Innsbruck or Karlovy Vary?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Innsbruck gives you more for a hot afternoon. The small lakes on the plateaus above town, the Lanser See and the Natterer See, warm to about 22°C in high summer, and the Achensee further out is beautiful if chilly.

Karlovy Vary has Lake Medard, a flooded mine near Sokolov about half an hour away, and a few forest reservoirs. Most swimming there happens in pools, the most unusual being the warm outdoor pools fed by the springs.

Both serve hearty central European cooking, but Innsbruck has a slight edge. Its best meals come at mountain huts reached by cable car, with Gröstl or Kaspressknödel and a valley view. The student districts and a small fine-dining tier add a little range.

Karlovy Vary's table is narrower: roast pork, dumplings and svíčková with good Czech beer. Its own specialities are the warm spa wafers and Becherovka, which is still distilled in town. Neither place has markets or street food worth seeking out.

The two are about even, but you see them in different ways. Innsbruck's culture is a set of distinct sights: the Golden Roof, the Hofburg, Maximilian's tomb in the Hofkirche with its bronze giants, two solid museums, and Ambras Castle with its cabinet of curiosities.

In Karlovy Vary the townscape is the attraction. You walk past pastel tiers of Belle Époque hotels and along the UNESCO-listed colonnades, and watch the Vřídlo geyser shoot up in its hall. Its museums are small and specialised.

Innsbruck has a real if modest night out, thanks to its university. Bars and small clubs fill the brick arches under the railway viaduct and stay open late at weekends, and in winter there is après-ski in the resorts. Karlovy Vary is mostly asleep by eleven, apart from the film festival week, so outside that week an evening means a hotel bar or a Czech pub.

This is where Innsbruck pulls furthest ahead. From the old town you can be on a ridge at about 2,300m in under half an hour. The Karwendel lies behind it, and the Stubai Glacier, ski areas, via ferratas and rafting rivers are all close by.

Karlovy Vary's outdoors is green and gentle: beech and spruce forest, graded spa paths up to the Diana tower, and the moors of the Slavkov Forest. The Ore Mountains offer modest skiing at Klínovec, and the Ohře is good for easy canoeing.

Innsbruck sits on the main rail lines through the Alps, so a day out can easily cross a border. Munich and Salzburg are each a little under two hours by train, and over the Brenner Pass, Bolzano and Merano add Italian arcades, South Tyrolean wine and Ötzi the Iceman. Closer in are medieval Hall in Tirol, glassmaking Rattenberg and the Swarovski Crystal Worlds, and Neuschwanstein is about two hours by car.

Karlovy Vary's outings stay closer to home but are well worth taking. Loket's castle in a tight loop of the Ohře is only twenty minutes away, and the sister spa towns of Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně are about an hour. Cheb and the brewing city of Plzeň are longer outings of an hour or more, and Prague takes a long day by coach, about two hours each way.

Innsbruck is much easier with children. The funicular stops at the Alpenzoo, with its bears, wolves and ibex, on the way up the mountain. Summer brings adventure trails and plateau lakes, and winter brings ski schools on gentle slopes.

In Karlovy Vary children enjoy the geyser, sipping from spouted spa cups and riding the funicular to the lookout. Beyond that, the town is made for adults on a cure, and the steep valley sides are hard work with a pushchair.

Innsbruck is the easier city to move around. Its flat, compact centre puts the old town, the Hofburg and the river a few minutes apart, trams run out to Igls and the Stubai valley, and the funicular up the mountain starts at the edge of the old town. In winter, ski buses run to the surrounding areas, and the central station makes onward travel simple.

Karlovy Vary is pleasant to walk along its narrow riverside strip, but the valley sides are steep. The climbs to hotels and viewpoints often mean a local bus or the funicular. Trains to Loket, Cheb and Mariánské Lázně run on slow regional lines, and a car makes the forests and villages easier to reach.

Shopping is about even, but what you buy is different. In Innsbruck it means high-street chains on Maria-Theresien-Strasse, loden jackets, dirndls and Speck, and some excellent specialist ski and outdoor shops. Karlovy Vary caters to well-off spa guests with jewellers and boutiques, and its real local goods are Moser crystal, Karlovy Vary porcelain and Bohemian garnets.

Karlovy Vary is clearly the cheaper stay. The grand hotels and colonnade restaurants charge for the setting, but one street back the pubs and canteens charge local Czech prices, and the springs and promenades cost nothing.

Innsbruck adds an Alpine resort premium to Western European prices, and cable car tickets add up quickly on an active trip. The guest and city cards soften this, and spring and autumn are the cheaper seasons.

Innsbruck has the fuller programme. The Tiroler Landestheater stages opera, drama and dance, the Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra performs regularly, and the summer Festival of Early Music fills historic rooms such as the Spanish Hall at Ambras.

Karlovy Vary offers lighter fare: spa-orchestra concerts, some held outdoors on the colonnades, touring shows in the ornate Fellner and Helmer theatre, and an autumn Dvořák festival. Its best-known festival is for film rather than music.

Karlovy Vary wins easily, because wellness is its whole reason for being. Thirteen springs feed the colonnades, sanatoria offer medical stays with carbonated baths and peat wraps, and the slow round of springs, cake and forest walks is the point of a visit.

Innsbruck's version is a sauna after a day in the mountains. Its best hotel spas are up in Igls and the plateau villages, and the big thermal complexes in the Ötztal and Zillertal are about an hour away.