Freiburg or Rotterdam?

Neither city is a beach destination, but only Rotterdam has a real beach. Hoek van Holland is a wide sandy North Sea strand with dunes, reached by metro, and huge ships pass close offshore. It is better for walking than swimming, because the water stays cold and the wind rarely drops.

Freiburg is far from any sea and has no beach. Its swimming is in warm, grassy gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain, the cooler mountain lakes of Titisee and Schluchsee, and busy outdoor pools in summer.

Freiburg has the edge for regional cooking. Baden food with a French touch, Kaiserstuhl wines, the morning market around the Münster and some fine country restaurants nearby make eating part of the trip. The trade-off is a narrow range, and it starts to repeat itself after a few days.

Rotterdam is the opposite: little Dutch tradition but much more variety, with Surinamese roti, Turkish bakeries, and Moroccan and Indonesian kitchens. The Markthal and the Witte de Withstraat are the easiest places to start.

The two cities are broadly level, and both were rebuilt after wartime bombing, but they rebuilt in opposite ways. Freiburg restored its past: the red sandstone Münster, the Martinstor and Schwabentor gates, the Bächle channels and the medieval art in the Augustinermuseum.

Rotterdam chose modern architecture instead, so people come to see the Erasmus Bridge, the Cube Houses, the Markthal and the mirrored Depot Boijmans. It also has more museums, including the Kunsthal and the Maritime Museum. Freiburg is better for old-town atmosphere, Rotterdam for buildings and exhibitions.

Rotterdam has more going on after dark. Its strength is clubbing: as the birthplace of gabber, it holds techno and house nights in warehouse and harbour venues that draw crowds from across the country, and there are bar terraces on the Witte de Withstraat and around the Oude Haven.

Freiburg is about student pubs, wine bars and summer evenings on the squares and along the Dreisam. It is friendly and relaxed, with only a few clubs, and it is quieter outside term-time.

This is the widest gap between the two cities. In Freiburg, the Schlossberg rises behind the old town, the Schauinsland cable car takes you onto ridge trails with views to the Alps, and the Feldberg is about an hour away for hiking in summer and snow in winter. Gorges, vineyard hills and excellent mountain biking complete the picture.

Rotterdam's outdoors is flat and shaped by people: the woods and lake of the Kralingse Bos, cycling along the polder dykes, and canoeing and birdwatching in the Biesbosch. It is pleasant, but there is nothing to climb.

Both cities are excellent bases, and Rotterdam has a slight advantage because of the dense Dutch rail network. Delft is a quarter of an hour away, The Hague is close behind, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Leiden are within an hour, and Antwerp is about an hour south. The Kinderdijk windmills can be reached by water bus.

Freiburg's appeal is crossing borders: Basel by train, then Colmar and the half-timbered Alsace villages, and Strasbourg further on. These are easier by car, while almost everything around Rotterdam can be reached by train.

Freiburg is the easier and more varied choice with children. Europa-Park, Germany's largest theme park, is about 40 minutes away. The free Mundenhof animal park, the cable car, swimming lakes and paddling in the Bächle fill the rest of a week, though there is little to do indoors when it rains.

Rotterdam has the stronger indoor options, including Blijdorp zoo with its ocean section and the hands-on harbour area at the Maritime Museum. Outside summer, the weather limits what you can do.

Both cities are easy to get around without a car, but in different ways. Freiburg's small, car-free old town can be crossed on foot in twenty minutes, with trams and regional trains going out into the Black Forest.

Rotterdam's postwar centre is more spread out and windy, so you will combine walking with the metro, trams or a bike. Its water taxis and water buses on the Maas are a bonus Freiburg cannot match.

Rotterdam is clearly the better place to shop. The Lijnbaan, one of Europe's first pedestrian shopping streets, connects to the Beurstraverse and the Bijenkorf, so the big chains are close together. The Meent and Nieuwe Binnenweg add independent fashion, vintage and record shops, and the Binnenrotte market is large.

Freiburg is modest by comparison. It has a chain-lined main street, some independent shops in the Gerberau, and cuckoo clocks, wood carvings and local schnapps as souvenirs.

The two cost much the same overall, but the money goes in different places. In Freiburg, hotels are the expensive part, because rooms are scarce on summer weekends. Once you are there, market sausages, wine taverns and the free Münster keep daily spending low.

Rotterdam is the reverse: plenty of rooms, including business hotels that are quiet at weekends, but meals, beer and coffee cost the usual high Dutch prices. Surinamese and Turkish snack shops are the cheap way to eat.

Rotterdam has more on stage. The Rotterdam Philharmonic plays a full season at De Doelen, and each July the North Sea Jazz Festival brings hundreds of acts. Much of the theatre is in Dutch, however, and the city has no resident opera company.

Freiburg covers the opposite gap. The Theater Freiburg stages opera alongside drama and dance, the Freiburger Barockorchester is a highlight for early-music fans, and the Zelt-Musik-Festival fills a tent village with concerts each summer.

Freiburg is far better for slowing down. Southern Baden is spa country, with a thermal bath on the city's edge, the warm outdoor pools at Bad Krozingen, the Roman ruins at Badenweiler and Baden-Baden an hour away. Quiet riverside paths and café terraces set the pace in town.

Rotterdam's wellness is mostly the Dutch sauna complexes on the city's outskirts, where the sauna areas are usually textile-free, plus hotel spas in the centre. The city itself moves at a brisk, working pace.