Haarlem or Heidelberg?

Haarlem has a real coast on its doorstep. Zandvoort's long beach is a short train ride away, the quieter, dune-backed sand at Bloemendaal aan Zee is reachable by bike, and pavilions line the shore in summer. The North Sea is cool and often windy, though, so a beach day here usually means walking, sheltering from the wind and a quick dip rather than long swims.

Heidelberg has no beach at all. The Neckar is not for swimming, so on hot days people use the town's outdoor pools or drive about half an hour to the gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain.

Neither city is a serious food destination, and both serve good regional cooking without much depth. In Haarlem the strength is beer. The town has a long brewing history and a good craft scene, and you can drink it in brown cafés and on terraces around the Grote Markt, with raw herring and kibbeling from the Saturday market.

Heidelberg's strength is wine. Riesling and Pinot come from the Bergstrasse vineyards at the edge of town, and the food is hearty Baden cooking, with white asparagus in spring. Skip the tourist places on the Hauptstrasse and eat in Neuenheim or the village wine taverns, while the student population keeps cheap meals easy to find.

The two are about level for culture, but they offer different things. Haarlem is a city of art and quiet interiors: Frans Hals portraits, the 18th-century oval room at Teylers, the almshouse courtyards behind plain doors and the great organ in St Bavo.

Heidelberg's appeal is its setting and its scholarly past. The red sandstone castle ruin stands above the river, the Old Bridge crosses the Neckar, and the student prison walls are covered in graffiti from Germany's oldest university. Either city fills two easy days.

Heidelberg has a little more going on after dark, at least in term time. The pubs packed into the Untere Strasse fill up late, old student taverns sit nearby, and there are a few clubs out towards the station. Outside term the town goes quiet early.

Haarlem's evenings are sociable but low-key, mostly terraces and brown cafés around the Grote Markt and the Botermarkt, with almost no clubbing. Its advantage is that Amsterdam is only fifteen minutes away by train, which is closer than Heidelberg's big-night options in Mannheim or Frankfurt.

Both have good countryside right at the edge of town, but the landscapes are very different. Haarlem's is flat and coastal: the dunes, pine woods and lakes of Zuid-Kennemerland, with Highland cattle and wild ponies, long beach walks and the striped bulb fields towards Leiden in spring.

Heidelberg has woods and slopes. You can take the Philosophers' Walk, ride the funicular up the Königstuhl for hours of forest trails, or cycle the Neckar valley past castles, and the sandstone crags of the Palatinate Forest are about an hour away. Choose it if you want some climbing on your walks.

Haarlem has the edge for day trips because so many major cities are close by train. Amsterdam is fifteen minutes away, Leiden twenty, and The Hague, Delft, Utrecht and Rotterdam are all easy, along with Alkmaar's cheese market and Zaanse Schans. The rail network is dense enough that you hardly need to plan.

Heidelberg is a strong base too, but its outings are mostly smaller and historic: Speyer's cathedral, Schwetzingen's palace gardens, Worms, Maulbronn and the castle villages up the Neckar. Some, like the Palatinate wine villages, are easier by car.

Heidelberg has more ready-made attractions for children. The funicular ride is an outing in itself, and there is a fairy-tale park at the top, a compact zoo by the river and boat trips past castles. The Technik Museum Speyer, where children can climb into a submarine and a space shuttle, and a large theme park are both within reach. The main drawback is that the cobbled, sloping Altstadt is hard work with a pushchair.

Haarlem is relaxed and largely car-free, with dunes, beach and playgrounds in the national park. But it has no zoo, aquarium or theme park, so families usually go to Amsterdam for those.

Haarlem is a little easier to get around. The station sits at the edge of a flat centre you can cross on foot in twenty minutes, and bike paths run all the way to the dunes and the sea.

In Heidelberg the main station is a fair way west of the Altstadt, so most visitors take a tram in, and the cobbles and the steep path to the castle slow you down. The funicular and a single fare system across the Rhine-Neckar region make up for much of that.

Haarlem is clearly the better place to shop. Gierstraat, Kleine Houtstraat and Schagchelstraat are full of independent fashion, interiors, bookshops and delicatessens, and on market days the main square fills with flowers and cheese.

Heidelberg's long Hauptstrasse has department stores and familiar chains at one end and cuckoo clocks, beer steins and Studentenkuss chocolates at the other. A bottle of Bergstrasse wine is the best thing to take home, and serious shoppers go to Mannheim or Frankfurt.

Neither town is cheap, but Heidelberg costs somewhat less. Its student cafés, bakeries and simple taverns keep meals reasonable, the regional transport ticket is good value for day trips, and you can save on hotels by staying in Mannheim and coming in by train.

Haarlem has few hotels for the number of visitors, and the rooms tend to be small for the price, especially in tulip season. Market stalls and lunches keep daily spending down, but train fares for frequent outings add up.

The two have similar programmes for small towns, each with its own speciality. Haarlem's is the organ: St Bavo's great instrument is played in regular concerts and hosts a long-running international organ festival. The Philharmonie covers classical music, and the Stadsschouwburg's theatre is mostly in Dutch.

Heidelberg has its own opera at the municipal theatre. In spring the Heidelberger Frühling festival brings chamber music, and in summer the castle courtyard becomes an open-air stage. Haarlem visitors have to go to Amsterdam for opera.

Both towns have only small facilities for wellness in town, and the big sauna or thermal complexes are a short trip away. Haarlem has a few saunas and beauty spas of its own, and the large Dutch day-spa complexes with outdoor pools and gardens are in the wider region. Most visitors unwind on foot or by bike in the dunes instead.

Heidelberg's in-town choice is mostly hotel spas. Its real advantage is warm water: the Kraichgau thermal baths with saline pools are about half an hour away, and Baden-Baden is about an hour south. In town, the calm places are the Neckar meadows and the forest paths, away from the midday crowds on the Hauptstrasse.