Freiburg or Salzburg?

Neither city has a sea, but Salzburg has the better swimming. Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee in the Salzkammergut are all within an hour. They are clear, green and warm enough for a proper swim in high summer, and you get in from lawns and wooden jetties.

Freiburg's choices are more modest: warm gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain that you reach by bike, crowded open-air pools, and the cooler but scenic Titisee and Schluchsee up in the Black Forest. They are fine for cooling off but not much of an outing.

Freiburg eats better. Baden cooking leans towards France, with Flammkuchen, Black Forest trout and spring asparagus, and the Kaiserstuhl and Markgräflerland vineyards produce dry Pinots right on the doorstep. The morning market around the Münster is a meal in itself, and the region has strong fine dining.

Salzburg's cooking is heartier and offers less choice: schnitzel, Kasnocken and the soufflé-like Salzburger Nockerl. Its strengths are the coffee houses and the monastery beer garden in Mülln. Many old-town restaurants cater to tour groups, so the better meals are in the inns of the outer districts and the hills.

Salzburg has far more to see. Its UNESCO-listed Baroque centre takes two or three full days: the cathedral, the Residenz, Hohensalzburg on its cliff, Mirabell, the Mozart houses and the catacombs of St Peter. Hellbrunn's trick fountains are a short bus ride beyond.

Freiburg has one great monument, the red sandstone Münster, along with the Historisches Kaufhaus, the medieval gates, the Bächle channels and the medieval art in the Augustinermuseum. Much of the centre was rebuilt after wartime bombing, and a day or two covers it comfortably.

Freiburg's large student population gives it the more sociable evenings. There are pubs and wine bars around the Martinstor, beer gardens, summer crowds along the Dreisam and a few clubs for techno and indie nights.

Salzburg winds down after a concert and a late dinner, and the old town is quiet by midnight. The beer halls with their long wooden tables are the best of it, and beyond the small bars on Rudolfskai there is little club life.

Both cities have serious outdoors on the doorstep, but the landscapes are very different. Salzburg's is Alpine and dramatic: the Untersberg cable car up to limestone ridges, paragliding from the Gaisberg, sailing and paddling on the Salzkammergut lakes, and the fjord-like Königssee in Berchtesgaden National Park about half an hour away.

Freiburg's Black Forest is rounder and greener. The Schauinsland and Feldberg offer ridge walks and winter skiing, gorges such as the Ravenna valley make good day walks, and the mountain biking is excellent. The Kaiserstuhl vineyards and the flat Rhine plain add gentle cycling that Salzburg does not have.

Both are excellent bases, with a different focus. From Freiburg the appeal is crossing borders: Basel by train, Colmar and the half-timbered Alsace wine villages, Strasbourg, and closer to home Staufen, Breisach and Baden-Baden. One week can take in three countries.

Salzburg's trips are about lakes and salt: Hallstatt, St Wolfgang, the salt mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, and the clifftop fortress at Werfen, with Munich for a big-city day. From both cities the smaller villages are easier to reach by car.

Freiburg is the easier family base. Children can race toy boats along the Bächle, the Mundenhof animal park is free, and the Schauinsland cable car is a highlight. Europa-Park, Germany's largest theme park, is about 40 minutes away.

Salzburg works well for two or three days, with Hellbrunn's trick fountains, the zoo, the hands-on Haus der Natur and the miners' slides in the nearby salt mines. However, its cobbles and steep lanes are hard work with a pushchair, and there is no theme park nearby.

Both centres are compact and best seen on foot, but beyond the centre Freiburg is easier to get around. Trams, cycle lanes everywhere, and regional trains through the Höllental and along the Rhine reach most places, and many hotels give guests a card for local buses and trains.

Within Salzburg the trolleybuses work well, and there is no tram or metro. The lakes and Berchtesgaden are served by slow regional buses, so many visitors hire a car for those trips.

Salzburg has more that you cannot buy elsewhere. Workshops sell made-to-measure dirndls and loden jackets, Getreidegasse is hung with wrought-iron guild signs, and in Advent the Domplatz hosts one of the oldest Christmas markets in the region.

Shopping in Freiburg is pleasant but plainer. There are chain stores on Kaiser-Joseph-Strasse and independent shops in the Gerberau and Konviktstrasse quarters, and the typical local buys are cuckoo clocks and wine from the market. Neither city has much luxury shopping.

Freiburg is the gentler of the two on the wallet, though only by a modest margin. Rooms are its weak point: the city has too few for the visitors it draws, so a bed is dear for a place this size, and summer weekends and trade fairs push it higher still. That is why some visitors sleep in the Black Forest villages instead. Once you are there, sausages from the Münster market, cooking in the student quarter and a cathedral you can walk into for nothing keep the days cheap.

Salzburg asks more of you at almost every turn. Rooms near the old town stay costly through the year and are hard to find while the festival or the Advent markets are on, and a meal in the centre runs noticeably higher than elsewhere in Austria. The savings come from sleeping across the river or in the suburbs, eating in the outer-district inns, and using the city card that bundles the buses with the fortress and most museums.

Here Salzburg is in a different league. The summer festival in the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule, carved into the cliff, together with Jedermann performed in front of the cathedral, Mozart Week and the Easter Festival, make music a reason to travel. The Mozarteum, the Landestheater and the Marionette Theatre keep the programme going for the rest of the year.

Freiburg offers a good evening out rather than a pilgrimage: repertory at Theater Freiburg, the Freiburger Barockorchester at the Konzerthaus, a few student jazz clubs and the summer Zelt-Musik-Festival.

Freiburg sits in thermal spa country. There is a mineral bath on the city's eastern edge, warm outdoor pools at Bad Krozingen twenty minutes south, a Roman bath ruin at Badenweiler, and the grand bathhouses of Baden-Baden an hour away by train.

Salzburg has no springs of its own, only the Paracelsus Bad in the city park, so a real spa day means Bad Reichenhall across the border or the longer trip to Gastein. Both cities have an unhurried pace, but in Freiburg the warm water is closer.