Dresden or Graz?

Neither city is a place for beach time, and in both of them a hot day means a swim in a former gravel pit rather than the river. The difference is in what is on offer. Dresden has outdoor pools, flooded pits at the edge of town and the ponds around Moritzburg. Graz has a more organised lake scene at Schwarzlsee, with jetties, kiosks and water that warms to about 23°C, and Stubenbergsee makes a half-day out in the eastern hills.

Dresden eats heartily but without much range: sauerbraten, dumplings and game, with Christstollen and Eierschecke at the afternoon coffee table. The Elbe valley wines from Radebeul and Meissen are a pleasant surprise. Outside the casual Neustadt, choice thins out, and the streets around the Frauenkirche lean towards tourist menus.

Graz is the better place to eat. Styrian cooking is built around its regional produce, from pumpkin seed oil on everything to cold fried chicken salad and Wurzelfleisch. The farmers' markets at Kaiser-Josef-Platz and Lendplatz, and the Sauvignon Blanc poured at the Buschenschank taverns less than an hour south, make food a real reason to go.

Dresden is the clear winner for sights. Its baroque riverfront holds collections of world rank: Raphael's Sistine Madonna in the Zwinger, the jewelled Green Vault in the Residenzschloss and Caspar David Friedrich at the Albertinum, with the rebuilt Frauenkirche at the centre. It is a city of great museums and needs three or four days, though much of what you see is reconstruction beside post-war blocks.

Graz offers a different pleasure, an old town that survived intact, with Renaissance arcaded courtyards and red roofs below the Schlossberg clock tower. The Landeszeughaus armoury and Schloss Eggenberg are its highlights, and the Kunsthaus adds a modern counterpoint. It is lovely to walk through, but its collections are smaller, and two or three days covers it.

Dresden has slightly more going on after dark, almost all of it in the Äußere Neustadt. This grid of old streets fills with students in small bars and beer kiosks, people drink on the pavements in summer, and a few clubs run in old industrial buildings. Across the river, the old town goes quiet after dinner.

Graz spreads its smaller scene across the Bermuda Triangle lanes in the old town, the artier bars of Lend and the university quarter. It suits wine bars and pub crawls, but it empties noticeably in the long summer break when the students leave.

Both cities have good countryside close by, but it is very different. From Dresden, the suburban train reaches Saxon Switzerland in well under an hour, with sandstone towers, the Bastei view and the multi-day Malerweg trail. It is also a historic home of traditional free climbing, and the Elbe cycle route runs past vineyards and palaces.

Graz looks towards the Alps instead. The Schöckl home mountain has a cable car, trails and paragliders. The Bärenschützklamm gorge climbs past waterfalls on wooden ladders, and the Gesäuse and Hochschwab offer proper alpine hiking within about two hours.

Dresden has the richer and easier choice of day trips. Meissen's cathedral and porcelain manufactory, the Moritzburg lodge, the Königstein fortress, Leipzig, Görlitz and Bautzen can all be reached by train or tram, and Prague is possible as a long day out.

Graz's outings are more rural: the South Styrian Wine Road, Riegersburg castle on its volcanic crag, the Lipizzaners at Piber and Admont Abbey's library. Maribor is an easy train ride, but most of the rest is far simpler with a car.

Both cities are calm and manageable with children, and neither has a large theme park or aquarium. Dresden's appeal is trains and boats: the Transport Museum, the miniature railway run largely by children in the Großer Garten, and paddle steamer trips up the Elbe.

Graz puts its fun inside the castle hill. Children ride the lift up the Schlossberg and come down by the underground slide, and the Märchenbahn train runs through fairytale tunnels in the rock. The FRida & freD children's museum is good for a rainy day.

Getting around Graz is a little easier. Its flat, largely pedestrianised centre puts the sights a few minutes apart, one ticket covers trams and buses, and cycling along the Mur is simple. Dresden is also walkable, with the old town and the Neustadt linked by the Augustus Bridge and trams covering the rest.

The difference shows outside the city. Dresden's suburban trains and paddle steamers reach most excursions without a car, while from Graz the vineyards and mountains are hard to reach without one.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Graz is slightly more pleasant to browse, with traditional shops in historic buildings on the Herrengasse and Sporgasse and small design studios in Lend. Its best souvenirs are edible: pumpkin seed oil, Schilcher rosé and regional chocolate.

Dresden's main streets are mostly chains, so the interest lies in the Neustadt's Kunsthofpassage, Meissen porcelain showrooms and Ore Mountain wooden toys. In Advent, the Striezelmarkt gives it a seasonal advantage.

Dresden is the cheaper of the two. Hotels are reasonable for most of the year, Neustadt meals are good value, and one day ticket covers the suburban trains as well as the trams. The main cost to watch is museum entry, since each major collection charges separately.

Graz is fair rather than cheap. Student lunch menus and bakeries keep daytime spending down, but sit-down dinners and wine cost what they do anywhere in Austria, and combined tickets for the Joanneum museums only partly make up the difference.

Dresden is one of Europe's major music cities. The Semperoper, where Wagner and Strauss had premieres, is home to the Staatskapelle with its sixteenth-century roots, and the Kreuzchor and Bach at the Frauenkirche make sacred music easy to find. Outside the Dixieland festival, though, live jazz and rock are thin.

Graz has a strong programme for a city of its size: Austria's second-largest opera house, Styriarte's early music in summer and steirischer herbst's avant-garde work in autumn. It is also the better choice for jazz, with an active club scene fed by the music university.

Graz is the better base for a spa break. The city itself has only pools and hotel spas, but Styria's thermal villages are about an hour east. Bad Blumau's Hundertwasser resort and the large warm pools at Loipersdorf and Bad Radkersburg are open to day visitors.

Dresden's relaxation is more local: sauna afternoons in the municipal baths, coffee and cake on a terrace above the Elbe, and long walks across the meadows. Its nearest thermal pool is at Bad Schandau, which fits well with a day in Saxon Switzerland.