Dresden or Munich?

Neither city is anywhere near the sea, but Munich has real summer swimming and Dresden does not. From Munich the S-Bahn reaches the Starnberger See and the Ammersee in under an hour, with jetties, lawns and clear alpine water, and the Isar's gravel banks are good for sunbathing in town.

In Dresden the Elbe is for deckchairs, not for swimming, so a cool-off means an outdoor pool, a flooded gravel pit or the ponds around Moritzburg.

Munich offers more as a place to eat and drink. Its brewery beer halls and chestnut-shaded beer gardens are an experience in their own right, the Viktualienmarkt is good for grazing, and a respectable layer of starred restaurants sits above the pork knuckle and white sausage.

Dresden's table is plainer Saxon fare, but it has a different accent. Its strengths are baking and wine rather than beer: Christstollen, Eierschecke with afternoon coffee, and dry whites from the vineyards around Radebeul and Meissen. Its most varied eating is in the Neustadt.

These two are equals in culture, but the experience differs. Dresden's riches sit close together along the Elbe: the Zwinger's Old Masters, the Green Vault's jewelled treasures, the Albertinum's Romantic painters and the rebuilt Frauenkirche. The city around them is partly reconstructed and mixed with post-war blocks.

Munich's collections are spread out and wider in range. The Kunstareal alone holds three Pinakotheken, ancient sculpture and the Blue Rider painters. The Residenz, Nymphenburg and the Deutsches Museum add royal palaces and science, and the Dachau memorial adds twentieth-century history Dresden does not offer in the same form.

Dresden's nightlife is almost all in the Äußere Neustadt. Students fill small bars and courtyard pubs there, and on summer nights people drink on the pavements. It is friendly and informal but compact, and the old town falls quiet after dinner.

Munich has the wider range after dark. You can spend a whole evening in a beer hall or beer garden, or move on to the cocktail and gay bars around Gärtnerplatz and finish in a techno club that runs until morning at weekends. For a fortnight each autumn, the Oktoberfest tents take over the city.

Both have fine country close by, but Munich's reaches higher. The Alps rise about an hour south, with Zugspitze views, proper alpine hiking and winter skiing, and the Five Lakes are good for sailing and cycling. In town, the English Garden is big enough to have surfers on the Eisbach wave.

Dresden's prize is Saxon Switzerland, a short train ride upriver. Its sandstone towers, the Bastei viewpoint and the Malerweg trail are dramatic, and its traditional climbing culture is world-famous. The Ore Mountains offer only gentle skiing, though, and nothing near the scale of the Alps.

Munich gives the longer and grander list of excursions. Neuschwanstein and the royal castles, Salzburg and Innsbruck across the border, and the old towns of Nuremberg, Regensburg and Augsburg are all easy days by train.

Dresden's day trips are closer to home but still rewarding. They include porcelain-making Meissen, the lakeside lodge at Moritzburg, the Königstein fortress, Leipzig, and the intact streets of Görlitz. Prague is possible but makes a long day.

Munich is the easier city with children. The zoo at Hellabrunn, the Sea Life aquarium, the Deutsches Museum's hands-on floors and beer gardens with playgrounds cover a week. In summer there are the lakes, and Legoland is within driving distance.

Dresden manages a few good days. Children run the miniature railway in the Großer Garten, the Transport Museum is full of trams, and paddle steamers go up the Elbe. Beyond that it has no aquarium or theme park, and its formal galleries hold young visitors less well.

Both are easy without a car, but Munich's network goes further. U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses work as one system, reaching Nymphenburg, the Olympic Park, the airport and the lakes. The flat streets suit cycling too, though delays on the central S-Bahn line can be a nuisance.

Dresden has no underground. It manages with a walkable old town, a short bridge crossing to the Neustadt and a dense tram network. Suburban trains along the Elbe and the slow paddle steamers to Pillnitz cover the excursions.

Munich is the shopping city of the two by a wide margin. It has luxury labels on Maximilianstrasse and in the Theatinerstrasse arcades, department stores on the pedestrian axis, a centuries-old fine-food delicatessen and Bavarian Tracht from specialist tailors.

Dresden is mostly chains on Prager Straße. Its more distinctive buys are second-hand and design pieces around the Kunsthofpassage, Meissen porcelain and carved Ore Mountain figures. In Advent, the Striezelmarkt is one of the country's oldest Christmas markets.

Dresden is clearly kinder to the wallet. Rooms are reasonable for most of the year and Neustadt meals are good value. The main costs that add up are separate museum entries and the higher hotel rates at Christmas market time.

Munich is Germany's most expensive city, and you feel it most in hotel bills, which climb steeply during Oktoberfest and trade fairs. A picnic in a beer garden, free parks and lakes, and token Sunday museum fees soften it only partly.

Both are great music cities, but Munich has more depth and range. The Bavarian State Opera, three orchestras of standing, chamber opera in the rococo Cuvilliés Theatre and major German drama houses fill the year. Jazz clubs and big touring acts at the Olympic Park cover the rest.

Dresden's strength is concentrated in classical music and its history. The Semperoper and the ancient Staatskapelle are linked with Wagner and Strauss premieres, the Kreuzchor sings in the Kreuzkirche, and Bach is played in the Frauenkirche. Away from that, live music is thinner outside festival time.

Munich takes bathing more seriously. The Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad has vaulted pools and a Roman-style steam bath, one of Europe's largest thermal complexes is at Erding, and the spa towns of Bad Tölz and Bad Reichenhall lie towards the mountains.

Dresden offers municipal saunas and a thermal pool at Bad Schandau, at the edge of Saxon Switzerland. Its calm comes more from the wide Elbe meadows and an evening old town that empties early.