Heidelberg or The Hague?

For sand and salt water, these two are not close. Heidelberg lies deep inland, and on a hot afternoon the choices are a town lido or one of the old quarry lakes out on the Rhine plain. Either is fine for cooling off, but neither is worth planning a trip around, and the nearest coast is several hours away.

The Hague is a real seaside city. A tram from the centre reaches Scheveningen in about a quarter of an hour, where broad sands stretch along the boulevard, and Kijkduin to the south is a quieter strip for anyone who wants dunes rather than crowds. Sunbathers do well here on a warm summer day. Swimmers do less well, because the North Sea stays cold even at its warmest, and wind and currents keep most people to a short, bracing dip.

The Hague has the more distinctive table, because its links to the former Dutch East Indies give it Indonesian cooking you would struggle to match in Europe, from a full rijsttafel to simple plates of rendang. Add raw herring from the carts in early summer and fish by Scheveningen harbour, and you get variety that Heidelberg cannot offer.

Heidelberg's strength is wine rather than cooking. Riesling and Pinot from the Bergstrasse and the Palatinate go with hearty Schäufele, Maultaschen and the spring white asparagus. The best meals are in the side streets, in Neuenheim and in the village taverns, not on the Hauptstrasse, where places mostly cater to day-trippers.

The Hague has the deeper collections. The Mauritshuis alone, with the Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft, would justify a visit. Around it are the medieval Binnenhof, the Peace Palace, the Kunstmuseum's Mondrians, Escher's prints and the circular Panorama Mesdag, enough for two or three unhurried days.

Heidelberg is more of a single, unified picture than a museum city. The red sandstone castle ruin stands above a baroque Altstadt and the Old Bridge, and the university, the oldest in Germany, adds its ceremonial hall and the graffiti-covered Student Prison. Most visitors see it all in a day or two.

Neither city is a place for big club nights, and both send serious clubbers off by train, to Mannheim or Frankfurt from Heidelberg and to Rotterdam or Amsterdam from The Hague. What differs is the crowd. Heidelberg's evenings centre on student pubs along the Untere Strasse and old taverns with carved tables, which are lively in term time and quiet outside it.

The Hague's evenings start earlier and are more grown-up, with civil servants on the terraces of the Plein and weekend crowds at the Grote Markt. In summer the beach pavilions at Scheveningen turn sundowners into dancing, and Heidelberg has nothing like that.

Heidelberg is the better choice for walkers. The Philosophers' Walk, the funicular up the Königstuhl and the Celtic ramparts on the Heiligenberg put real forest and climbs within minutes of the castle. The Neckar cycle path and the Palatinate Forest add longer days out.

The Hague's outdoors is flat, windy and coastal. Meijendel's protected dunes, the old Haagse Bos and long beach walks are lovely in any season, and kitesurfers come when the wind picks up, but there is no hill anywhere.

Both cities make excellent bases, but The Hague has more within easy reach. Delft and Leiden are about a quarter of an hour away, and Gouda and Rotterdam are hardly further. Amsterdam, Haarlem, Utrecht, the Kinderdijk windmills and Keukenhof all fit within an hour, mostly by train.

Heidelberg's outings are more spread out and more varied in landscape. There are the cathedrals at Speyer and Worms, the palace gardens at Schwetzingen, Maulbronn's monastery, castle villages up the Neckar and the wine villages of the Palatinate, with Strasbourg possible on a long day. Some of these are easier with a car.

The Hague is easier and better stocked for children. Madurodam's miniature Netherlands, the beach and sea aquarium at Scheveningen, Museon and the Duinrell water park are all close, and flat streets and pushchair-friendly trams make getting between them simple.

Heidelberg holds its own with the funicular ride, the fairy-tale park on the Königstuhl, a tidy zoo and the Technik Museum Speyer, where children can climb into a space shuttle. The cobbled, sloping Altstadt is harder work with a pushchair, though.

Both are easy without a car, and The Hague is a little easier. Its centre is flat, cycle lanes run almost everywhere, frequent trams reach the beach and Madurodam, and two stations make Delft and Rotterdam feel like suburbs.

Heidelberg's sights lie along one long strip you can walk end to end, though the station is a tram ride west and the climb to the castle is steep unless you take the funicular. A single fare system across the Rhine-Neckar area keeps regional travel simple.

The Hague is the more rewarding city for browsing. Antique dealers, galleries and boutiques line the Denneweg and Noordeinde near the royal palace, there is the glass-roofed Passage from the 1880s, and the Haagse Markt is piled high with fabrics and spices.

Heidelberg's shopping is mostly one long pedestrian street. The Hauptstrasse runs from chain stores at one end to cuckoo clocks and beer steins at the other, with a few independents in the side lanes. A bottle of Bergstrasse wine is the best thing to take home.

Neither is cheap, but Heidelberg is somewhat kinder on the budget. Hotels are its main expense, because rooms are scarce at busy times and many visitors stay in Mannheim instead. Meals in student cafés and taverns stay reasonable.

The Hague charges full Northern European prices for rooms, meals and drinks, and seafront hotels cost more in summer. Weekends are often better for central rooms once the business travellers leave, and Indonesian and Surinamese eateries and the market help keep costs down.

The Hague offers more, above all Nederlands Dans Theater, which is reason enough for dance lovers to plan a trip around a performance. The Residentie Orkest and the Royal Conservatory's early-music concerts add depth, although drama at the royal theatre is in Dutch and the city has no resident opera company.

Heidelberg covers more genres for a smaller town. Its municipal theatre stages opera alongside drama and dance, the Heidelberger Frühling brings chamber music in spring, and summer plays and musicals are staged in the castle courtyard among the ruins. Mannheim's larger house is twenty minutes away.

Neither city has spa facilities of its own worth travelling for, and the two offer different kinds of relaxation. From Heidelberg the draw is warm water: thermal complexes with saline pools in the Kraichgau, about half an hour away, and the baths of Baden-Baden an hour south.

The Hague offers the Dutch sauna instead, in large day-long complexes with steam rooms, cold plunges and gardens, where nudity is usually expected. Its quiet embassy streets make it the calmer of the two away from summer weekends.