Cologne or Karlovy Vary?

Neither town has a sea, and the sides are close to even. Cologne's swimming happens at flooded gravel pits such as Fühlinger See and Otto-Maigler-See, on the city's edge, with grassy banks and small patches of sand. The sandy Rhine banks at Rodenkirchen are only for sitting.

Karlovy Vary's lake, Medard near Sokolov, is half an hour away. In town, swimming means pools, though the spring-fed outdoor pool on the hillside stays warm when a lake would be too cold to swim in.

Cologne gives you more to eat. You will go to the brewhouses for the ritual: the Köbes keeps topping up your Kölsch until you cover the glass with a beer mat, and the plates hold Himmel un Ääd and sauerbraten. Then there is real variety beyond them, with bistros in the Belgian Quarter and Turkish and Middle Eastern food along Ehrenfeld's Venloer Strasse.

Karlovy Vary sticks closer to one cuisine: Czech roast pork, dumplings and svíčková with good beer. Its best tastes are its own, the warm spa wafers from the colonnade stalls and Becherovka distilled in town. Restaurants along the main promenade tend towards generic menus for hotel guests.

Cologne goes deeper. Beyond the cathedral and its Shrine of the Three Kings, there are twelve Romanesque churches, Roman remains and three museums worth a trip on their own: the Pop Art at Museum Ludwig, the old masters of the Wallraf-Richartz and Kolumba set in its bombed church. The catch is that the streets between these buildings were rebuilt plainly after the war.

Karlovy Vary turns that around. Its museums are small, but the whole valley is the sight: tiers of pastel hotels, the carved timber Market Colonnade and the Vřídlo geyser shooting up inside its hall. Two days cover it, and the place is lovely to look at for the whole stay.

The gap is wide. In Cologne a night can move from the Altstadt brewhouses to Belgian Quarter wine bars, then to Ehrenfeld clubs in old factory buildings. One of Germany's most open gay scenes centres on Rudolfplatz, and at Carnival the whole city stays out in costume from morning to night.

Karlovy Vary's evenings consist of an early dinner, a walk along the promenade and a drink in the hotel bar, with a casino if you want one. Only the film festival week in early summer fills the valley with parties.

The two are broadly level, but they get you outdoors in different ways. In Karlovy Vary the beech and spruce forest starts right at the hotels. Graded spa paths climb to the Diana tower and the stag-leap rock, the Slavkov Forest's moors are nearby, and the Ore Mountains offer skiing around Klínovec in winter.

Cologne is flat, and its everyday green space is the Grüngürtel parks and long cycle paths along the Rhine. For hills you take a train to the volcanic Siebengebirge or the Eifel's crater lakes, which makes it the better base for cycling, though not for walking straight out of your hotel.

Cologne is the stronger base by some distance, thanks to its fast trains. Brühl's palaces, Bonn, Düsseldorf and Charlemagne's chapel in Aachen are each well under an hour away. The castle towns of the Rhine Gorge and Brussels make full days out.

Karlovy Vary has good outings close by: Loket's castle in its river loop, the sister spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně, and the St Maurus reliquary at Bečov. The regional trains are slow, though, and Prague means about two hours each way by coach.

Cologne is much easier with children. It has the zoo with its elephant park, the chocolate fountain at the Chocolate Museum, the cable car to the Rheinpark playgrounds and Phantasialand just south of the city. The one time to avoid is Carnival, when the streets are crowded and drunk.

Karlovy Vary keeps children happy for a day or so with the geyser, the spouted spring cups, the funicular and the wafers, and Loket's castle makes an easy outing. After that there is little aimed at them, and the steep streets are hard work with a pushchair.

Arriving in Cologne puts you right beside the cathedral, with the Altstadt, the museums and the river all on flat ground within walking distance. The Stadtbahn and S-Bahn take you out to Ehrenfeld, the Belgian Quarter and the zoo. The network map takes some learning, but the long riverside paths make cycling an easy alternative.

Karlovy Vary's spa quarter is a gentle walk along the Teplá, but hotels and viewpoints up the steep valley sides mean a climb, a local bus or the funicular. You can manage without a car in town, but one helps for the forests and smaller villages. Without a car, Cologne is the easier of the two to get around.

From the cathedral, Schildergasse and Hohe Strasse run south as one of Germany's busiest high streets, lined with department stores and chains. Ehrenstrasse and the Belgian Quarter add independent fashion and design shops. Eau de Cologne from the historic perfume houses on Glockengasse is the local thing to take home, and in Advent the Christmas markets fill the squares.

Karlovy Vary's shopping is much smaller and stays on the promenades of Stará louka and Tržiště, but it has specialities Cologne cannot match. These are Moser crystal from the firm's own showroom, porcelain from the surrounding factories and Bohemian garnet jewellery. Beyond those and the boutiques aimed at spa guests, there is little to browse.

Karlovy Vary costs less, as long as you eat one street back from the colonnades. There the pubs serve Czech food at local prices, and the springs, local buses and funicular cost little or nothing. The grand hotels still charge for the setting, and festival week is the dearest time to stay.

Cologne is mid-priced. Brewhouse meals are reasonable and the cathedral is free to enter, but hotel rooms become scarce and expensive during the big trade fairs and Carnival.

Cologne has a real stage scene. There are the opera and theatre on Offenbachplatz, the Gürzenich and WDR orchestras in the Philharmonie by the cathedral, early music in the Romanesque churches, and jazz and electronic gigs in small clubs most nights. Carnival sessions in local dialect are a tradition you will find only here.

Karlovy Vary offers a pleasant evening rather than a programme to plan around. Its symphony orchestra, descended from the old spa bands, plays light classics, outdoors on the colonnades in summer. The Fellner and Helmer theatre takes touring productions, and a Dvořák festival runs in autumn.

This is Karlovy Vary's reason for being. Guests walk between thirteen springs sipping from porcelain cups, and the sanatoria offer carbonated baths, peat wraps and consultations with doctors. The whole day runs at a slow pace. To get the full experience, book a stay at a spa hotel, because public bathhouses are few.

Cologne offers good ways to unwind within a busy city. There are textile-free German sauna complexes, and the mineral-spring thermal baths in the Rheinpark look across the river to the cathedral. Aachen's hot springs are a short train ride away.