Ghent or Heidelberg?

You would not plan swimming around either city, but Ghent at least has the sea within reach. Ostend and the coastal tram are about an hour away by train, with wide sand and dunes, though the North Sea water is cold. In town, the lake at the Blaarmeersen has a sandy shore and supervised swimming in summer.

Heidelberg is several hours from any coast, and the Neckar is not for swimming. On hot days people go to the outdoor pools or the gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain, which are fine for an afternoon and no more.

Ghent eats better on a short visit. Waterzooi, beef stewed in dark beer and grey shrimp croquettes are worth seeking out, the lanes of the Patershol hold a good spread of restaurants, and vegetarians are well served. The beer lists in the old cafés around the Vrijdagmarkt are a reason to go in themselves.

Heidelberg's cooking is heartier and plainer, with Maultaschen, Schäufele and white asparagus in spring. Its strength is wine rather than beer, from the Bergstrasse slopes and the Palatinate. The catch is that the streets below the castle cater to day-trippers, so you have to look for the better meals in Neuenheim or the village wine taverns.

Ghent gives you more to see. At its heart is the Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers in St Bavo's Cathedral, one of the founding works of European painting. Around it stand the moated Gravensteen, the guildhalls of the Graslei and Korenlei facing each other across the Leie, the UNESCO-listed beguinages and four substantial museums, from the Flemish masters at the Museum of Fine Arts to contemporary work at the SMAK.

Heidelberg is the more compact and picturesque set: the red sandstone castle ruin above a baroque Altstadt, the Old Bridge with its gate towers, and Germany's oldest university with its graffiti-covered Student Prison. It makes a memorable day or two, but its museums are mainly regional, and nothing there draws visitors the way the altarpiece does.

Both towns owe their evenings to students, but Ghent's nights are fuller and run later. The Overpoort stays loud into the night in term time, and the cafés of the Vrijdagmarkt and Oudburg suit a slower evening over beer. Every July the Gentse Feesten takes over the centre for ten days.

Heidelberg's nightlife is concentrated on the Untere Strasse and in the old student taverns, and the town goes quiet early on weeknights and out of term. For a proper club night, people take the train to Mannheim or Frankfurt.

Heidelberg has the real outdoors of the two. Woodland starts at the edge of the old town, and the Philosophers' Walk gives the classic view of the castle. From the top of the Königstuhl, reached by funicular, forest trails run on for hours, and the Neckar cycle path and the sandstone crags of the Palatinate Forest are within reach.

Ghent's surroundings are flat farmland, so nature there means riverside rides along the Leie, birdwatching in the Bourgoyen-Ossemeersen wetland and paddling at the Blaarmeersen. It is pleasant, but there are no hills to climb.

Both are excellent bases, and Ghent is the slightly richer one. Bruges, Brussels and Antwerp are each under an hour away by frequent train. Mechelen, Leuven, the Ypres battlefields, the coast and Lille extend the list, all without needing a car.

Heidelberg's outings are smaller in scale but varied: Speyer's Romanesque cathedral, the palace gardens at Schwetzingen, Worms, Lorsch and Maulbronn, and villages lined with castles up the Neckar. The Palatinate wine villages are easiest by car, and Frankfurt and Mainz are about an hour away by train.

Heidelberg gives children more to look forward to. The funicular up to the castle and the Königstuhl is an outing in itself, with a small fairy-tale park at the top, and there is a zoo by the river. The Technik Museum Speyer, where children can climb into a space shuttle and a submarine, is about half an hour away.

Ghent is safe and largely car-free, and children like the armour and battlements of the Gravensteen and the canal boats. Beyond the House of Alijn and the Blaarmeersen, though, little is made for them. Cobbles make pushchairs hard work in both cities, and Heidelberg adds slopes.

Both are easy on foot, and Ghent is a shade easier. Its flat, largely car-free centre puts the cathedral, the Gravensteen and the Patershol a few minutes' walk apart, and cycling is the local way of getting about. The main station, Gent-Sint-Pieters, is a twenty-minute walk out of the centre.

Heidelberg's sights line up along one long pedestrian street, with a funicular for the castle hill, which is steep on foot. A single fare system covers the trams and S-Bahn across the Rhine-Neckar area, which makes trips around the region simple.

Ghent is the better place to browse. Beyond the chains on the Veldstraat, the Serpentstraat and the Onderbergen have independent fashion and design, the student quarter has vintage, and the flower market on the Kouter and the flea market at Sint-Jacobs fill the weekends. Chocolate, cuberdons and mustard make good gifts.

Heidelberg's shopping runs along one long street, the Hauptstrasse, from chains and department stores at one end to cuckoo clocks and beer steins at the other, with a few boutiques in the side lanes. Bergstrasse wine is the thing to take home, and for serious fashion people go to Mannheim or Frankfurt.

Overall costs are much alike, firmly Western European in both, and the difference lies in where the money goes. In Ghent the bills mount at the table, over sit-down dinners and Belgian beer. Rooms are moderately priced outside the Gentse Feesten, and several churches, St Bavo's among them, are free to enter.

In Heidelberg it is the other way round. Student cafés and simple taverns keep eating fairly cheap, but hotel rooms are scarce and expensive at busy times, so many visitors sleep in Mannheim and come in by train.

Ghent has the more serious stage life. Its opera house is home to half of the Flemish national company, and NTGent's productions are known well beyond Belgium, though most are in Dutch. De Bijloke, set in a medieval hospital, is a fine hall for early and classical music.

Heidelberg's municipal theatre and orchestra give a full season for a small town, and its highlights come with the seasons. In spring the Heidelberger Frühling brings chamber music, and in summer there are open-air performances in the castle courtyard. For bigger productions, Mannheim is twenty minutes away by train.

Neither town is a spa destination, but Heidelberg has the edge because thermal baths are close by. The spa towns of the Kraichgau, with warm saline pools and saunas, are about half an hour away and Baden-Baden about an hour. In town, the Neckar meadows and forest paths make it easy to unwind.

Ghent offers little beyond hotel spas and private saunas. Its calm is of a different kind: the enclosed gardens of the beguinages, slow walks along the Coupure canal and quiet Sundays after a busy day of sightseeing.