Cologne or Heidelberg?

Neither city works for a beach vacation, and neither river is safe for swimming. Cologne does slightly better on a hot day, because its flooded gravel pits are on the city's own edge. Fühlinger See, Escher See and Otto-Maigler-See have grassy banks and small sandy patches.

Heidelberg's similar lakes lie out on the Rhine plain about half an hour away, so most visitors use the outdoor pools instead. From either city the sea is too far for a day trip.

Cologne is the better place to eat, mainly because of the Brauhaus. Waiters keep bringing small glasses of Kölsch until you cover yours with a beer mat, and Rhineland dishes such as Himmel un Ääd come with them. Ehrenfeld's Venloer Strasse adds good Turkish and Middle Eastern cooking, and the Belgian Quarter has modern bistros.

Heidelberg's strong point is wine, not food. Riesling and Pinot from the Bergstrasse and the Palatinate are on every list, and white asparagus fills menus in spring. The restaurants along the Hauptstrasse are uneven, though, so for a better meal head to the side streets, Neuenheim or the village wine taverns.

Cologne has more to see and more depth. Beyond the cathedral and the Shrine of the Three Kings there is a full circuit of Romanesque churches, Roman remains, and museums such as Museum Ludwig, the Wallraf-Richartz and Kolumba. What it lacks is a historic townscape, since most of the city was rebuilt quickly after the war.

Heidelberg is the opposite: fewer major sights, but a beautiful whole. The red sandstone castle ruin, the baroque Altstadt, the Old Bridge and the graffiti-covered Student Prison of Germany's oldest university make a compact set that most visitors finish in a day or two.

Cologne is much the better night out. You can start in an Altstadt brewhouse and move on to cocktail bars in the Belgian Quarter, the crowded student strip on Zülpicher Strasse or the late clubs in Ehrenfeld's old factories. Around Rudolfplatz is one of Germany's largest gay scenes, and at Carnival the whole city parties in costume.

Heidelberg's nightlife runs on its students. The pubs along the Untere Strasse and the old student taverns fill up late in term time, but out of term the town goes quiet early. For a proper club night, people take the train to Mannheim or Frankfurt.

The two are fairly even, but the landscape works differently in each. In Heidelberg the forest begins at the edge of the old town. You can walk the Philosophers' Walk, take the funicular up the 568m Königstuhl, or climb the Heiligenberg to its Celtic ramparts, all without any transport.

Cologne itself is flat, and its outdoors means the Grüngürtel parks and long cycle paths beside the Rhine. Real hills, in the Siebengebirge and the Eifel, start about forty minutes to an hour away. Neither city has mountains.

Both make excellent bases, but the outings are of a different kind. Cologne sits on a fast rail hub, so its trips lean towards cities: Bonn, Düsseldorf and Aachen with Charlemagne's chapel, and across the border Maastricht, Liège and Brussels by high-speed train. Brühl's rococo palaces, the castle towns of the Rhine Gorge and the industrial heritage at Zollverein add variety.

From Heidelberg the outings are smaller in scale. You can see the great Romanesque cathedral at Speyer, Worms and its medieval Jewish heritage, the palace gardens at Schwetzingen, the monasteries at Lorsch and Maulbronn, and the castle villages up the Neckar. The Palatinate wine villages are easiest to reach by car, while almost all of Cologne's trips work by train.

Cologne gives children more to do. There is a large zoo with an elephant park, the Chocolate Museum with its chocolate fountain, a cable car over the Rhine, and Phantasialand a short trip south. The one period to avoid with small children is Carnival.

Heidelberg is small and calm, and the funicular ride, the fairy-tale park on the Königstuhl and the boat trips are good for younger children. The larger attractions, such as the Technik Museum Speyer, mean a trip out of town, and the cobbled, sloping Altstadt is tiring with a pushchair.

Getting around is about equally easy in both. Cologne's station sits right beside the cathedral and the centre is flat, though the tram and Stadtbahn map takes a while to learn.

In Heidelberg you arrive some way west of the old town and take a tram in. After that, the long, narrow Altstadt is easy to walk, apart from cobbles and the steep climb to the castle, which the funicular saves you. One fare covers the whole Rhine-Neckar area.

Cologne is the shopping city of the two. Schildergasse and Hohe Strasse are among Germany's busiest high streets, Ehrenstrasse and the Belgian Quarter have independent fashion and design shops, and Eau de Cologne is still sold at the old perfume houses. Its Christmas markets fill the squares in Advent.

Heidelberg's shopping is mostly the long Hauptstrasse. High-street chains at one end give way to souvenirs, cuckoo clocks and Studentenkuss chocolates near the market square. Bergstrasse wine is the best thing to take home, and for anything more serious people go to Mannheim or Frankfurt.

Prices are similar in both, mid-range for western Germany, and the hotel is the main cost. What differs is when rooms get expensive. In Cologne, rates jump during the big Messe trade fairs and at Carnival.

Heidelberg has few rooms for the number of visitors it gets, and congresses, graduations and summer weekends push prices up. Many visitors stay in Mannheim and come in by train. On the other hand, student cafés keep meals cheap, while in Cologne the cathedral and many churches are free to enter.

Cologne has far more on stage. The opera and the Schauspiel share Offenbachplatz, the Gürzenich and WDR Symphony orchestras play at the Philharmonie by the cathedral, and Ehrenfeld and the Südstadt have jazz, electronic and experimental gigs most nights. The Carnival sessions, with their dialect bands, are a tradition unique to the city.

Heidelberg does well for a small town. Its municipal theatre stages opera, drama and dance, the Heidelberger Frühling festival brings chamber music in spring, and in summer plays, musicals and concerts are staged in the castle courtyard. For a bigger opera house, Mannheim is twenty minutes away.

Cologne has the edge for spa days because the facilities are in town. A thermal bath complex in the Rheinpark looks across the river to the cathedral, large sauna landscapes are part of everyday life, and Aachen's hot springs are less than forty minutes away. The city itself is busy, though, and not restful.

Heidelberg has no thermal baths of its own, so for that you go to the Kraichgau spa towns or to Baden-Baden. The town is calmer, however, with evenings on the Neckar meadows, forest paths above the Philosophers' Walk and unhurried wine taverns.