Colmar or Maastricht?

Neither city has a beach, and swimming plays almost no part in a trip to either. Colmar has municipal pools and small lakes in the Vosges valleys.

Maastricht has old gravel-pit lakes along the Maas, with small sandy shores and lifeguards, so it is a little easier to cool off on a hot afternoon.

The food is about equally good in both, but the two cuisines are different. Colmar cooks Alsatian food in wood-panelled winstubs: choucroute, baeckeoffe and munster cheese, with Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the slopes outside town and cellar tastings in the villages nearby.

Maastricht serves Limburg dishes such as zuurvlees and vlaai, and the drink is Belgian beer rather than wine. Its fine dining is strong for a city of its size. Both offer little beyond their regional cooking.

Each city fills about two days, and they are much the same in depth. Colmar has the more striking whole: an almost intact painted old town around Petite Venise, and in the Unterlinden Museum's Isenheim Altarpiece a single masterpiece worth travelling for.

Maastricht's strengths are older and more spread out. It has two Romanesque basilicas, the Helpoort, the oldest city gate in the country, guided tours of the tunnels under the Sint-Pietersberg and the Bonnefanten's mix of old masters and contemporary art.

Maastricht is livelier after dark. A large student population keeps the cafés on the Markt and the Platielstraat busy late at weekends during term, and carnival turns the whole city into a street party for several days.

Colmar's evenings end with a long dinner and perhaps a glass in a wine bar near Petite Venise. Anyone who wants a real night out has to take the train to Strasbourg.

Colmar has the bigger landscape. Vineyards rise straight into the forested Vosges, the ridge road gives views to the Black Forest and sometimes the Alps, and walkers have glacial lakes, high pastures and winter skiing to choose from.

Around Maastricht the scenery is gentler: the marl cliffs of the Sint-Pietersberg, the Jeker valley and the orchards and steep lanes of the Heuvelland. It makes a pleasant setting for a walk or a ride rather than a reason to come.

Both cities make very good bases, and Colmar has the edge. Strasbourg is about half an hour away by train, a string of picture-book wine villages such as Eguisheim and Riquewihr lie a few kilometres apart, and Basel and Freiburg are each about an hour away.

Maastricht's strength is variety rather than density. Aachen and Liège are about half an hour away and Tongeren and Valkenburg are closer, but Cologne and Brussels take most of a day. For the villages around Colmar you need a car or bike, while most of Maastricht's trips work by train.

Colmar offers more for children. In town there are boat rides through Petite Venise and storks nesting on the roofs. Within a drive are the stork and otter park at Hunawihr, the macaques and eagle show at Kintzheim, the railway and car museums in Mulhouse and Europa-Park an hour away.

Maastricht is just as easy with a buggy, but its main draw for children is the tunnel tour. Valkenburg's caves and fairy-tale park are close, and much of the city's appeal is aimed at adults.

Maastricht is easier to get around. The centre is flat and largely pedestrianised on both banks of the Maas, the bike is the normal way to get about, and trains run into Belgium and Germany as well as across the Netherlands.

Colmar is just as walkable within its old town, and regional trains link it quickly to Strasbourg and Mulhouse. Its weakness is the wine villages and the Vosges, where buses are thin and a hired car or bicycle becomes almost essential.

Maastricht is a proper shopping destination, and Dutch, Belgian and German visitors come for the weekend just for that. It has designer boutiques in the restored houses of the Stokstraat quarter, high-street brands on the Grote Staat and independent interiors and vintage shops in Wyck.

In Colmar you mainly shop for things to take home, such as wine from the producer, Soufflenheim pottery and kougelhopf moulds, Alsatian table linen and the Christmas market stalls. There is very little fashion.

Colmar is the slightly cheaper of the two. Set lunches and regional wine are reasonable, and village tastings are often free. The catch is rooms, which become expensive and scarce in summer and during the Christmas market weeks, so staying in a nearby village helps.

Maastricht has Dutch prices on its terraces and in its hotels, and weekend rooms are in high demand. Visiting from Sunday to Thursday and living on bakery lunches and brown-café beer makes the biggest difference.

Maastricht has more going on through the year. The theatre on the Vrijthof is home to a regional symphony orchestra and an opera company, the conservatory and churches add recitals, and big open-air summer concerts fill the square.

Colmar's small Italian-style theatre has a modest season, and the town's music comes mostly in festival weeks: classical in July, jazz in autumn and concerts at the wine fair. At other times you have to go to Strasbourg or Basel.

For a spa break, Colmar has little to offer. It has no tradition of thermal bathing, so a massage or a sauna means booking a hotel with its own spa, in town or in one of the wine villages. What it does have is a slow, easy pace, with quiet canal-side lanes in the evening and long, unhurried mornings in the vineyards.

Maastricht is clearly ahead if warm water is part of the plan. The city has no baths of its own, but it lies at the centre of a real spa region across three countries, with mineral pools at Valkenburg, Aachen and Spa all close enough for an afternoon visit during a city weekend. Back in town, the riverside paths and calm squares keep the pace gentle.