Cologne or Strasbourg?

Neither city is a beach destination, and both send swimmers to old gravel-pit lakes on the outskirts. Cologne's Fühlinger See and Otto-Maigler-See have small sandy stretches. The sandy Rhine banks at Rodenkirchen are nice for sitting out, though the river itself is off limits for swimming.

Strasbourg's lakes are grassier and calmer. Several are lifeguarded in July and August, and the tram goes to the Baggersee, so a hot afternoon there is easy to arrange without a car.

Cologne's cooking is plain Rhineland fare: black pudding with apple and mash, sauerbraten, pork knuckle. The real draw is the Kölsch ritual, with the Köbes swapping small glasses until you cover yours with a beer mat. Its advantage is food from elsewhere, especially the Turkish and Middle Eastern places along Ehrenfeld's Venloer Strasse.

Strasbourg is the better place to eat. Alsace blends French and German cooking into choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée, served in winstubs with a pichet of local Riesling. The city and nearby wine villages also have a strong fine-dining tier, and the markets are full of Munster and charcuterie. Just avoid the tourist menus around the cathedral and Petite France.

The two are evenly matched, but in different ways. Cologne's strength is single great buildings and collections: the cathedral with its Shrine of the Three Kings, a ring of twelve Romanesque churches, Roman remains, and Museum Ludwig's Pop Art. Between them the postwar city is plain.

Strasbourg offers a complete historic townscape instead. The Grande Ile, Petite France's half-timbered houses over the locks and the imperial Neustadt together form a UNESCO-listed whole, so simply walking around is the sight. Its museums are good but smaller, and two or three days cover them.

Cologne is far better for going out. A night can move from the brewhouses to the Zülpicher Strasse student strip and on to late clubs in Ehrenfeld's old factories. The city also has one of Germany's largest gay scenes, around Rudolfplatz. At Carnival the whole city sings in costume from morning until long after dark.

Strasbourg's evenings revolve around bars. There are student haunts in the Krutenau, beer cellars near Place Saint-Étienne, and river terraces that stay full on summer evenings. Clubs are few, and weeknights end early.

Cologne's green side is close at hand. The Grüngürtel park ring and the Stadtwald suit long walks and runs, and cycle paths follow the Rhine for many kilometres. Within about forty minutes the wooded volcanic hills of the Siebengebirge rise above the river, and the Eifel's crater lakes and the Ahr vineyards are about an hour out. It is good walking country, but rolling rather than high.

Strasbourg has the edge in terrain. To the west the Vosges climb above the vineyards, with sandstone castle ruins, Mont Sainte-Odile and summits such as the Champ du Feu, which sees some winter snow. Across the Rhine the Black Forest offers longer hikes on higher ridges, and closer in, storks, herons and beavers live in the Rhine forests. A car helps for the hills, though trains and buses reach the main trailheads.

Both are excellent bases, and the difference is the kind of outing. From Cologne it is city-hopping by fast train: Bonn in twenty minutes, Düsseldorf and Aachen soon after, Brussels in under two hours, and the castles of the Rhine Gorge in about an hour and a half. None of it needs a car.

Strasbourg's trips lean towards wine and villages. Colmar is half an hour away, and the Alsace wine route between the two runs through Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Haut-Koenigsbourg. Across the Rhine are Baden-Baden, Freiburg and Heidelberg. For the wine villages, a car or bike makes the day much easier.

Both are easy with children. Cologne has more big attractions inside the city: the zoo with its elephant park, the Chocolate Museum's working production line, and the cable car across the Rhine. Phantasialand is just a short hop south.

Strasbourg's appeal is how easy it is: a compact, mostly car-free centre, boat trips around the Grande Ile, storks and rowing boats in the Orangerie, and the Le Vaisseau science centre. Europa-Park is about an hour away. Avoid Carnival in Cologne with small children. In Strasbourg, the Christmas market is magical but crowded.

Both are easy without a car. In Cologne you step off the train beside the cathedral, with the museums and Altstadt a flat walk away. The Stadtbahn reaches Ehrenfeld and the zoo, though the map is confusing and the trams can be crowded.

Strasbourg's old town island takes about twenty minutes to cross on foot, and much of it is pedestrianised. Its trams are simple to use, one line even runs to Kehl in Germany, and its network of separated bike lanes makes cycling the quickest way around.

Cologne is better for general shopping. Schildergasse and Hohe Strasse are among Germany's busiest high streets. Ehrenstrasse and the Belgian Quarter add independent fashion, and Eau de Cologne from the old perfume houses on Glockengasse is the classic souvenir.

Strasbourg is better for regional things to take home: Alsace wine, Soufflenheim pottery, printed linens and kougelhopf moulds from shops near the cathedral. Fashion is thin. Both cities have big Christmas markets in Advent.

Costs are much the same: mid-priced, cheaper than a capital, with free entry to both cathedrals. In Cologne the cheap pleasure is a brewhouse meal with Kölsch. In Strasbourg it is tarte flambée and wine by the pichet.

The timing traps differ. Cologne's hotels fill and get expensive during the big Messe trade fairs and Carnival. Strasbourg's do the same during the Christmas market and the weeks the European Parliament sits.

Cologne has the bigger stage scene. The Philharmonie beside the cathedral is home to two orchestras, and the WDR adds a big band and choirs. Small clubs in Ehrenfeld and the Südstadt host electronic music, jazz and gigs most nights, and the Carnival sessions with their dialect bands exist nowhere else.

Strasbourg has serious credentials for its size: the Opéra national du Rhin, the Théâtre National de Strasbourg and the Musica contemporary music festival in autumn. But much of it follows the season, so evenings out need planning rather than chance.

The two are roughly level for unwinding, but the experience is quite different. Cologne does it on a large, modern scale. Its sauna complexes are big, mostly textile-free spaces of steam rooms, cold plunges and quiet rooms, and at the mineral-spring thermal bath in the Rheinpark you can soak with the cathedral spires across the water. For a whole day of bathing, Aachen's springs, in use since Roman times, are a short train ride west. Rest is hard to find during Carnival, so avoid it if that is the aim.

Strasbourg offers less in the city itself and something grander next door. The Bains municipaux is a single early twentieth-century bathhouse with a hammam and saunas. It is a pleasant local institution rather than a reason to visit. The real spa outing is across the border in Baden-Baden, where the nineteenth-century Friedrichsbad still follows the old Roman-Irish bathing ritual, and more Black Forest spa towns lie beyond it. If quiet matters, come outside Advent, when the market takes over the old town.