Frankfurt or Utrecht?

Neither city is for a beach trip, but Utrecht at least gets you to the sea. Zandvoort and Scheveningen are about an hour or so by train, though the North Sea stays cool and the season is short.

From Frankfurt the coast is a full day away. Summer swimming there means outdoor pools or forest lakes such as the Langener Waldsee, while Utrecht people head to the Maarsseveense Plassen or the Loosdrecht lakes.

Frankfurt gives you more to eat that belongs to the place. You can drink tart Apfelwein from stoneware jugs at a Sachsenhausen tavern, try Grüne Soße and Handkäs mit Musik, and shop for regional sausages and cheese in the Kleinmarkthalle. The Turkish grills and Bahnhofsviertel kitchens add range.

In Utrecht the setting matters more than the cooking. A meal in an old storeroom cellar at the Oudegracht waterline is pleasant mainly for where you sit, and the Indonesian and Surinamese kitchens are a good reason to look beyond Dutch staples. Fine dining is thin on the ground, so anyone who cares most about the food will get more out of Frankfurt.

Each city is worth two or three days of sightseeing, but for different things. Frankfurt is a museum city: the Museumsufer lines both banks of the Main, the Städel holds paintings of international standing, and the rebuilt Römer and old-town lanes sit beneath a skyline of towers.

Utrecht's old streets are the real thing. The medieval centre survived, and the Dom Tower stands apart from the choir where a storm brought down the nave. You can climb it for views over the province. Its museums are smaller, but the Rietveld Schröder House is a gem of modern design.

Frankfurt has more of a night to offer, especially for music. Its techno and house clubs carry on a tradition shared with Offenbach. The station district mixes cocktail bars and late kiosks, and Berger Straße has easy neighbourhood bars. The catch is that it is a working city, so things only really come alive on Friday and Saturday.

Utrecht works the other way round. Its student crowd fills the bars around the Neude and the Janskerkhof even midweek, but the clubs are few, and for a big night out most people take the train to Amsterdam.

Frankfurt gets you into real hills. The Taunus starts just past the northern suburbs, and the Großer Feldberg rises to about 880m with beech forest and Roman frontier trails. The vineyard paths of the Rheingau and the Rhine Gorge are within easy reach.

Utrecht's countryside is flat and best seen by bike, along the Vecht past windmills and country estates and through polders. The Utrechtse Heuvelrug adds heath and sandy forest trails, and the Loosdrecht lakes are good for sailing, but this is gentle cycling country with nothing for serious hikers.

Both cities sit at the heart of a national rail network, and both could keep you busy for a week. What differs is what you go out to see.

From Frankfurt it is castles, rivers and cathedrals: Heidelberg's castle ruin, boats through the Rhine Gorge, Cologne by high-speed train and Riesling in the Rheingau. From Utrecht it is mostly cities in quick succession. Amsterdam is under half an hour away, and Rotterdam, The Hague, Delft and Gouda are all close, with Kinderdijk's windmills and the Kröller-Müller Museum for longer days.

Utrecht is slightly easier with children. The Dutch take children everywhere as a matter of course, the national Railway Museum is a real highlight and the Miffy museum is made for toddlers. The steady stream of bikes is the one thing to watch.

Frankfurt does well too, with its own strengths. The Senckenberg's dinosaur hall, a central zoo, the Palmengarten glasshouses and boat trips past the skyline fill a few days, and the Taunus wildlife park is an easy outing.

Utrecht is the simpler city to find your way around. The station sits on the edge of the old town, the sights are a short walk on flat streets, and a rental bike covers the rest. One tap-in card works on the trains, buses and trams.

Frankfurt's centre is compact as well, and its U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams take you on to the Taunus, Wiesbaden and Mainz on one network. The airport is about a quarter of an hour from town by train. The price is a tangle of lines and zones to learn first.

There is little to choose between them, but they suit different shoppers. Frankfurt has the bigger brands, with department stores and malls along the Zeil and luxury fashion and jewellery on Goethestraße.

Utrecht is better for browsing small shops. Independent design, book and fashion shops line the Oudegracht wharves and the Twijnstraat, and there are flower and textile markets. Hoog Catharijne handles the chains, and luxury shoppers head to Amsterdam.

Both are expensive mainly because of the hotels, for different reasons. Frankfurt prices its rooms for business travellers and they jump during trade fairs, so a weekend or summer stay can save a good deal.

In Utrecht the problem is a shortage of hotels in the historic centre, and weekends cost more there, not less. You make some of it back day to day: you can walk or cycle everywhere, and student cafés keep lunch cheap. In Frankfurt the cider taverns and Turkish grills do the same job.

Frankfurt has the deeper evening programme. Its opera company is one of Germany's most respected, the Alte Oper hosts the radio symphony orchestra, and there are jazz cellars and a long-running English-language theatre. Note that the season winds down in summer.

Utrecht does well for its size. TivoliVredenburg puts classical, pop and experimental acts under one roof, and the Festival Oude Muziek is a highlight for early-music lovers. It has no opera house, though, and most of its theatre is in Dutch.

Frankfurt is surrounded by the German tradition of taking the waters. Wiesbaden's Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme, fed by hot springs, is under an hour away, and Bad Homburg's thermal baths sit at the foot of the Taunus.

Utrecht's version is the Dutch sauna complex out in the green belt, which needs a bus or a drive. In the city itself, unwinding is mostly about the calm: a quiet hour in the Pandhof cloister garden or an evening on the canal wharves after the day-trippers have left.