Heidelberg or Utrecht?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, but Utrecht does a little better on a hot day. The Maarsseveense Plassen and other recreation lakes are on the city's edge, and the North Sea at Zandvoort or Scheveningen is about an hour away by train, cold as it is.

From Heidelberg, swimming means the town's outdoor pools or the gravel-pit lakes on the Rhine plain, about half an hour away. The coast is several hours off.

The two are much alike for eating out, but the appeal differs. Heidelberg has a real regional kitchen, with Schäufele, Maultaschen and spring asparagus, and its main strength is wine, with Riesling and Pinot from vineyards just outside town. The best meals are in the side streets, in Neuenheim and in village wine taverns, not on the tourist-facing Hauptstrasse.

Utrecht has no cuisine of its own. Its pleasure is the setting: you eat at the water's edge on the Oudegracht wharves. Indonesian and Surinamese kitchens add variety, and the brown cafés pour Dutch and Belgian beer, so it is a beer town where Heidelberg is a wine town.

These two are evenly matched, and both have well-preserved old centres that most visitors can cover in a short stay. Heidelberg's sights are Romantic and academic: the red sandstone castle ruin above the Neckar, the Old Bridge and Germany's oldest university with its graffiti-covered Student Prison. You can see most of it in a day or two.

Utrecht pairs its medieval core with modern design. You can climb the Dom Tower, and the two-level wharves of the Oudegracht are unlike any other canal in the country. The Centraal Museum's De Stijl collection and the UNESCO-listed Rietveld Schröder House give the city a modernist side that Heidelberg lacks.

Both are student towns, but Utrecht's evenings carry more weight. Bars and terraces around the Neude, the Janskerkhof and the canal fill on weeknights as well as weekends, and on summer evenings drinking at the water's edge is the main event.

Heidelberg's going out is concentrated on the Untere Strasse and in the old student taverns with carved tables. It is lively in term time, but the town goes quiet early out of term. For a big club night, Utrecht has Amsterdam close by, while Heidelberg looks to Mannheim or Frankfurt.

Heidelberg has the stronger outdoors. Wooded hills rise straight from the old town. The Philosophers' Walk and the funicular up the Königstuhl lead onto hours of forest trails, the Heiligenberg has Celtic ramparts among the trees, and the sandstone crags of the Palatinate Forest are about an hour away.

Utrecht's countryside is flat and best seen by bike, along the Vecht past estates and windmills or out to the heath and low ridges of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. The Loosdrecht lakes add open water for sailing and canoeing, where Heidelberg's boating is on the river, but there is nothing to climb.

Both make excellent bases, but Utrecht has the edge because it sits at the hub of the Dutch railways. Amsterdam is under half an hour away, Rotterdam and The Hague are well under an hour, and Delft, Leiden, Haarlem and Gouda are all simple outings, so you can see much of the Netherlands without changing hotels.

Heidelberg's range is impressive too: the cathedrals of Speyer and Worms, the palace gardens at Schwetzingen, Maulbronn monastery and castle villages along the Neckar. The wine villages of the Palatinate are easier to reach by car than by train.

Both are calm, manageable cities with children, so the choice comes down to the kind of outing. Heidelberg offers a funicular ride to a small fairy-tale park, a riverside zoo and, half an hour away, the Technik Museum Speyer, where children can climb into a space shuttle and a submarine.

Utrecht has the national Railway Museum and a Miffy museum for toddlers, both within easy reach of the centre. The hazards differ too: in Heidelberg it is cobbles and slopes with a pushchair, in Utrecht the constant stream of bikes.

Utrecht is the easier city to get around. You step out of Utrecht Centraal straight into the old town, the streets are flat, and a rental bike covers anything beyond walking distance.

In Heidelberg, the main station is well west of the Altstadt, so most arrivals take a tram in. Once there, the sights lie along one long pedestrian street, but the castle approach is steep on foot. Its shared regional fare system does make train trips to Speyer or Mannheim simple.

Utrecht is the more rewarding place to shop. Independent fashion, design, book and homeware shops line the Oudegracht wharves and lanes such as the Zadelstraat and Twijnstraat, the Hoog Catharijne mall handles the chains, and there are markets on Vredenburg and the Janskerkhof.

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

Neither is cheap, and in both the bed is the main expense, but Heidelberg comes out somewhat cheaper. Its rooms get dear around congresses and graduations, so many visitors stay in Mannheim and ride in by train. Bakeries, student cafés and simple taverns keep meals reasonable.

Utrecht's central hotels are scarce and priced like those in any large Western European city, and a sit-down dinner with drinks adds up quickly. The compact centre and rental bikes mean you spend almost nothing on getting around.

Utrecht has the fuller programme. TivoliVredenburg stacks several halls in one building, running from the Radio Philharmonic to pop and experimental acts, and the Festival Oude Muziek is one of Europe's leading early-music events. Theatre is mostly in Dutch, though, and there is no opera house.

Heidelberg fills that gap on a smaller scale. Its municipal theatre stages opera alongside drama, the Heidelberger Frühling festival brings chamber music in spring, and in summer the castle courtyard becomes an open-air stage, which is a memorable setting for a play or concert.

Neither city has baths of its own, and both are about equal for a relaxing stay, so the difference lies in what is nearby. From Heidelberg, warm saline thermal pools in the Kraichgau are about half an hour away and Baden-Baden about an hour, while Utrecht's options are large Dutch sauna complexes in the surrounding green belt.

For simply slowing down, Heidelberg has the Neckar meadows in Neuenheim and forest paths above the Philosophers' Walk. Utrecht has evenings on the canal wharves and the quiet Pandhof cloister garden beside the Dom.