Dijon or Heidelberg?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, since both are hours from the sea. Dijon's alternative is the closer of the two: Lac Kir sits right on the edge of town, with a supervised bathing area of lawn and sand in summer.

Heidelberg's Neckar is not a swimming river, so a hot day means one of the outdoor pools or a drive of about half an hour to the flooded gravel pits on the Rhine plain.

Food is where Dijon pulls clearly ahead. It is the capital of a great gastronomic region, with boeuf bourguignon, snails and gougères on menus, Époisses and Bresse poultry at Les Halles, and Côte de Nuits wines by the glass a short ride from the vineyards. The Cité de la Gastronomie adds tastings and cookery, and there is a serious fine-dining tier for a special meal.

Heidelberg eats more simply: Maultaschen, Schäufele, Flammkuchen and the spring asparagus, with good Riesling from the Bergstrasse. The restaurants under the castle cater largely to day-trippers, so the better meals take some looking for in Neuenheim or the village wine taverns. Student demand does make cheap international food easier to find there than in Dijon.

Both are compact historic towns, but Dijon has slightly more depth. The Palace of the Dukes houses one of France's oldest fine art museums, with the carved Valois tombs, and around it stand Notre-Dame with its gargoyles, the Romanesque crypt of Saint-Bénigne and Sluter's Well of Moses. All of that fills two or three days.

Heidelberg is built around a single great view: the red sandstone castle ruin above the baroque Altstadt and the Old Bridge. The university, Germany's oldest, adds the Student Prison and the Old University. It is more of a picture-postcard town and most visitors see it in a day or two.

Both are university towns, and their evenings rise and fall with the term. Heidelberg is a little livelier. The Untere Strasse fills up late with small pubs, the old student taverns add atmosphere, and Mannheim and Frankfurt are close by train for a proper club night.

In Dijon, going out means wine bars and a late dinner on Rue Berbisey or around Place Émile Zola. There are fewer clubs, and outside term the streets are quiet by midnight.

Both are gentle walking and cycling country without mountains, but Heidelberg has the outdoors closer to hand. Dijon's walking starts just west of town in the wooded combes. The Combe à la Serre and the Combe de Lavaux have trails and cliffs for climbing, while the canal towpath and the vineyard route to Beaune make for easy cycling. For wilder hills, the Morvan is about an hour and a half's drive away.

In Heidelberg the Odenwald forest starts at the edge of the Altstadt. The Philosophers' Walk faces the castle, a funicular climbs to the Königstuhl at 568m with hours of trails at the top, and the Heiligenberg has Celtic ramparts among its trees. The Neckar cycle path and the Palatinate Forest, about an hour west, give you more to choose from.

Both are excellent bases, but the trips are different in character. From Dijon almost everything is about wine and monasteries: the Route des Grands Crus to Beaune and the Côte de Beaune villages, then Fontenay Abbey, Semur-en-Auxois and Vézelay. Much of it is easiest by car, bike or tour.

Heidelberg offers more variety and needs less driving. The imperial cathedrals at Speyer and Worms, the palace at Schwetzingen, Maulbronn's monastery and the castle villages of the Neckar are all reachable by regional train, and Strasbourg is possible for a long day.

Heidelberg is the better place for children. The funicular ride is an outing in itself, the Königstuhl has a small fairy-tale park, the zoo and river boats fill easy afternoons, and the Technik Museum at Speyer, where children can climb into aircraft and a submarine, is close by.

Dijon is calm and safe, and its flat pedestrian centre is kinder to a pushchair than Heidelberg's cobbles and slopes. For children, though, there are mainly parks, a planetarium and Lac Kir, while the rest of the itinerary is aimed at adults.

Both are easy to manage without a car, but they are laid out differently. In Dijon the station is a few minutes' walk from the market and the palace, trams cover the outskirts, and the TGV reaches Paris quickly. Wine villages off the railway are the one place a car helps.

Heidelberg's sights run along a long strip by the river, and the station is a tram ride away to the west. In return, a single fare system covers trains and trams across the Rhine-Neckar region, and a funicular takes you up the steep castle hill.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what to bring home differs. Dijon's best buys are things to eat and drink: mustard in many flavours, pain d'épices, crème de cassis, cheese from Les Halles and Burgundy from the cellars.

Heidelberg's long Hauptstrasse goes from high-street chains to cuckoo clocks, beer steins and Studentenkuss chocolates. Mannheim and Frankfurt are close by train for anyone looking for serious fashion, which Dijon cannot offer.

Dijon is the cheaper stay. Hotel rooms are moderately priced, bistro set lunches are an affordable way to eat well, and wine by the glass costs less than in most of France. The bill grows only when tastings and serious dinners take over.

In Heidelberg, rooms are the main expense. There are few of them, and congresses and summer weekends push prices up, so many visitors stay in Mannheim instead. Meals in student cafés and the regional travel ticket help to balance the cost.

Both towns have a full season for their size, and the main difference is in summer. Dijon's opera company performs in the old Grand Théâtre and the acoustically fine Auditorium, but its programme follows the academic year and thins out in summer.

In Heidelberg, the Heidelberger Frühling brings chamber music in spring, and in summer the castle courtyard becomes an open-air stage for plays and concerts. Mannheim's larger opera house is about twenty minutes away.

Neither town has thermal baths of its own, but Heidelberg has far better ones nearby. The saline pools and saunas of the Kraichgau spa towns are about half an hour away, Baden-Baden is about an hour south, and the Neckar meadows and forest paths are good for slow evenings.

Dijon's version of relaxing is a long lunch and a quiet afternoon among the vines. Spa treatments are limited to a few hotels, some offering grape-based treatments.