and the crater lakes of the Eifel make good day hikes, but there are no real mountains.

Both make excellent bases, but the trips are of a different kind. From Colmar the outings are mostly small places: Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg, plus Haut-Koenigsbourg on its ridge, are best reached by car or bike. Strasbourg, Basel and Freiburg are each within about an hour.

Cologne's outings are mostly cities, all by fast train. Bonn, Düsseldorf and Aachen's Carolingian chapel are each under forty minutes away, and the Brühl palaces are closer still. You can go further to the castle towns of the Rhine Gorge or to Brussels, all without a car.

Cologne is the easier city with children, and most of its attractions are in town. There is the zoo with its elephant park, the Chocolate Museum's working production line and the cable car over the Rhine. Phantasialand is a short trip south. The one period to avoid is Carnival.

Colmar itself is small and gentle, with boat rides through Petite Venise and storks on the rooftops. Its real draws for children, such as the monkey park at Kintzheim, the stork park at Hunawihr and Europa-Park, all need a car.

Both centres are flat and walkable, but Cologne is easier once you leave the centre. Trams, the Stadtbahn and S-Bahn trains reach Ehrenfeld, the zoo and the suburbs, even if the network map takes some getting used to.

In Colmar, regional trains handle Strasbourg and Mulhouse well. Buses to the wine villages and the Vosges are thin, though, so a hired car or bike becomes part of the plan.

In Colmar, shopping is a morning's browse rather than a reason to come. The old-town lanes are better for Soufflenheim pottery, kougelhopf moulds and wine bought from the producer than for clothes, and on the most photographed streets the souvenir shops crowd out the boutiques. Advent is the exception, when the Christmas markets turn the painted squares into one large gift fair.

Cologne has more because it is a big regional city with a high street to match. Hohe Strasse, running south from the cathedral, is one of Germany's busiest pedestrian shopping streets, so department stores and chain stores are a few minutes' walk from the station. The Belgian Quarter adds design shops and concept stores that Colmar has nothing like, and the labels around Mittelstrasse cover the upper end, although luxury is not the city's strength.

Overall costs are much the same, moderate for Western Europe in both, and in each the hotel bill is what stretches the budget. In Colmar, rooms get scarce in summer and during the Christmas market weeks, and staying in a nearby wine village helps. In Cologne, rates jump during the trade fairs and Carnival. Free entry to the cathedral and other churches helps offset that.

Cologne is in a different league. The opera and the Schauspiel share Offenbachplatz, and the Philharmonie beside the cathedral is home to two orchestras, with radio ensembles, jazz, electronic music and small clubs filling the rest of the week. The dialect songs of the Carnival sessions are a tradition found nowhere else.

Colmar has a small Italian-style theatre and a calendar built around festivals: classical music in July, jazz in autumn and concerts at the wine fair. Outside those weeks, serious performances mean a trip to Strasbourg or Basel.

For real spa time Cologne is better equipped. Large German sauna landscapes are an ordinary weekend habit there, the mineral-spring thermal baths in the Rheinpark look across the river to the cathedral, and Aachen's hot springs are close by.

Colmar has hotel spas and little else in the way of facilities. What it offers instead is the slower pace: quiet canals in the evening and unhurried walks through the vines once the day visitors have gone.