Hallstatt or Salzburg?

Neither is a place for a swimming vacation, and both depend on Alpine lakes. Hallstätter See is deep and fed by mountain water, so it stays cold. Its steep shores leave room only for the jetty lawn in the village and the lido at Obertraun.

Salzburg does a little better because it has more lakes to choose from. The Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee warm a few degrees more and have lawns and jetties along their shores. They lie half an hour or more away, though, so a swim needs some planning.

Hallstatt has a handful of guesthouse dining rooms and lakeside terraces. Its one memorable dish is char or whitefish from the lake, eaten with the view, and kitchens close early once the day visitors leave.

Salzburg cooks in the same Austrian tradition but gives you far more of it: Kasnocken, the peaked Salzburger Nockerl, old coffee houses on the Alter Markt and the monastery brewery in Mülln with its chestnut garden. The best meals are in the outer inns rather than the old town, but there is enough to fill several days.

Hallstatt's history goes back further. It has seven thousand years of salt mining, the Iron Age burial ground that gave the Hallstatt culture its name, and the painted skulls of the Beinhaus. With the mine and the small museum, though, all of it fits into a day.

Salzburg has much more to see. The cathedral, the Residenz, Hohensalzburg, Mirabell, the Mozart houses, St Peter's catacombs and Hellbrunn fill two or three days, all in a compact Baroque centre.

Hallstatt has no nightlife to speak of. After dinner, the evening is a walk by the dark lake. Salzburg is no party city either, but its beer halls fill with locals at long wooden tables, and the student pubs along Rudolfskai stay open later at weekends. For clubs, people go on to Munich.

Both are superb for the outdoors, and the difference is in kind. Hallstatt sits inside the high mountains. The Krippenstein cable car climbs from Obertraun to the Five Fingers platform and the ice caves, the Echerntal leads towards the glacier, and winter brings freeride and ski touring. Rain and mist can close in for days.

Salzburg has gentler country at its edges and more variety within reach. There are ridge walks on the Mönchsberg in the city, the Untersberg cable car and paragliding from the Gaisberg. Berchtesgaden and the Königssee are about half an hour away, and the lakes offer sailing and paddling.

Hallstatt sits in the middle of the Salzkammergut, so Bad Ischl, St Wolfgang, Gmunden and Altaussee are easy outings. Anything bigger means the long run to Salzburg, and without a car each trip takes planning.

Salzburg reaches further and more easily. Hallein's salt mine is twenty minutes away, and the clifftop fortress at Werfen is not far. Berchtesgaden and the Kehlsteinhaus are just over the border, Munich and Linz are a train ride away, and Hallstatt itself makes a day out.

Hallstatt's salt mine, with its wooden slides and underground lake, makes a great day for children, and older ones will remember the ice caves. The village itself is a single steep lane, crowded at midday and hard going with a pushchair, so families often sleep in Obertraun instead.

Salzburg works better over several days. It has Hellbrunn's trick fountains with the zoo beside them, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the marionettes and the fortress funicular, and salt mines with slides at Hallein and Berchtesgaden.

Within Hallstatt, everything is a few minutes' walk, though the paths are steep and stepped. The hard part is getting anywhere else. The station is across the lake and reached by boat, and buses thin out outside summer.

Salzburg's centre is just as easy to walk and far better connected. City buses run out to Hellbrunn and the Untersberg cable car, the flat riverside paths suit cycling, and direct trains go to Munich and Vienna. In both places, a car mainly helps for reaching the lake villages.

Shopping in Hallstatt means a short stroll past souvenir shops, and salt from the local mine is the one buy you will not find elsewhere. Salzburg offers more. There is Getreidegasse under its iron guild signs, made-to-measure dirndls and loden from the Tracht workshops, and the farmers' market by the Andräkirche. In Advent, the Christmas market fills Domplatz.

Both are expensive. Hallstatt has few rooms and visitors from all over the world, so prices are at Alpine resort level, and tickets for the mine, the funicular and the cable car add up. The usual way to save is to sleep in Obertraun or Bad Ischl.

Salzburg is a little easier on the budget, mainly because it offers more choice. You can eat at inns and beer halls in the outer districts, stay across the river and use a city card that covers transport and most museums. Festival time and Advent are the costly exceptions.

This is the widest gap between them. Hallstatt has a brass band on feast days and the odd summer church concert, nothing to plan an evening around. The nearest real option is Bad Ischl's summer operetta.

Salzburg is one of Europe's great music cities. The summer festival fills the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule, and Jedermann is played in front of the cathedral. Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons, and the Landestheater and Mozarteum keep up opera and concerts all year.

Hallstatt's calm comes from the lake at dawn and dusk, but the midday crowds in the lane break it. For a proper spa, you go half an hour to the brine baths at Bad Ischl.

Salzburg has more within the city. The Paracelsus Bad has saunas and a pool, the Mönchsberg and the Mirabell gardens are quiet for walking, and the coffee houses suit a slow afternoon. Bad Reichenhall's brine spas and the Gastein valley's radon springs are also within reach.