Dijon or Munich?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Munich gives a summer swimmer much more. Dijon has one supervised lawn-and-sand area at Lac Kir and, beyond that, pools.

Munich has the gravel banks of the Isar at the Flaucher and, under an hour away by S-Bahn, the clear water of the Starnberger See and the Ammersee, with jetties and lawns. The water is fresh rather than warm, but a lake day fits easily into a summer trip.

Dijon has the edge for food. Classic Burgundian cooking, such as boeuf bourguignon, jambon persillé and snails, comes with village wines poured by the glass. The iron market hall of Les Halles, with its Époisses and Bresse poultry, is the centre of the city's eating.

Munich's food is built around beer. You eat pork with crackling and white sausage in chestnut-shaded beer gardens, graze at the open-air Viktualienmarkt and take afternoon cake seriously. It is hearty and sociable, while Dijon is refined but narrow. Neither city offers much international range.

Munich has far more to see. The Kunstareal alone holds the Alte Pinakothek's old masters, the Glyptothek and the Blue Rider painters of the Lenbachhaus. Add the Residenz, Nymphenburg and the vast Deutsches Museum, and you have a week of sightseeing.

Dijon has a more intact old town, while much of Munich's centre was rebuilt after the war. Dijon's half-timbered streets, the gargoyles of Notre-Dame and the ducal tombs in the Palace of the Dukes are rewarding, but they fill two or three days rather than a week.

Munich has more going on after dark. Beer halls fill early, the Glockenbachviertel has dense rows of cocktail and gay bars, and a few techno clubs run until morning at weekends. Oktoberfest takes over the city for two weeks each autumn.

Dijon's evenings rely on its students. A night out means small bars along Rue Berbisey, wine and a late dinner, and outside term time the streets are quiet by around midnight.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. From Munich, trains reach real alpine country around Garmisch and the Zugspitze for summer hiking and winter skiing. Closer to town, the Five Lakes are good for sailing and cycling, and in the city the English Garden has surfers riding the Eisbach wave.

Dijon's countryside is gentle and pleasant rather than dramatic. It has the limestone combes west of town for short walks and climbing, the flat canal towpath, the vineyard cycle route to Beaune and the Morvan's granite hills further off.

Both cities make excellent bases, and Munich has slightly more range. Within two hours by train you can reach Salzburg, Nuremberg, Regensburg and Innsbruck, plus the royal castles at Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee. Most of it is easy without a car.

Dijon's day trips are more concentrated and more about wine: the Grand Cru villages, walled Beaune with the Hospices, then Fontenay Abbey and Semur-en-Auxois to the north-west. You will need a car, a bike or a tour for much of it.

Munich is much easier with children. It has a large zoo along the Isar, children's sections at the Deutsches Museum, the transport museum, an aquarium in the Olympic Park and beer gardens with playgrounds, all on transport that takes pushchairs.

Dijon is safe and small, with the planetarium at the Jardin de l'Arquebuse and paddling at Lac Kir. But a trip built on tastings and fine-art museums will appeal to parents more than to their children.

Both cities have walkable old centres, so the difference shows once you leave them. In Dijon the station, the market, the palace and the cathedral are a few minutes apart on foot, and two tram lines and a bus network cover the outskirts. Regional trains run down the wine route to Beaune, and the TGV reaches Paris in well under two hours, so you can arrive and leave without a car.

Munich's network goes further. The U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses run as one system out to the museums, Nymphenburg, the lakes and the airport, and a car is more of a burden than a help in town. The flat streets and riverside paths also make it the better city for cycling, though delays on the central S-Bahn line are the usual irritation.

Munich is the shopping city. Maximilianstrasse has the luxury houses, Kaufingerstrasse the department stores, and Glockenbach and Schwabing the independent designers. It also has a distinctive buy in hand-tailored Tracht.

In Dijon, shopping mostly means things to eat and drink: mustard in dozens of flavours, cassis, pain d'épices and Burgundy from the wine merchants. Rue de la Liberté has a department store and some chains, but there is little for fashion.

Dijon is the cheaper city. Hotel rooms are moderate and bistro set lunches are good value. The bill only rises once you book serious restaurants, tastings and good bottles.

Munich is Germany's most expensive city, and you feel it most in hotel rates, which climb steeply during Oktoberfest and trade fairs. Picnics in beer gardens, the free parks and lakes, and token Sunday museum fees help, but it remains the bigger outlay.

For music lovers this is a big gap. Munich's Bavarian State Opera is among the world's leading companies and plays most of the year. The city also has three orchestras of real standing, chamber opera in the rococo Cuvilliés Theatre, and operetta at the Gärtnerplatztheater.

Dijon does well for a city its size, with the Opéra performing in both the old Grand Théâtre and the acoustically fine Auditorium. Its season follows the academic year, though, and thins out in summer.

Munich has a real bathing culture. There is the Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad with its Roman-style steam bath, and public saunas with infusion rituals. The huge thermal complex at Erding is forty minutes away, and the spa towns of Bad Tölz and Bad Reichenhall lie towards the mountains.

Dijon has no bathing tradition and only a few hotel spas, some offering grape-based treatments. What it offers instead is a slow pace: long lunches, quiet squares and lazy afternoons among the vines.