Dresden or Hallstatt?

Neither is a beach destination, but in Hallstatt you can at least swim where you are staying. There is a bathing lawn and jetty at the north end of the village and a larger lido at Obertraun, with clear, cold lake water that suits a plunge after a hike, though the season is short and the steep shores leave little room.

The Elbe in Dresden is for deckchairs on the sandy banks, not for swimming. To cool off there you go to the outdoor pools, the gravel pits on the city's edge or the ponds at Moritzburg.

Dresden has the broader table: Saxon roasts and dumplings, a serious afternoon coffee culture built on Eierschecke and Stollen, dry wines from the Elbe valley, and the Neustadt's mix of Vietnamese and Middle Eastern places and beer gardens. It is not a great food city, but there is enough variety for a week.

Hallstatt has a handful of guesthouse dining rooms and lakeside terraces, and lake char and whitefish are the one local dish worth seeking out. Kitchens close early once the day visitors leave, and for more choice people drive to Bad Ischl's patisseries.

This is one of the widest gaps between them. Dresden's baroque riverfront holds collections of world rank: Raphael's Sistine Madonna in the Zwinger, the treasures of the Green Vault in the Residenzschloss, Caspar David Friedrich at the Albertinum, and the rebuilt Frauenkirche on the Neumarkt. Together they fill three or four days.

Hallstatt's draw is the village as a whole and its deep past. It has seven thousand years of salt mining, the Iron Age burial finds that gave their name to an era of European prehistory, and the painted skulls of the Beinhaus. It is fascinating, but one day covers it.

Dresden has a real if modest night out in the Äußere Neustadt, where students fill small bars, courtyard pubs and the pavements, and a few clubs occupy old industrial buildings. Hallstatt has none. After dinner the choice is a glass of wine on a terrace or a walk by the lake in the dark, and that quiet is exactly why some people stay overnight.

Both have outstanding scenery close at hand, but Hallstatt lives in it. The Dachstein rises straight from the lake, and the Krippenstein cable car, the Five Fingers platform, the Giant Ice Cave and the walk to the Gosausee are all within reach. Winter adds freeride and ski touring.

Dresden's answer is Saxon Switzerland, a landscape of sandstone towers and gorges under an hour away by suburban train, with the Bastei, the Malerweg trail and traditional climbing, plus the Elbe cycle route through the vineyards. It makes a superb day or two out, but it is not the view you wake up to.

Dresden is the better base, mainly because trains do the work. Meissen is about forty minutes away, Leipzig about an hour, and Görlitz and Bautzen an hour or so. Moritzburg and Königstein are close by, and Prague is just within a long day.

The outings from Hallstatt are lovely lake towns: Bad Ischl with the Kaiservilla, St Wolfgang, Gmunden, and Salzburg about an hour and a half away by car. Without a car, though, they take careful planning around the buses and the lakeside railway.

Dresden is the easier city with children. The Großer Garten has a zoo and a miniature railway run by children, the Transport Museum is full of trams and trains, the Hygiene Museum has a hands-on section, and paddle steamers run up the Elbe.

Hallstatt has fewer attractions for children, but some memorable ones: the salt mine with its miners' slides and underground lake, and the ice caves for older children. Its steep, crowded single lane is hard going with a pushchair, so families often stay in Obertraun instead.

Dresden works entirely without a car. The old town is walkable, the Neustadt is just across the Augustus Bridge, trams cover the rest, and suburban trains reach Meissen and Saxon Switzerland.

Hallstatt is tiny and walkable too, though steep. The problem is getting in and out: a boat crosses from the station on the far shore, and buses are thin outside summer, so many visitors are glad to have a car.

Dresden gives a shopper more to do: chain stores on Prager Straße, second-hand and design shops around the Kunsthofpassage in the Neustadt, Meissen porcelain and Ore Mountain wooden toys, and the Striezelmarkt in Advent. Hallstatt's lane of souvenir shops takes half an hour, and salt from the local mine, sold in grinders and bath mixes, is the one thing you won't find elsewhere.

A stay in Dresden costs noticeably less overall, and the money goes to different places. A room and dinner in the Neustadt stay reasonable, so most of the extra spending happens at the ticket desks: the Zwinger, the Green Vault and the Albertinum each charge separately. Rooms near the old town also rise during Advent and the big festival weeks.

In Hallstatt most of the budget goes on the bed. A village with so few rooms and visitors from around the world charges well above the Austrian norm, and resort-level meals plus the salt mine, the funicular and the Dachstein cable car add to the bill. Sleeping in Obertraun, Bad Goisern or Bad Ischl brings the cost down.

Dresden is one of Europe's great music cities. There is the Semperoper with its Staatskapelle, the Philharmonic at the Kulturpalast and the Kreuzchor in the Kreuzkirche, so an evening of opera or sacred music is easy to plan. Hallstatt has a brass band on feast days and the odd church concert. For anything more you have to drive, to Bad Ischl for summer operetta or to Salzburg for its season.

Neither has a spa of its own, and both rely on a neighbour. Dresden has the sauna areas of its municipal baths and the thermal pool at Bad Schandau, while Hallstatt has the historic brine baths and thermal complex of Bad Ischl.

The difference is in the kind of calm. In Dresden it is spread through the day: the wide Elbe meadows and cake on a terrace above the river. In Hallstatt it comes in two short windows, the misty early morning and the empty evening, with a crowded lane in between.