Colmar or Heidelberg?

Neither town is anywhere near the sea, so swimming means a pool or a lake in both. What differs is the setting: from Colmar you go up into the Vosges valleys for small mountain lakes, while from Heidelberg locals drive out to the flooded gravel pits of the Rhine plain.

Colmar eats better. Alsace gives it a fuller regional kitchen, from baeckeoffe and choucroute garnie in panelled winstubs to munster cheese and kougelhopf, and the covered market by the Lauch canal is a pleasure in its own right. Wine is central, with free or cheap cellar tastings in villages minutes away and a few serious restaurants along the wine route.

Heidelberg's Baden and Kurpfalz cooking is heartier and plainer, at its best in white asparagus season, and the good meals hide in Neuenheim and the Altstadt side streets rather than on the Hauptstrasse. Its edge is breadth on a budget: student kebab, pizza and Asian places that Colmar lacks.

Both are compact, photogenic old towns that take a day or two, and Colmar has the edge. Its half-timbered streets, Petite Venise and the tanners' quarter survived as a single whole, and the Unterlinden Museum's Isenheim Altarpiece is a work people cross Europe to see.

Heidelberg's appeal is more romantic than artistic: the red sandstone castle ruin above the Neckar, the Old Bridge and the student history of Germany's oldest university, with its graffiti-covered Student Prison. It lacks a single masterpiece on Colmar's level.

Heidelberg is the livelier of the two after dark, thanks to its students. The Untere Strasse fills with small bars late in term time, old student taverns sit close by, and there are a few clubs out towards the station. Out of term and on weeknights it goes quiet early.

Colmar's evenings are a long dinner, a glass of Riesling on a terrace and an early night. If you want more, take the train to Strasbourg from Colmar, or to Mannheim from Heidelberg.

Colmar has the grander landscape. Within half an hour you are among the vines, and a little further the Munster and Kaysersberg valleys lead up to the Vosges ridge, with glacial lakes, high pastures, views to the Alps and even modest winter skiing. Autumn harvest is its finest season.

Heidelberg's countryside is softer and starts right at the edge of town: the Philosophers' Walk, the funicular up the Königstuhl and forest trails over the Heiligenberg, plus the Neckar cycle path. It is ideal for walks without a car, but it is wooded hill country rather than mountains.

Both are excellent bases, and Colmar comes out slightly ahead. Strasbourg is half an hour by train, Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg lie a few kilometres apart, and Basel and Freiburg add a cross-border choice within about an hour. The catch is that the villages need a car or bike.

Heidelberg's outings lean towards great monuments rather than villages: the cathedrals of Speyer and Worms, Schwetzingen's palace gardens, Maulbronn and Lorsch, and riverside castle towns up the Neckar, many of them easy by train.

For families the two are evenly matched: both are small and safe, and the big attractions sit outside town. Colmar offers boat rides through Petite Venise and storks on the rooftops, with the macaques at Kintzheim, the Hunawihr stork park and Europa-Park within a drive.

Heidelberg has its own zoo and the funicular up to a little fairy-tale park, and the Speyer and Sinsheim technology museums let children climb into aircraft and a submarine. Its cobbled, sloping Altstadt is harder going with a pushchair than Colmar's flat streets.

Heidelberg is easier without a car. Trams, buses and the S-Bahn share one fare across the Rhine-Neckar area, so day trips need no planning, though the station is a tram ride from the Altstadt and the castle approach is steep.

Colmar's centre is flatter and the station is a short walk away, with quick trains to Strasbourg and Mulhouse. Beyond the rail line, though, buses to the wine villages and the Vosges are sparse, and most visitors end up hiring a car or bicycle.

Neither is a shopping destination, but they offer different kinds of shopping. Colmar is about Alsatian things to take home: wine from the producer, Soufflenheim pottery, printed table linen, and Christmas markets spread over several squares.

Heidelberg's long Hauptstrasse has the familiar high-street chains and department stores that Colmar lacks, with cuckoo clocks and steins at the castle end, and Mannheim and Frankfurt are close for anything bigger.

Costs are much the same, typical of Western Europe, and in both towns the room is the expensive part. Colmar's crunch comes in summer and the Christmas market weeks, and staying in a nearby wine village helps. In Heidelberg, congresses and graduations push rates up, but many visitors stay in Mannheim and use the good-value regional ticket. Student cafés make eating out a little gentler.

Heidelberg has much more on stage. Its municipal theatre runs a full season of opera, drama and dance with its own philharmonic orchestra, the Heidelberger Frühling festival brings leading soloists in spring, and plays and musicals fill the castle courtyard in summer. Mannheim's larger house is twenty minutes away.

Colmar's small Italian-style theatre hosts touring opera, and the town comes alive for its classical festival in July and jazz in autumn. Between festivals, serious music means going to Strasbourg or Basel.

Neither town has thermal baths of its own, but Heidelberg is far closer to them. The Kraichgau's saline pools and saunas are about half an hour away and Baden-Baden is an hour, and the Neckar meadows in Neuenheim are a fine place to do nothing.

Colmar's calm is quieter and more rural: canals once the day-trippers leave, long lunches and walks through the vines, with only hotel spas for pampering.