Colmar or Rotterdam?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Rotterdam at least has one. Hoek van Holland is a wide sandy North Sea strand with dunes and passing ships, and the metro gets you there. The water stays cold and the wind rarely drops, so most people walk the beach rather than swim.

Colmar is about as far inland as France gets. Swimming means a municipal pool or a small lake up in the Vosges valleys.

Colmar eats better, and with a much stronger sense of place. Wood-panelled winstubs serve choucroute, baeckeoffe, tarte flambée and munster cheese, with Riesling and Gewurztraminer from the slopes outside town and a fine-dining tier along the wine route. The catch is a narrow range beyond Alsatian cooking.

Rotterdam is the opposite case: little local tradition but plenty of variety. Surinamese roti, Turkish bakeries and Indonesian and Cape Verdean kitchens sit alongside harbour-side bistros, and the Markthal and Witte de Withstraat make easy starting points.

Colmar has the slightly richer set of sights, and it is all old. The painted half-timbered streets, Petite Venise and the Maison Pfister form one intact late-medieval townscape, and the Unterlinden Museum holds Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, a single work worth the trip.

Rotterdam's appeal is the reverse: a centre rebuilt after 1940 as a showcase of modern architecture, from the Cube Houses to the Erasmus Bridge and the mirrored Depot Boijmans. Its museums are solid rather than unmissable, and old Rotterdam survives mainly in Delfshaven.

Rotterdam is far more of a place to go out. It has bar streets around the Oude Haven and Witte de Withstraat, brown cafés on the Nieuwe Binnenweg and, above all, warehouse techno and house nights in the city that gave the world gabber.

Colmar's evenings end with dinner and a glass of wine in a winstub or a canal-side terrace. The streets go quiet early, and a real night out means the train to Strasbourg.

Colmar wins easily. Vineyards climb from the edge of town into the Vosges, with glacial lakes, summer pastures, the Grand Ballon and views across to the Black Forest. There are dense trail networks and some modest skiing in winter.

Rotterdam's outdoors is flat and shaped by people: cycling along dykes into the polders, sailing on the Kralingse Bos lake, and canoeing and birdwatching among the tidal creeks of the Biesbosch. It is pleasant, but there are no hills.

Both make outstanding bases, but for different kinds of outing. From Rotterdam, fast trains reach Delft, The Hague, Amsterdam, Leiden and Antwerp, so it suits travellers who want a string of cities with no car.

Colmar's best trips are rural: Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg along the wine route, and Haut-Koenigsbourg on its ridge. Strasbourg, Basel and Freiburg are easy by train, but the villages really need a car or a bike.

Both are flat, safe and easy with children, so the difference is where the fun is. Rotterdam keeps it in town, with Blijdorp zoo and its ocean hall, the Maritime Museum's hands-on harbour, water taxis and the Euromast, all reachable by tram.

In Colmar, the town itself offers boat rides through Petite Venise and storks on the rooftops. The bigger draws, such as the monkey park at Kintzheim, the stork and otter park and Europa-Park, are a drive away.

Rotterdam is the easier city without a car. Metro, trams and buses share one tap-in system, and the metro runs all the way to the coast. Water buses and water taxis cross the Maas, and cycle paths run almost everywhere. The postwar centre is spread out, though, so expect to mix walking with the tram or a bike.

Colmar's compact old town is a pleasure on foot. Beyond it the buses soon become infrequent, and the wine villages and mountains are much easier to reach with a hire car or bike.

Rotterdam is the better place for a proper shop. It has the Lijnbaan and Beurstraverse for the big chains, and independent fashion, vintage and design shops on the Meent and Witte de Withstraat.

Colmar is about things to take home: wine straight from the producer, Soufflenheim pottery, Alsatian linen and gingerbread. The Christmas markets are the highlight of its year, but fashion barely features.

Colmar is the cheaper of the two day to day. Set lunches, regional wine and village tastings are kind on the wallet. Its weak point is rooms in a small town that fills up in summer and at Christmas.

Rotterdam turns that around. Hotels are plentiful and fairly priced for the Netherlands, but meals, beer and coffee cost what they do across the country. Market stalls and Surinamese snack shops are the way to save.

Rotterdam has a real cultural calendar. The Rotterdam Philharmonic plays a full season at De Doelen, there is theatre and dance at the Schouwburg, and the North Sea Jazz Festival takes over a long weekend each July. Much of the theatre is in Dutch, though, and there is no resident opera.

Colmar's small Italian-style theatre and its July classical festival and autumn jazz festival are pleasant, but between those weeks serious music means a trip to Strasbourg or Basel.

Rotterdam has the edge thanks to the Dutch sauna tradition. Large complexes on the city's fringes offer saunas, steam rooms and garden pools, usually textile-free in the sauna areas.

Colmar has only hotel spas. What it offers instead is calm: quiet canal-side evenings once the day-trippers leave and slow walks through the vines, which a brisk port city cannot match.