Hallstatt or Vienna?

Neither place is about beaches, and the swimming they offer is about equally limited, but it feels quite different. In Hallstatt you take a cold plunge into a deep, dark green Alpine lake from a small jetty or the lido at Obertraun, usually after a hike, and only in high summer.

Vienna's bathing is an urban afternoon out: the long grassy banks of the Danube Island and the calmer, warmer Alte Donau with its old lidos, reached by U-Bahn and shared with locals swimming after work.

Vienna is far the better place to eat. It has a whole cuisine of its own, from Tafelspitz in wood-panelled Beisl taverns to strudel in grand coffee houses, wine poured by the growers at Heuriger in Grinzing and Nussdorf, and the stalls of the Naschmarkt.

Hallstatt offers a few guesthouse dining rooms and lakeside terraces with Austrian standards. Its one real pleasure is char or whitefish from the lake with the view, and kitchens can close early, so food is something to arrange rather than look forward to.

Vienna has the depth here: the Hofburg, Schönbrunn, St Stephen's and the Ringstrasse, then Bruegel at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Klimt at the Belvedere and Schiele at the Leopold, with Jugendstil buildings as a second great period. A week is easily filled.

Hallstatt's culture is older and narrower. The village is itself the sight, set above a salt mine worked for millennia that gave its name to an Iron Age culture, and the painted skulls of the Beinhaus are memorable. It fills a day at most.

Vienna has a real if relaxed night out: bars under the Gürtel railway arches, the old-town Bermuda Triangle, deckchair bars on the Danube Canal in summer and, in winter, the formal ball season. Hallstatt has essentially nothing after dark beyond dinner and a lakeside walk, which is precisely what overnight guests come for.

This is Hallstatt's great strength. The lake lies in a glacial trough beneath the Dachstein, with the Five Fingers platform, the Giant Ice Cave and the karst plateau above Obertraun, the Gosausee walk, via ferratas in summer and ski touring in winter. The price is often wet weather and mist on the water.

Vienna's green side is gentler and easier to reach: beech woods and vineyards up to the Kahlenberg, the Prater meadows and the floodplain forest of the Donau-Auen. For real mountains, Viennese travel to the Rax and Schneeberg, which Hallstatt has on its doorstep.

Vienna has the wider and easier choice. Bratislava is an hour away by train or boat, the Wachau with Melk and Dürnstein is a classic outing, and Baden, Eisenstadt and Brno are all straightforward by rail.

Hallstatt's outings are lovely but harder to reach. The Salzkammergut lake towns, Bad Ischl with the Kaiservilla, St Wolfgang and Gmunden, are close, and Salzburg makes a long day, but without a car the buses and railway need planning.

Hallstatt suits families with older, sturdy children on an active trip, the kind who will happily climb long flights of steps, wrap up for a cave that stays icy in August and walk a mountain path. It rewards a short visit more than a long stay. Rowing on the lake can fill a summer afternoon, but with toddlers the village works better as an outing from a roomier lakeside base than as a place to sleep.

Vienna works for children of any age, and for a week as easily as a weekend. It is a calm, safe city with green space and a playground never far away, so parents can fit in a palace or a gallery and then do something the children have chosen. The main thing to adjust is the pace. Formal coffee houses and long concerts test small children, while a summer afternoon swimming off the Danube Island does not.

Hallstatt's railway station is on the far shore, so arriving by train means taking a small boat across the lake. Buses to Obertraun, Gosau and Bad Ischl get sparse outside summer, and most visitors find a car worth having for the wider region. The village itself takes only minutes to cross on foot, though the lanes are narrow and steps climb to the church.

In Vienna a car is only a burden. The old town inside the Ring is compact and easy to walk, and the U-Bahn, trams and buses share one ticket out to Schönbrunn, the Danube Island and the vineyard villages. At weekends the U-Bahn runs through the night.

Vienna has proper shopping, from luxury houses on the Kohlmarkt and Graben to everyday fashion on Mariahilfer Strasse and independent designers in Neubau, plus Augarten porcelain, crystal and Loden coats. Hallstatt is a half hour past souvenir shops, worth it mainly for salt from the local mine.

Neither is cheap, but Vienna is noticeably easier on a budget. Hotels are reasonable for a capital, set lunches and Heuriger buffets keep meals sensible, palace gardens and churches are free, and opera standing places cost little.

Hallstatt has few rooms and global demand, so prices run well above the Austrian norm and fill early in summer, and the salt mine and cable car add up. Budget travellers usually sleep in Obertraun or Bad Ischl and come in for the day.

The gap could hardly be wider. Vienna is one of the great music cities: the State Opera plays most nights, the Vienna Philharmonic is at home in the Musikverein, the Burgtheater and Volksoper add theatre and operetta, and the Boys' Choir sings Sunday Mass.

Hallstatt has a village brass band at feast days and the odd church concert. For a real evening of music from there, you would go to Bad Ischl's summer operetta or to Salzburg.

Vienna makes rest easier to find. Slow coffee house afternoons and palace garden walks are part of daily life, and there are thermal pools at Therme Wien, the Art Deco Amalienbad and the sulphur springs of Baden close by.

Hallstatt's calm comes from its setting: mist on the lake at dawn and empty evenings after the tour groups go. Midday crowds break that spell, and for proper bathing you drive to the brine baths of Bad Ischl or Bad Aussee.