Colmar or Geneva?

Colmar has nothing to offer here: it sits deep in the Alsace plain, and swimming means a municipal pool or a small lake up in the Vosges valleys.

Geneva at least has its lake, clean enough for the whole city to swim in through the summer. You can jump off the jetty at the Bains des Pâquis with the Jet d'Eau in view or spread out on the lawns of Genève-Plage. The season is short and the shore is more lido than beach, but it is a real summer pleasure that Colmar cannot offer.

Colmar has the stronger table, and it is a regional one. Wood-panelled winstubs serve choucroute garnie, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée, munster comes from the valleys above town, and Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the surrounding slopes are poured everywhere, with cellar tastings a few minutes' drive away. Step outside Alsatian cooking and the choice narrows quickly, and the busiest tourist lanes have weak menus.

Geneva offers more variety but less character. Lake perch, fondue and Chasselas give it a local identity, and the international crowd supports a wide spread of cuisines and polished fine dining in Carouge and the Old Town. Every meal is expensive, though, and casual street food is scarce.

Colmar edges ahead because its old town works as a whole, a run of painted half-timbered houses, the Maison Pfister and the canals of Petite Venise, crowned by Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece in the Unterlinden Museum. It is a place for medieval and Renaissance art and townscape.

Geneva's story is a different one, of Calvin's Reformation and modern diplomacy: St Pierre Cathedral and its excavations, the Reformation Wall, the Palais des Nations and the Red Cross museum, plus CERN for the science-minded. Both are well covered in two or three days.

Neither city is a nightlife destination, but Geneva at least has somewhere to go after midnight. The Pâquis behind the station keeps its bars busy late, Carouge has wine bars with terraces, and the alternative centres around Plainpalais and Jonction run club nights with a small electronic scene.

In Colmar the evening is the dinner itself, perhaps followed by a glass of wine near Petite Venise before the streets empty early. Anyone after clubs takes the train to Strasbourg.

Geneva has the bigger outdoors on its doorstep. A cable car climbs the Salève for cliff walks and paragliding, the Jura ridge offers forest hikes and cross-country skiing, the lake is good for sailing and paddleboarding, and Chamonix and the high Alps are about an hour away.

Colmar's landscape is gentler but close and varied: waymarked paths through the vineyards between wine villages, then the rounded, forested Vosges and the Route des Crêtes past the Grand Ballon. It is fine cycling country, best in autumn, though you really need a car to reach the hills.

Both make excellent bases, but the outings work differently. From Colmar the highlights are tightly packed: Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg lie a few kilometres apart, Strasbourg is half an hour by train, and Basel and Freiburg put Switzerland and Germany within an hour. A car or bicycle is almost essential for the villages.

Geneva's trips spread along the lake and into France, and they are easy without a car. Steamers and trains reach Nyon, Lausanne, the Lavaux terraces and the Château de Chillon at Montreux, a boat goes to medieval Yvoire, and Annecy is under an hour by road. Gruyères and Bern make longer days out.

Colmar is the better family base, as long as you have a car. The town itself is small and gentle, with boat rides, a little tourist train and storks on the rooftops. Beyond it lie the otter and stork park at Hunawihr, the macaques of the Montagne des Singes, the Mulhouse zoo and train museum, and Europa-Park about an hour across the Rhine.

Geneva is safe and easy with a pushchair, and the Natural History Museum, the lakeside playgrounds and the yellow harbour boats fill a couple of days. After that the lack of a zoo or theme park shows, and a trip to the mountains usually fills the gap.

Geneva is far easier to get around. Trams, buses and harbour boats run on one punctual network, the airport is a few minutes from the main station by train, and regional rail reaches France and the rest of Switzerland, so a car only helps for the mountains.

Colmar's centre is just as walkable and its station is close, with quick trains to Strasbourg and Mulhouse. The catch is the countryside, where thin bus services leave most visitors hiring a car or a bicycle to reach the wine villages and the Vosges.

Geneva is the serious shopping city. The Rue du Rhône is lined with the flagship stores of the great Swiss watch and jewellery houses, chocolatiers add affordable treats, and Carouge's workshops and the Plainpalais flea market offer something less polished.

Colmar's shopping is about regional goods to take home: wine bought from the producer, Soufflenheim pottery and kougelhopf moulds, printed table linen and gingerbread. December's Christmas markets are its high point, but fashion and big names are scarce.

The gap here is wide. Colmar is priced like a typical French provincial town, with reasonable set lunches and wine and often-free village tastings. Its weak point is rooms, which become expensive and scarce in summer and during the Christmas markets, though staying in a nearby village helps.

Geneva is among the costliest cities in the world, with expensive hotels year round and meals and drinks priced well above most of Europe. Free museums, free transport for hotel guests and cheap lidos soften it a little, and many visitors cross into France to sleep or eat.

Geneva has a proper formal stage. The Grand Théâtre runs a full season of opera and ballet, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande plays in the acoustically admired Victoria Hall, and the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices in the middle of the Rhône hosts concerts and dance.

Colmar's small Italian-style theatre and touring visits from the Opéra national du Rhin are pleasant, but its calendar really comes alive only with the July classical festival, the autumn jazz festival and the wine fair concerts. For anything more ambitious, people go to Strasbourg or Basel.

For a spa break, Colmar offers little beyond the spas in its hotels and in the nearby wine villages. What it gives you instead is calm: long lunches, evenings by the canals once the day-trippers have gone, and slow walks through the vines. That is enough for a restful few days, though not for a spa break.

Geneva goes further because it has a real bathing habit. In winter the Bains des Pâquis lido turns into a sauna and hammam, and regulars plunge straight from the heat into the cold lake. The lakefront hotels have serious spas, and the spa towns of Évian and Divonne are just across the French border.