Dresden or Lubeck?

Lübeck has the advantage because it actually reaches the sea. Travemünde's long sandy beach, lined with hooded wicker chairs, is part of the city, and the calm, tideless water of the bay is good for paddling, even though the Baltic stays cool.

Dresden lies far inland. The Elbe is for sitting beside rather than swimming in, so on a hot day you cool off in an outdoor pool, a flooded gravel pit or the ponds at Moritzburg.

Neither city is worth the trip for food alone, and they are close here. The difference is in what you eat. Dresden means Saxon roasts, dumplings, Stollen and Eierschecke at the afternoon coffee table, dry Elbe valley wines from Radebeul and Meissen, and the most varied, casual eating in the Neustadt.

Lübeck leans towards the sea and the sweet tooth: herring, fish sandwiches from harbour kiosks, Rotspon from the old cellars and marzipan in every form. The sea captains' guild house adds a meal with real history.

Dresden goes further. Its collections are of world rank, with the Sistine Madonna in the Zwinger, the Green Vault in the Residenzschloss and Caspar David Friedrich at the Albertinum, and they fill three or four days. Much of the baroque core is reconstruction, though, and post-war blocks stand close by.

Lübeck has the more intact townscape. It is an island of brick Gothic churches, stepped gables and tucked-away courtyards, almost all of it a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its museums, from the Hansemuseum to the Buddenbrookhaus, are good but compact, and two days covers them.

Dresden has the livelier evenings, almost entirely thanks to the Äußere Neustadt. Student bars, beer kiosks and pavement drinking there go on late at weekends, and a few clubs occupy old industrial buildings.

Lübeck is quiet, with wine bars and pubs in the old town and on the Obertrave, a busier promenade at Travemünde in summer and little open after midnight. For a proper night out, people take the train to Hamburg.

Dresden has the kind of landscape Lübeck lacks. The sandstone towers and gorges of Saxon Switzerland begin under an hour upriver, with the Bastei view, several days of walking on the Malerweg and a long climbing tradition on hundreds of rock towers. The Ore Mountains add modest cross-country skiing in winter.

Around Lübeck the country is gentle and full of water: canoeing on the Wakenitz, the clay cliff walk north of Travemünde, the Holstein Switzerland lakes and summer sailing on the bay. It is easy cycling country, but there are no heights or wild ground.

Dresden has the wider choice of excursions. Meissen's porcelain and cathedral, Moritzburg and the Königstein fortress are all close. Leipzig and Görlitz are about an hour away, and Prague is reachable in a long day along the Elbe gorge.

Lübeck's best outing is Hamburg, under an hour by train. Wismar and Schwerin's island castle are about an hour away, with lake towns such as Ratzeburg nearer. Beyond those the options run out sooner than they do from Dresden.

Both are easy, safe places to bring children, but they work in different ways. Dresden is good all year, with the zoo and children's railway in the Großer Garten, the Transport Museum, the hands-on Hygiene Museum and paddle steamers on the Elbe.

Lübeck comes into its own in summer. Travemünde's shallow beach, the aquarium along the bay and Hansa-Park give it the seaside and the amusement park that Dresden lacks. Outside the warm months there is much less for young visitors to do.

You won't need a car in either city, so the differences are size and transport. Lübeck's sights sit on an island about 2km long with the station just across the river, and buses and a short train ride to Travemünde cover the rest.

Dresden spreads further along both banks of the Elbe. A dense tram network, suburban trains to Meissen and Saxon Switzerland, and even the paddle steamers make it simple to cover.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and the best buys in both are local crafts rather than fashion. Dresden has Meissen porcelain, wooden Ore Mountain toys and the second-hand and design shops of the Neustadt and the Kunsthofpassage. In Advent it adds the Striezelmarkt.

Lübeck's chain stores line Breite Strasse and Königstrasse, with independents and galleries in the side passages, and marzipan is the souvenir everyone takes home. For fashion, both cities send you elsewhere, and from Lübeck that means Hamburg.

Costs are much the same, with both in the moderate middle range for Western Europe. In Dresden the separate entry charges at each major museum add up, and rooms in the old town cost more in the Christmas market season.

In Lübeck the old town itself costs nothing to explore. A stay on the coast in July and August, though, is noticeably dearer than one in the city and books up early.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Dresden's Semperoper is one of Europe's celebrated opera houses, home to the Staatskapelle and the scene of premieres by Wagner and Strauss. The Kreuzchor, the Philharmonic in the Kulturpalast and the Dresden Music Festival complete a full classical calendar.

Lübeck offers less, but what it has is distinctive: opera and drama at the Art Nouveau Theater Lübeck, organ concerts at the Marienkirche where Buxtehude played, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in summer. Both cities are thin on rock and jazz.

Neither city is made for a dedicated spa trip, and there is little to choose between them, but the calm comes from different places. Dresden's is inland and urban: an afternoon in the sauna of one of the municipal baths, or a short train ride upriver to the thermal pool at Bad Schandau, where Saxon Switzerland begins. Beyond that, the wide green Elbe meadows and a slow coffee and cake on a terrace above the water do most of the restoring.

Lübeck looks to the sea. Travemünde has been a bathing resort since the early nineteenth century, and the bay keeps up that tradition with wellness hotels, saunas and an indoor seawater pool at Scharbeutz, so warm water and sea air are easy to find even out of season. Back on the island, the courtyards behind the merchants' houses and the benches by the river give the quietest hours of a stay.