Colmar or Turin?

Neither city is a place for the water, but Turin comes out slightly ahead because the Ligurian Riviera is within a long day's reach, and the lakes at Avigliana, Viverone and Lago Maggiore give it more choice in summer. Colmar has municipal pools and a few small Vosges lakes, and no sea within practical distance.

Colmar's table is all Alsace: winstub dishes such as choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée, munster cheese, and white wines poured from the slopes outside town. It is hearty and characterful, but once you step outside regional cooking the choice is narrow, and the prettiest lanes have their share of tired menus.

Turin goes deeper and wider. You get agnolotti del plin, vitello tonnato, autumn truffles from the Langhe and red wines like Barolo and Barbaresco, plus the city's own vermouth, aperitivo, gianduiotto chocolate and bicerin in the arcade cafés. Porta Palazzo market adds cheap everyday eating that a small town like Colmar cannot match.

Colmar's appeal is the townscape: an intact old centre of painted half-timbered houses, Maison Pfister, the Koïfhus and the canals. Its single great work of art is Grünewald's altarpiece at the Unterlinden. It is concentrated and memorable, but small.

Turin works on a different scale. A former royal capital, it has the Museo Egizio, the Royal Palace and armoury, Palazzo Madama, the Shroud cathedral and the ring of Savoy residences led by Venaria. On top of that come the Cinema Museum in the Mole, the car museum and contemporary art at Rivoli and the GAM, enough for a much longer stay.

Colmar goes quiet early. A few wine bars and brasseries around Petite Venise and some late summer terraces are about all there is, and anyone wanting more takes the train to Strasbourg.

Turin has a real evening culture. Aperitivo leads on to the cocktail bars of the Quadrilatero Romano, crowded pavements in San Salvario, the more alternative Vanchiglia and the Murazzi by the Po in summer, with clubs in old industrial spaces. The mood is sociable rather than wild, but there is far more going on than in Colmar.

Colmar's countryside is gentle and close at hand. You can walk through the vineyards between wine villages, drive up the rounded forested Vosges along the Route des Crêtes or cycle the flat wine route, and the Black Forest is about an hour away.

Turin has the bigger outdoors. The Alps are about an hour away, with ibex and high trails in Gran Paradiso, serious skiing around Sestriere, and hut-to-hut hiking and climbing in summer. Closer to town there are the Superga hills, the Mandria forest and the cycle paths along the Po.

Both cities are superb bases, and the difference lies in the kind of outing. From Colmar the trips are short and close together: storybook wine villages a few kilometres apart, Haut-Koenigsbourg, Strasbourg half an hour by train, and Basel and Freiburg across two borders.

Turin's trips cover more ground and more variety. The Langhe wine hills and Alba sit about an hour south and Milan is an hour by fast train, while the Sacra di San Michele, Aosta and Genoa make fuller days. Colmar's villages really need a car or bike, whereas Turin's city trips run easily by rail.

Colmar has a slight edge with children, mostly thanks to what surrounds it. The town is small and flat, with canal boats, a tourist train and a children's Christmas market. Within a short drive are the stork and otter park at Hunawihr, the macaques of Montagne des Singes and Europa-Park.

Turin's flat, arcaded grid is easy with a pushchair, and older children enjoy the glass lift in the Mole, the mummies and the planetarium. It has no zoo or theme park within the city, though, and its main family day out, Zoom Torino, involves a drive.

Both centres are walked rather than ridden, and Turin is a little easier overall. Colmar's old town is so small that the station and the museums are minutes apart, but the villages and the Vosges have thin bus services, so a hired car or bicycle becomes almost essential.

Turin adds a driverless metro line, trams and good rail links to the rest of Italy. Its long arcades make walking pleasant in rain or sun, and you only need a car for the wine hills and the mountains.

Colmar is for regional souvenirs: wine bought from the grower, Soufflenheim pottery, kougelhopf moulds, printed Alsatian linen and gingerbread. December, when the Christmas markets spread across several squares, is the best time for it. Fashion barely features.

Turin has a real retail spread. Big labels line the arcades of Via Roma, mainstream shops fill Via Garibaldi, and antique dealers cluster on Via Maria Vittoria. The Balon flea market runs on Saturdays, and the chocolate makers and delicatessens make food the standout buy.

Turin is the easier city on the wallet. A generous aperitivo can stand in for dinner, the trattorie and Porta Palazzo market are good value, and central hotels are fairly priced except during trade fairs.

Colmar's meals and village wine tastings are reasonable, but rooms are the problem. A small town with high demand gets expensive in summer and especially during the Christmas market weeks, so staying in a nearby village helps.

Here the gap is wide. Colmar has a small Italian-style theatre, visits from the Opéra national du Rhin and a calendar that comes alive mainly for the July classical festival, the autumn jazz festival and the wine fair concerts.

Turin runs a full year-round programme. The Teatro Regio stages opera and ballet, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra plays at its own auditorium, and there are concerts at the Lingotto and jazz clubs across the centre. The plays at the Teatro Carignano are almost all in Italian, though.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and both rely on hotel spas, but Turin offers a little more. It has a few day spas, and thermal waters at Acqui Terme and in the Aosta valley are reachable in a long excursion.

Colmar's restfulness is of a quieter, rural kind: canal-side evenings once the day-trippers have gone and slow walks through the vines. Turin's calm is urban, found in long coffee breaks in historic cafés and afternoons in Valentino park.