Dresden or Salzburg?

Neither city is a beach destination. Dresden has sandy banks along the Elbe for deckchairs, but shipping and strong currents rule out swimming in the river. A cool-off means an outdoor pool, a flooded gravel pit or the ponds at Moritzburg.

Salzburg does better because the Salzkammergut lakes are within an hour. Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are clear and pleasantly warm in high summer. You get in from lawns, jetties and pebbles rather than sand, and they make a good summer afternoon out.

The two kitchens are close relatives, built on dumplings, roast meat and cake, and neither has the range for a long eating trip. Dresden's strengths are Stollen, Eierschecke with afternoon coffee, and the dry wines of the Elbe valley around Radebeul and Meissen. The Neustadt adds more casual and international cooking.

Salzburg's strengths are its traditional coffee houses and the barrel beer of the monastery brewery in Mülln, with Kasnocken and the Salzburger Nockerl on the plate. Avoid the menus around the Frauenkirche in Dresden and in Salzburg's old town. The better meals are in the Neustadt and in the inns of Salzburg's outer districts and hills.

Dresden has the stronger collections. The Sistine Madonna in the Zwinger, the Green Vault's treasures and the Albertinum's Romantic paintings rank among Europe's great museums. With the Frauenkirche and Brühl's Terrace they fill three or four days, though much of the old town was rebuilt after 1945 and post-war blocks stand close by.

In Salzburg the townscape matters more than the galleries. The prince-archbishops' Baroque town survives intact beneath the Hohensalzburg fortress, with the cathedral, the catacombs of St Peter and the Mozart houses a few minutes apart. It is the more harmonious place to wander, and two or three days covers it.

Dresden has the livelier nights, and nearly all of them happen in the Äußere Neustadt. Students fill small bars and courtyard pubs there, people drink on the pavements in summer, and a few clubs in old industrial buildings stay busy at weekends.

A Salzburg evening is usually a concert and then a litre mug at a long table in a beer hall, and the old town is quiet by midnight. Rudolfskai has some student pubs, but anyone who wants to go clubbing takes the train to Munich.

For walking, climbing and time on the water, Salzburg is the stronger base, though Dresden's one great landscape is very close. Saxon Switzerland starts well under an hour away by suburban train and has the Bastei view above the Elbe, the Malerweg trail and sandstone towers in one of the birthplaces of free climbing. The Elbe cycle route and the Dresden Heath are there for gentler days.

Salzburg's scenery starts in the town itself. Forest paths on the Mönchsberg and Kapuzinerberg begin in the centre, a cable car climbs the Untersberg to limestone ridges, and people paraglide from the Gaisberg. The Salzkammergut lakes, Berchtesgaden National Park and proper ski areas are all within about an hour.

Both cities have excellent day trips, but of different kinds. Dresden's are about towns and porcelain: Meissen, the Moritzburg lodge, the Königstein fortress, Görlitz and Bautzen. Leipzig is an hour away by fast train, and Prague is just within reach of a day.

Salzburg looks to lakes and salt. Hallstatt and the villages of St Wolfgang and St Gilgen are the best known, and there are salt mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, the clifftop fortress at Werfen and the imperial spa of Bad Ischl. Munich is the big-city option.

Both cities are calm and manageable with children, and both have cobbles that make pushchairs hard work. In Dresden the Transport Museum and the Hygiene Museum's hands-on children's section are the indoor highlights, and in the Großer Garten there is a miniature railway run largely by children.

Salzburg's family moments are more playful: the trick fountains at Hellbrunn, the marionette theatre and the funicular to the fortress. Nearby, the salt mines have wooden miners' slides and boat rides on underground lakes. Neither city has a theme park.

Both centres are best seen on foot, and you do not need a car in either city. Dresden adds a dense tram network and suburban trains along the Elbe, so Meissen and Saxon Switzerland are easy without driving, and the paddle steamers make a slow alternative.

Salzburg's centre is smaller and largely pedestrianised. Trolleybuses replace trams, and the flat river paths are good for cycling. The regional buses to the lake villages are slow, which is why many visitors hire a car for those days.

The real difference is the local craft. In Dresden it is Meissen porcelain and Ore Mountain wooden toys, and in Salzburg it is Alpine dress. Dresden's chain stores on Prager Straße are ordinary, but the Neustadt's second-hand shops and the decorated courtyards of the Kunsthofpassage are more fun to browse.

Salzburg has a little more to offer. Getreidegasse puts its shops under wrought-iron guild signs, and the workshops around the old town sell dirndls and loden jackets, many of them made to measure. Both cities have long-established Advent markets: the Striezelmarkt on Dresden's Altmarkt and the market on Salzburg's Domplatz.

Dresden is clearly the cheaper stay. It is moderately priced for Western Europe, with reasonable hotels for most of the year and good-value meals in the Neustadt. The main extra cost is separate entry tickets for each of the big museums.

Salzburg is expensive for a city of its size. Old-town rooms and central restaurants cost a lot all year and become scarce at festival time. The usual savings are a city card, and staying across the river or in the suburbs and coming in by bus.

These are two of Europe's great music cities, but their seasons work differently. Dresden's music runs all year. The Staatskapelle plays at the Semperoper, the Philharmonic plays at the Kulturpalast and the Kreuzchor sings in the Kreuzkirche, so finding a good concert or opera is easy on an ordinary visit.

Salzburg's year revolves around its festivals. Each summer the Salzburg Festival brings leading performers to the Felsenreitschule and the Festspielhaus and stages Jedermann in front of the cathedral. Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons. Between festivals there are the Mozarteum, the Marionette Theatre's Mozart operas and chamber concerts for visitors nearly every evening.

Neither city has hot springs of its own, but Salzburg is the better choice for a restful stay. The Paracelsus Bad in the city park has saunas and a pool looking out on the Kapuzinerberg. The historic brine spa of Bad Reichenhall is twenty minutes away, and the Gastein valley has radon springs and Belle Époque spa hotels.

Dresden offers ordinary municipal saunas and a thermal pool at Bad Schandau, under an hour away. Its gentler pleasures are walks on the Elbe meadows and coffee and cake on a terrace above the river.