Freiburg or Interlaken?

Neither is a beach destination, but Interlaken makes the better summer swim. In a good year Lake Thun warms to around 21°C, with grassy lidos and shingle beaches at Neuhaus and along the shore towards Spiez. The glacial turquoise of Lake Brienz under the snow peaks is a sight in itself, if a cold one.

In Freiburg, a swim means cycling out to the gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain. The water there is pleasantly warm, but the shores are just grass and there is little scenery. The alternative is an hour's trip to the cooler Titisee or Schluchsee, and the city's open-air pools are packed in high summer.

Freiburg is the place to eat well. Its Baden cooking has a French touch: Schäufele, Black Forest ham, mountain trout and spring asparagus, served with dry Pinot from the Kaiserstuhl. The daily market around the Münster is a meal in itself, and the surrounding region has some of Germany's best fine dining, even if the international choice is thin.

Interlaken's food fills you up but rarely impresses. Expect fondue, raclette and rösti for visitors, plus Indian and Asian places for the international crowd. The better meals are up the valleys, on a hut terrace above Grindelwald or at a mountain dairy selling Alpine cheese.

The gap here is wide. Freiburg has a real old town to explore, with the red sandstone Münster and its tower you can climb, the Historisches Kaufhaus on the market square, the Martinstor and Schwabentor gates and the Bächle channels along the streets. The Augustinermuseum adds fine medieval art. Much of the centre was rebuilt after the war, but it still makes a rewarding day or two.

Interlaken's own sights amount to the grand hotels and the Kursaal along the Höheweg, plus a few old timber houses in Unterseen. Anyone after architecture or museums takes the train to Bern or Thun.

Thanks to its students, Freiburg has the livelier evenings. There are pubs and wine bars in the lanes around the Martinstor, beer gardens, summer nights on the squares and by the Dreisam, and a few clubs for techno and indie.

Interlaken goes to bed early, because most people are up for the first mountain train or a paragliding flight. A backpacker cluster of pubs and basement clubs and the casino in the Kursaal are about all there is, and the Höheweg is quiet well before midnight.

Both sit on the edge of serious landscape, but Interlaken's is on another scale. The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, the cliffs and waterfalls of Lauterbrunnen and the Aletsch glacier seen from the Jungfraujoch at 3,454m are all within an hour by rail. Cable cars make high trails easy to reach from Grindelwald First, the Schynige Platte and Mürren, and adventure sports from paragliding to rafting on the Lütschine start straight from town.

Freiburg's outdoors is gentler and more varied. You can take the cable car up to the Schauinsland ridge, hike or ski on the Feldberg, walk the Ravenna gorge and cycle easily through the Kaiserstuhl vineyards. A lost view matters less there, whereas in Interlaken low cloud can hide the peaks for days.

Both make excellent bases, for different kinds of outing. Freiburg's advantage is having three countries close by: Basel's museums by train, Colmar and the Alsace wine villages of Riquewihr and Eguisheim, and Strasbourg's cathedral and Petite France quarter. Closer to home are Staufen, Breisach and Baden-Baden. These are trips for old towns, wine and art.

Interlaken's outings mix lakes, castles and cities. Bern's arcaded old town is under an hour away, paddle steamers stop below the castles at Thun, Spiez and Oberhofen, Ballenberg has its open-air museum, and Lucerne is reached by the line over the Brünig Pass. Every one of these trips works by train, while Alsace is easier with a car.

Both are safe and easy with children, but the fun comes in different forms. Freiburg has Europa-Park, Germany's largest theme park, about 40 minutes away, along with the free Mundenhof animal park, the Bächle channels for toy boats and the summer swimming lakes. In Interlaken the journey is the treat: rack railways, gondolas and lake steamers, then playgrounds and toboggan runs at the top, the St Beatus caves and the farm animals at Ballenberg.

Rainy days are hard to fill in both places. Interlaken adds the problem of high altitude for very young children, and its paths only really suit pushchairs on the valley floor.

Freiburg is a city for trams and bicycles, while in Interlaken the trains are part of the sightseeing. Freiburg's old town is small and largely car-free, with most sights within a twenty-minute walk, and a dense tram network runs out to the suburbs and the Schauinsland cable car. Bike lanes run everywhere across the flat centre, and regional trains climb the Höllental into the Black Forest.

Interlaken itself takes about twenty minutes to cross on foot, from one station to the other along the Höheweg. Beyond the town, narrow-gauge lines to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald connect with cog railways, gondolas and lake steamers, so you can see the whole Jungfrau region without a car. Wengen and Mürren don't allow cars anyway. Many hotels in both places give guests a local transport card, but you may have to stand on Interlaken's busiest mountain trains in summer.

Freiburg is the better place to browse, though it is still modest. There are chains along Kaiser-Joseph-Strasse, independent boutiques and bookshops in the Gerberau and Konviktstrasse quarters, and the Münster market for local wine, schnapps and ham.

Interlaken's Höheweg is aimed at tour groups, with large watch and jewellery stores, army knives, chocolate and outdoor gear, and almost no independent shops. Cuckoo clocks are sold in both, but the one local craft worth seeking out here is woodcarving from Brienz.

Freiburg is much the cheaper base, though rooms are its weak point. Hotels fill up on summer weekends and during trade fairs, and many visitors stay in the Black Forest villages nearby, where rooms are easier to find. Getting about by tram costs only a moderate fare. Costs jump on a day trip across the border into Switzerland.

Swiss prices are where Interlaken starts. Hotels, meals and drinks are all charged at full Swiss rates, and paragliding or canyoning adds a large sum on top of the mountain fares. Hostels, supermarket picnics, a regional pass and walking from the valley floor all help, but there is no cheap way to see the Jungfrau region properly.

Freiburg has a proper year-round stage. There is opera, drama and dance at Theater Freiburg, the Freiburger Barockorchester at the Konzerthaus, a small student jazz scene and the summer Zelt-Musik-Festival in its tent village.

Interlaken's highlight is the open-air William Tell, played by local amateurs in the woods each summer. Beyond that there are occasional Kursaal concerts and folklore evenings with yodelling and alphorns. For a real orchestra or theatre you have to go to Bern.

Freiburg is in spa country. There is a thermal bath on the city's eastern edge, Bad Krozingen's warm outdoor pools are twenty minutes south, Badenweiler has a modern thermal bath next to Roman ruins, and Baden-Baden is an hour away by train. Afterwards you come back to an unhurried town of café terraces and riverside paths.

Interlaken has no thermal waters of its own, so relaxing means a spa in one of the grand hotels on the Höheweg or the town's public wellness area. The real calm is outside the busy, activity-focused centre, on a slow steamer crossing or up in Wengen or Mürren.