Colmar or Nuremberg?

Neither city is anywhere near a coast. Nuremberg has the better option for a hot day: the Franconian Lake District, about an hour south, where reservoirs like the Brombachsee have grassy shores, small sandy strips and water that warms up in late summer.

Colmar has nothing of that size. Swimming means the municipal pools or a small mountain lake up in the Vosges valleys, which is more of a stop on a drive than a lakeside day.

Colmar eats better, and it has wine on its side. Alsatian cooking sits between France and Germany: baeckeoffe, tarte flambée and munster cheese in panelled winstubs, with Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the slopes outside town and a few serious restaurants along the wine route. The catch is the tired menus on the most photographed streets.

Nuremberg's table is plainer and heavier. You get small beechwood-grilled bratwurst, Schäufele with dumplings, and Lebkuchen all year. What lifts it is Franconian beer, from smoky Kellerbier in old-town taverns to riverside beer gardens. Outside that, the restaurants are ordinary.

The two are close in depth but feel quite different. Colmar's strength is how complete it is. The painted half-timbered streets, the Maison Pfister and Petite Venise survived the wars largely intact, and the Unterlinden Museum holds one overwhelming masterpiece, Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece. It is concentrated, and two days covers it.

Nuremberg covers more ground in time. The walls, the Kaiserburg and the Gothic churches were carefully rebuilt after the bombing, and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum can fill a whole day. The Rally Grounds and Courtroom 600 add a sobering twentieth-century chapter that Colmar simply does not have.

Nuremberg gives you a much better evening out. Students fill the squares and riverbanks on summer nights, and Gostenhof, west of the walls, has small bars and alternative venues. Erlangen's students keep the weekends lively.

Colmar goes quiet early. A night there is a long dinner, then perhaps a glass in a wine bar near Petite Venise. Anyone after more takes the train to Strasbourg.

Colmar has the more dramatic country on its doorstep. Vineyard trails between wine villages start within half an hour, and above them the Vosges rise to the Hohneck and the Grand Ballon, with views to the Black Forest and sometimes the Alps. There is modest skiing in winter, and the turning vines make autumn the best season of all.

Nuremberg's outdoors are pleasant but flatter. The Reichswald pine forest begins at the city edge and suits easy walks and rides. The best of it is Franconian Switzerland, an hour away, with its limestone towers, caves and well-known rock climbing.

Both make excellent bases, but they lead to different kinds of day out. From Colmar you go to villages: Eguisheim, Riquewihr, Kaysersberg and Ribeauvillé lie only kilometres apart, with Haut-Koenigsbourg above them. Strasbourg, Basel and Freiburg, across two borders, add big-city days. The villages really need a car or a bike.

From Nuremberg you go to towns, and almost all of them by train. Bamberg, Regensburg and Würzburg are each about an hour away, Rothenburg is a little further, and Munich is within easy reach by fast train.

With children, the real question is whether you want to drive. Colmar itself offers small, gentle pleasures: flat-bottomed boat rides through Petite Venise, the little tourist train and storks nesting on the rooftops. The bigger outings are out in the countryside, such as the free-roaming macaques of the Montagne des Singes, the eagle show at Kintzheim, the stork and otter park at Hunawihr and Europa-Park about an hour away across the Rhine. Nearly all of them need a car.

Nuremberg keeps its best family days inside the city. The Toy Museum draws on centuries of toy-making, the railway museum has full-size locomotives and the first German train, and the zoo spreads through wooded former quarries and has a dolphin and manatee house. Both towns set up a separate children's market at Christmas, but in Nuremberg the steep, cobbled climb to the castle is hard going with a pushchair.

Both centres are compact and walkable. The difference is what happens beyond them. Nuremberg has U-Bahn lines, trams, buses and S-Bahn all on one ticket, which covers the zoo, the Rally Grounds and Fürth, while regional trains handle the day trips. The cobbled climb to the castle is the only real effort.

In Colmar the trains to Strasbourg and Mulhouse are quick, but the wine villages and the Vosges have only sparse buses. Most visitors end up hiring a car or cycling the vineyard roads.

Nuremberg has more ordinary shopping, with chain and department stores along Königstraße. It also has the Handwerkerhof for crafts, wooden toys and Lebkuchen in decorated tins.

Colmar is all about regional things to take home: wine bought from the producer, Soufflenheim pottery, printed Alsatian linen and kougelhopf moulds, with little fashion to speak of. Both peak in Advent. Colmar spreads its markets across several squares, while Nuremberg has its famous single Christkindlesmarkt on the Hauptmarkt.

Day to day the costs are much the same, and the savings come from different places. In Colmar it is set lunches and village tastings that are often free. In Nuremberg it is filling tavern meals, cheap local beer and cheap transport.

Rooms are the problem in both, but at different times. Colmar is small, so summer and the Christmas market weeks fill it quickly. Nuremberg's prices jump during its big trade fairs and Advent.

Nuremberg has a real year-round stage. The Staatstheater runs opera, ballet and drama in its Art Nouveau house, two orchestras play the Meistersingerhalle, and summer adds the free Bardentreffen folk weekend and a large open-air concert in the Luitpoldhain.

Colmar's small Italian-style theatre has a modest season, and the town's calendar depends on festivals: classical music in July and jazz in autumn. Outside those weeks, serious music means a trip to Strasbourg or Basel.

For proper spa time, Nuremberg wins. A large thermal spa with sauna gardens is a short U-Bahn ride away in Fürth, and Bad Windsheim's saline pools are an hour west. Expect the German custom of nude, mixed saunas.

Colmar has hotel spas and not much else. Its form of rest is the calm after the day-trippers leave: quiet canals in the evening, long lunches and slow walks through the vines.