Colmar or Milan?

Neither city is a place to swim, but Milan gives you more options. Within about an hour by train, Lake Como and Lake Maggiore have pebbly lidos and swimming platforms, and in town there are the Idroscalo basin and open-air pools.

Colmar has municipal pools and the odd small lake up in the Vosges valleys, and that is about it. Swimming barely figures in a trip to Alsace.

Colmar eats almost entirely Alsatian: choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée in panelled winstubs, with Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the surrounding slopes and cellar tastings in the villages. The cooking is very good but it is one cuisine, and the busiest streets are full of tired menus.

Milan goes wider and deeper. Saffron risotto and ossobuco sit alongside cooking from every Italian region, there is a serious fine-dining scene, and the aperitivo ritual in Brera, Isola and the Navigli turns early evening into a meal of its own.

Colmar's strength is how complete it is. The painted half-timbered streets, Maison Pfister, the Koïfhus and Petite Venise form an unbroken late-medieval townscape, and the Unterlinden's Isenheim Altarpiece is a masterpiece worth crossing borders for. Two days covers it.

Milan has more, at a higher level, set inside a largely modern city. The Duomo's rooftop, the Last Supper, the Brera collection and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà at the Castello would fill a longer stay on their own, with Sant'Ambrogio and the Ambrosiana as a second tier.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. In Colmar the evening is dinner and a glass of wine by the canals, a few bars stay open, and the streets are quiet early. Locals head to Strasbourg for a proper night out.

Milan moves from aperitivo to the bars along the Navigli towpaths, to Isola and Porta Venezia, the centre of the gay scene, and on to dressy clubs around Corso Como or warehouse nights on the edge of town. Just leave August out of your plans, when the city empties.

The two are about level for the outdoors, but they offer different kinds of country and you reach it differently. Around Colmar the vines start at the edge of town, so a walk or a bike ride between wine villages needs almost no planning. Above them the Vosges are gentle mountains of middling height rather than true peaks. They are good for long ridge walks on the Route des Crêtes, with the Black Forest and sometimes the Alps in view, and autumn in the vineyards is the high point. You will want a car to get up there.

Milan has little on its doorstep beyond Parco Sempione and towpath rides out into the rice fields, but an hour on the train changes that. Como and Maggiore bring ferries, sailing and windsurfing, which Colmar cannot offer. The Prealps above Lecco give steeper hiking and via ferrata routes than anything in the Vosges. The skiing in the Valtellina and Aosta valleys is also bigger, though each trip takes a full day.

Both make excellent bases, and Milan has a slight edge in reach. High-speed trains bring Verona, Turin and nearly Bologna within about an hour, with Bergamo, Pavia's Certosa, Mantua, Cremona and the Borromean Islands closer in.

Colmar's outings are smaller in scale and closer together: Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg a few kilometres apart, Haut-Koenigsbourg on its ridge, Strasbourg half an hour by train, and Basel and Freiburg across the borders. The villages really call for a car or bike.

Colmar is easier with children. The town is small, flat and calm, with boat rides and storks on the roofs, and the countryside around it is full of attractions made for children: the stork and otter park, the free-roaming macaques at Kintzheim, Mulhouse's train and car museums and Europa-Park.

Milan works for families but is not built for them. The science museum and Parco Sempione help, and Leolandia and Gardaland suit older children, but summer humidity is tiring and the headline sights are mostly for adults.

Both centres are flat and easy to walk. The difference is how far you get without a car. Milan's five metro lines and dense tram network, with direct trains to the lakes, cover the city and the region, and driving is more hindrance than help.

In Colmar the old town takes minutes on foot and trains run quickly to Strasbourg, but buses to the wine villages and the Vosges are thin, so most visitors hire a car or a bicycle.

Milan is one of the world's fashion capitals. Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga hold the great houses' flagships, La Rinascente stands beside the Duomo, and design showrooms, vintage shops in Porta Ticinese and the Navigli antique markets add depth.

Shopping in Colmar is about taking Alsace home: wine from the producer, Soufflenheim pottery, printed table linen and gingerbread, plus the Christmas markets in December. Fashion barely features.

Colmar is the cheaper of the two, moderately priced for Western Europe, with reasonable set lunches and cellar tastings that cost little. Rooms are the weak point, especially during the Christmas market weeks, when staying in a nearby village pays off.

Milan is Italy's most expensive city, with high hotel prices that become steep during trade fairs and fashion weeks, and costly restaurants in Brera. Office-worker lunch menus and an aperitivo spread that stands in for supper help to keep costs down.

Milan is the clear choice for a night at the theatre. La Scala's opera and ballet season, the Piccolo Teatro, a fine symphony orchestra and summer concerts at San Siro make performance a reason to go, although opera goes quiet in summer.

Colmar offers a small municipal theatre, visits from the Opéra national du Rhin and festivals in July and autumn. Between those, serious performances mean travelling to Strasbourg or Basel.

Neither is a spa destination, but Milan has more to offer. It has a well-known thermal complex with outdoor pools and saunas, the 1930s Bagni Misteriosi pools for a summer afternoon, and the lake villas an hour away.

Colmar has no bathing tradition beyond hotel spas. What relaxes you there is the pace: long lunches, walks through the vines and quiet canal-side evenings once the day-trippers have left.