Frankfurt or Zermatt?

Neither place works for a beach trip, and both are a long way from the sea. The difference is the kind of summer swimming each one has. Frankfurt has outdoor pools and sandy-shored gravel-pit lakes such as the Langener Waldsee, which warm up nicely in July and August. In Zermatt, the tarns stay snowmelt-cold, so a dip means a hotel pool.

Frankfurt gives you more variety and more cheap meals. You get Grüne Soße and tart Apfelwein at shared tables in Sachsenhausen, the Kleinmarkthalle for sausages and cheese, and Turkish, Italian and Asian kitchens across the city, including the inexpensive spots of the Bahnhofsviertel.

Zermatt's best meals are a matter of setting. Long lunches of raclette, air-dried beef and Valais wine are served on chalet terraces in Findeln, Furi and Zum See, with the Matterhorn in view. Down in the village the choice is narrow and expensive, and many kitchens close between seasons.

Frankfurt has two or three days of real sightseeing. The Städel heads the Museumsufer, the Senckenberg is one of Germany's largest natural history museums, and the Römer, the cathedral and the Paulskirche are a short walk apart beneath the tower skyline.

Zermatt's heritage is all about climbing. It covers the Matterhorn Museum's story of the 1865 first ascent, the mountaineers' graves by the church and the larch barns of the Hinterdorf. It is absorbing, but you will see it all in a morning.

Frankfurt has the deeper night out, and it peaks at weekends. Its techno and house clubs carry on a long electronic music tradition, the Bahnhofsviertel has cocktail bars and a mixed late crowd, and Berger Straße and the summer riverbanks are good for an easier drink.

Zermatt's evenings depend on the season. Winter brings loud, cheerful après-ski in slope-side bars and a few late spots on the main street. In summer the hikers turn in after dinner, and between seasons there is almost nothing open.

This is where Zermatt is in a different class. The Matterhorn rises right over the village, a ring of four-thousand-metre peaks and the Gorner Glacier surround it, and lifts reach above 3,800m. In winter the skiing crosses into Italy. In summer you get trails such as the Five Lakes walk and the Europaweg, with marmots and ibex along the way.

Frankfurt's green spaces are gentle by comparison. The Taunus rises to about 880m at the Großer Feldberg, the Stadtwald and the Main cycle paths are inside the city, and the Rheingau vineyard paths are lovely, but this is walking and cycling country, not high mountains.

Frankfurt is one of the best bases in Germany for day trips. Heidelberg and the castles of the Rhine Gorge are about an hour away, high-speed trains reach Cologne cathedral just as quickly, and Mainz, Wiesbaden and Darmstadt are closer still. You could fill a week this way.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion's castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace are worth seeing, but most visitors would rather spend a spare day up on the mountains.

Children tend to remember Frankfurt for the hall of dinosaur skeletons in the Senckenberg. Around it there is a central zoo, the Palmengarten glasshouses and boat trips past the skyline, with a wildlife park at Kronberg in the Taunus for an easy day out, so it is simpler to fill several days with children.

Zermatt's appeal for families is calm. The streets are car-free, ski schools and nursery slopes are on the Sunnegga side, and summer brings marmot spotting and novelty railways. Rainy days are hard to fill, though, and the high viewpoints can be too cold and thin-aired for small children.

Both are easy to get around without a car, but in very different ways. Frankfurt's compact centre is linked to the whole region by a single network of U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams, and the airport is about a quarter of an hour from the centre by train.

Zermatt is a car-free strip you cover on foot, with electric taxis to the outer lift stations and a funicular, cog railway and gondolas leaving from the centre. The catch is that getting there means changing at Täsch, and leaving the valley takes more than an hour.

Frankfurt is the better place to shop. There are department stores and malls along the Zeil, luxury houses on Goethestraße, and independent delis and design shops on Berger Straße and Schweizer Straße, plus a Saturday flea market by the river.

Zermatt has one main street of watch boutiques, souvenir cowbells and chocolate. Its strength is mountaineering and ski equipment, which is good if you need kit.

Neither is cheap, but Frankfurt is far easier on the wallet. Its high prices come mostly from hotels during the trade fairs, so a weekend or summer stay, cheap tavern and grill meals and fairly priced transport can bring it down to moderate.

Zermatt is expensive across the board, from plain hotel rooms and terrace drinks to the lift passes nearly every visitor needs. Self-catering and staying in Täsch help, but only so much.

For an evening at the opera or a concert, Frankfurt is far ahead. Its opera company is known for adventurous productions and the Alte Oper hosts the radio symphony orchestra. From autumn to early summer there is also serious drama at the Schauspiel, contemporary dance at the Mousonturm and jazz in cellar clubs, though the programme thins out in summer.

There is no hall or theatre in Zermatt, so its calendar rests on two festivals: Zermatt Unplugged in spring and chamber music in the village church in late summer. Outside those weeks, live music means an après-ski band.

Neither place has a bathing tradition of its own, so the difference is where you go to relax. From Frankfurt you take a short trip out to the spa towns: Wiesbaden's Art Nouveau Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme and the thermal baths of Bad Homburg are both close.

Zermatt keeps it in the village, with a dense cluster of hotel spas looking onto the peaks and clear, quiet, car-free air. Its mood is more active than restful, though, and for hot springs you have to go down the valley.