Heidelberg or Lubeck?

This is the clearest gap between the two. Lübeck has a real seaside within its own city limits: Travemünde's long sandy beach with its hooded wicker beach chairs, plus Timmendorfer Strand and Scharbeutz further up the bay. All of it is on calm, shallow Baltic water that is good for paddling.

Heidelberg has only outdoor pools and the gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain. Even so, Lübeck's sea stays cool, so think of a few beach afternoons added to a city stay rather than a swimming vacation.

Neither city is a food destination, but they eat very differently. Heidelberg is wine country, with Riesling from the Bergstrasse and the Palatinate, hearty Baden dishes and white asparagus in spring. The better meals are in the Altstadt side streets, in Neuenheim and in the village wine taverns.

Lübeck looks to the sea and to the confectioner. Expect herring and fish sandwiches from harbour kiosks, Rotspon wine from the old cellars, marzipan around the town hall, and dinner at long tables in the sea captains' guild house.

Both have compact, photogenic old towns, but Lübeck's is the bigger draw. Its island of brick Gothic churches, merchants' houses with stepped gables and quiet courtyards is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Hansemuseum and the Buddenbrookhaus also give it more depth in museums.

Heidelberg's strength is one romantic picture: the castle ruin above the Neckar, the Old Bridge and the old university with its graffiti-covered Student Prison. It is a lovely day or two, but there is less to fill a longer stay.

Heidelberg has the livelier evenings, thanks to its students. The Untere Strasse is packed with small bars that fill up late during term, and the old student taverns are worth a visit in themselves. Lübeck is quieter still: a few wine bars on the Obertrave, Travemünde's promenade in summer, and most of the city asleep by midnight. For a big club night, both send you on by train, Heidelberg to Mannheim or Frankfurt and Lübeck to Hamburg.

Heidelberg has more to do outdoors right on its doorstep. Wooded hills rise straight from the old town, with the Philosophers' Walk on one side of the river and the Königstuhl on the other, and Celtic ramparts and monastery ruins hidden among the trees on the Heiligenberg. The Neckar valley cycle path, the vineyard walks of the Bergstrasse and the sandstone crags of the Palatinate Forest, an hour west, give you several days of walking and riding.

Lübeck's country is flatter, a landscape of rivers, reeds, lakes and shore. Its highlights are canoeing on the Wakenitz, the clifftop walk along the Brodtener Steilufer and long, level cycle routes by the coast. It suits paddlers and easy cyclists, but it has nothing like Heidelberg's hill walking.

Heidelberg is the better base. The great Romanesque cathedrals of Speyer and Worms, the palace gardens of Schwetzingen, the abbeys of Lorsch and Maulbronn, castle villages up the Neckar and the Palatinate wine towns are all within about an hour. Frankfurt and Mainz are easy by train, and Strasbourg works as a long day.

Lübeck has fewer outings, but strong ones: a day in Hamburg, its sister Hanseatic town Wismar and Schwerin's island castle. After those and the lake towns of Ratzeburg and Eutin, the list runs short.

Both are small, safe and easy with children, but the outings differ. In Heidelberg the highlights are the funicular ride, the fairy-tale park on the Königstuhl, the zoo by the river and the aircraft and submarine you can climb into at the Technik Museum Speyer. The cobbles and slopes are hard work with a pushchair, though.

Lübeck's flat old town is easier on small legs. In summer its shallow beach and Hansa-Park turn a visit into a seaside stay, but out of season Heidelberg has more for children.

Both are easy without a car, in different ways. Lübeck's old town island is compact, the station is just across the river from the Holstentor and the train to the beach takes about twenty minutes. Heidelberg's Altstadt is a long strip with the station well to the west, so you take a tram in, but one fare system across the Rhine-Neckar region makes trips out of town simpler.

What goes home in the suitcase sets these two apart: Bergstrasse wine and Studentenkuss chocolates from Heidelberg, and boxes of marzipan from Lübeck. Heidelberg's shopping runs along the Hauptstrasse, one of the longest pedestrian streets in Germany. It starts with chain stores at the western end and turns to cuckoo clocks and beer steins near the market square.

Lübeck is the better place to browse. Behind the chain stores of Breite Strasse, small independents, galleries and craft shops are tucked into the courtyard passages around the Hüxstrasse and Fleischhauerstrasse. For fashion in depth, Heidelberg shoppers take the train to Mannheim or Frankfurt, and Lübeck's go to Hamburg.

Lübeck is easier on the wallet, mainly because of the rooms. Its old town and station area have plenty of moderately priced hotels and guesthouses. Heidelberg has too few rooms for its visitors, and they fill up with congresses and graduations, so many people stay in Mannheim and come in by train.

Eating out is reasonable in both, at student cafés in Heidelberg and fish kiosks in Lübeck. The exception in Lübeck is the coast: a beach stay in Travemünde in July and August costs noticeably more than one in town.

Heidelberg's set piece is the summer castle festival, when musicals, plays and concerts are staged in the courtyard of the ruin. The Heidelberger Frühling brings chamber music in spring, and Mannheim's larger opera house is twenty minutes away by train.

Lübeck's equivalent is its organ tradition: Buxtehude played at the Marienkirche, and concerts there are still a highlight. The Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival fills its halls and churches in summer. Both cities also have a municipal theatre for opera and drama and a resident orchestra, so there is a proper season in either.

For a proper soak, Heidelberg looks inland, to the thermal bath complexes and saline pools of the Kraichgau spa towns half an hour away and to Baden-Baden an hour south. In town, you slow down on the Neckar meadows in Neuenheim and on the forest paths above the river.

Lübeck's spa tradition comes from the sea. Travemünde has been a seaside spa resort since the early nineteenth century, and the bay has wellness hotels and an indoor seawater pool complex at Scharbeutz. Its quiet courtyards and riverside benches are as calming as anything in Heidelberg.