Interlaken or Lake Louise?

Neither is a beach destination, but only Interlaken lets you swim in summer. In a good July or August Lake Thun reaches about 21°C, with grassy lidos at Neuhaus and shingle shores towards Spiez. The turquoise water of Lake Brienz is colder, but it still has a bathing area at Bönigen.

Lake Louise and Moraine Lake stay at around 4°C even in August, so jumping in is a photo opportunity rather than a swim. For a real dip you need the shallow lakes near Banff, under an hour's drive away, or a hotel pool.

Neither place is worth the journey for its food, and the real difference is where you eat. Interlaken has a town's worth of restaurants: fondue, raclette and rösti alongside Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern places. Cheese from mountain dairies and white wine from Lake Thun are close by.

At Lake Louise almost every meal is in a hotel dining room or lodge, serving Alberta beef and game. The best moment is soup and baking at the Lake Agnes or Plain of Six Glaciers teahouses after a climb. Keen diners drive to Banff. In Interlaken, plenty of visitors simply live on supermarket picnics.

Both are bases for scenery rather than places to go sightseeing, and each has a little railway-age heritage. In Interlaken that means the row of grand hotels and the Kursaal along the Höheweg, plus the old timber houses of Unterseen across the Aare. At Lake Louise it is the Chateau, which grew from an 1890s log chalet, and the old log railway station. Anyone who wants museums will find Interlaken's within easy reach by train, while Lake Louise's are a drive away in Banff.

Interlaken at least has a small backpacker scene. There are pubs, sports bars and a couple of basement clubs near the hostels, plus the casino in the Kursaal, and it is liveliest in summer and the ski season. Lake Louise has a hotel lounge, a lodge pub with a fireplace and après-ski drinks, and anyone who wants a late night drives to Banff. In both places, early starts for the mountain trains or sunrise at the lakes keep evenings short.

These are two of the world's great mountain landscapes, and the difference is in how you reach them. Around Interlaken the Alps are built for easy access. Cog railways climb to the Jungfraujoch at 3,454m and cable cars run up to Grindelwald First and Mürren. Paragliding, canyoning, rafting on the Lütschine and paddling on the two lakes are all run from town.

Lake Louise feels wilder. You walk from the shore under the Victoria Glacier to Lake Agnes or Larch Valley, canoe on milky turquoise water and may see grizzlies above the gondola, with the Icefields Parkway and Yoho beyond. Both are serious winter destinations: Lake Louise has one of Canada's largest ski areas, and Interlaken has the Jungfrau slopes of Wengen, Grindelwald and Mürren.

This is where Interlaken pulls clearly ahead. Bern's arcaded old town is under an hour away by train and Thun's castle half an hour, while lake steamers call at castle towns such as Spiez and Oberhofen. Brienz woodcarving, the Ballenberg open-air museum and Lucerne, reached over the Brünig Pass, fill more days.

From Lake Louise nearly every outing is into the scenery. Banff, about 45 minutes away, is the one proper town trip. Canmore, Field and Golden make modest stops, and Calgary, two hours away, is the only city within reach.

Interlaken is the easier choice with children. Rack railways and steamers are an outing in themselves. The summit stations at Grindelwald First and Harder Kulm have playgrounds, cliff walks and summer toboggan runs, and the St Beatus caves and Ballenberg's farm animals are reliable hits.

Lake Louise works best with older children who like to walk: canoeing, the gondola and the hike to the Lake Agnes teahouse. Toddlers are mostly limited to the flat lakeshore path, and the long drives and summer crowds wear on families more. Both places are safe, and both are hard to fill on a wet day.

This is one of the sharpest differences between them. Interlaken is small and flat, and its mountain trains, cog railways, gondolas and lake steamers connect so well that you can explore the whole Jungfrau region without a car. Wengen and Mürren are car-free anyway.

At Lake Louise the village is not where the sights are. The lake is a steep 4km uphill, Moraine Lake is further along a winding road, and summer parking fills early, so most visitors rely on shuttles and coaches. For the Icefields Parkway or Yoho you need a car, and in winter it needs proper tyres.

Interlaken's Höheweg at least gives you a street to browse. It has large Swiss watch and jewellery stores, army knives, cuckoo clocks and chocolate, and woodcarving from Brienz is the one local craft worth seeking out. Lake Louise has a small village mall with outdoor gear, maps and groceries, and a few boutiques in the Chateau, which covers whatever you forgot to pack. Neither has independent or design shops to speak of.

Both are very expensive places to stay, but the costs come from different places. In Interlaken it is the mountain railways and cable cars, the Jungfraujoch above all, on top of full Swiss prices for hotels and meals.

At Lake Louise there are few beds and little competition, so rooms and meals are priced like a resort, and park passes and gondola tickets add to the bill. Hiking costs nothing once you are there, and staying in Banff or Canmore or coming outside high summer saves money. In Interlaken, hostels, regional passes and supermarket picnics do the same job.

Interlaken has a little more going on. Local amateurs have staged Schiller's William Tell in the woods every summer since the early twentieth century. There are also Kursaal concerts, folklore evenings with yodelling and alphorns, and a lake-stage musical in Thun, with Bern's theatre and orchestra within reach. Lake Louise has at most a pianist or folk singer in a hotel lounge, so for a real programme you go to the arts centre in Banff.

Neither has a bathing culture of its own, so in both places the big hotel spas and the quiet of the mountains do the work. Around Interlaken you find calm in the lakeside villages, on slow steamer crossings or up in car-free Wengen and Mürren, away from the coach groups on the Höheweg.

At Lake Louise peace is a matter of timing. The lakeshores fill with coaches in July and August, while winter brings snow and silent forest. For hot springs, Banff's historic pools on Sulphur Mountain are about 45 minutes away.