Interlaken or Munich?

Neither place has a beach worth travelling for, and both offer cool, clear lake swimming in high summer. In Interlaken the water starts at the edge of town: grassy lidos on Lake Thun at Neuhaus, or the colder turquoise of Lake Brienz at Bönigen, with snow peaks behind you.

Munich swims in the city itself, on the gravel banks of the Isar at the Flaucher, and the Starnberger See and Ammersee are a short S-Bahn ride out. Munich's season also starts earlier, in June.

Munich is far more rewarding to eat in. It has vast beer halls, leafy beer gardens where you can bring your own picnic, pork knuckle, white sausage and pretzels, the stalls of the Viktualienmarkt and a respectable number of starred restaurants.

Interlaken's restaurants serve fondue, rösti and international dishes for the passing crowd, and they are reliable but forgettable. The best meals there are up in the mountains, on hut terraces above Grindelwald or Mürren, or picnics made with Alpine cheese bought from a dairy.

This is where the two differ most. Munich has royal collections: the old masters of the Alte Pinakothek, the Blue Rider painters at the Lenbachhaus, the courtyards and state rooms of the Residenz, Nymphenburg Palace and the huge Deutsches Museum.

Interlaken was built as a base for the mountains, not as a place to see things. Its sights are a stroll past the nineteenth-century hotels and the Kursaal on the Höheweg and a few timber houses in Unterseen. For serious museums you take the train to Bern.

Munich gives you a real night out. Evenings begin in a beer hall and can move on to the cocktail and gay bars of the Glockenbachviertel or to techno clubs that stay open until morning at weekends. Oktoberfest takes over the whole city for a fortnight from late September.

Interlaken goes to bed early because people have trains and hikes to catch. Going out there means a backpacker pub, a basement club near the hostels or the casino in the Kursaal.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, but Interlaken puts you right in the mountains. The Lauterbrunnen valley, Trümmelbach's falls inside the rock, the view of the Aletsch glacier from 3,454m and the trails at Schynige Platte are all close by. Lake paddling and skiing in winter are on hand too.

Munich's Alps, the Zugspitze, Garmisch and Tegernsee, take an hour or more to reach. The city makes up for it with the English Garden, surfers on the Eisbach and cycle paths running south along the Isar.

The difference is reach. Interlaken's outings are short and stay in Switzerland: Bern's arcaded old town is under an hour by train, paddle steamers call at the lakeside castles of Thun, Spiez and Oberhofen, and the woodcarvers of Brienz and the rural buildings at Ballenberg are close by. Lucerne, about two hours away over the Brünig Pass, is as far as most trips go.

Munich's list is longer and crosses a border. Augsburg, Nuremberg and medieval Regensburg are easy train rides, Salzburg and Innsbruck lie over the border in Austria, and the royal castles of Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee are classic days out. On a stay of a week or more, Munich has more to fill the days.

Both are safe and easy with children, and Munich is slightly ahead because it copes better with bad weather. It has the Hellabrunn zoo, the hands-on sections of the Deutsches Museum, an aquarium and beer gardens with playgrounds.

In Interlaken the outings are the attraction: rack railways, summer toboggan runs, the St Beatus caves and the farm animals at Ballenberg. Rainy days are hard to fill, though, and the highest summits are a strain for very young children.

Neither needs a car, but the networks do different jobs. Munich's U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams link a compact, pedestrianised old town with museums, palaces, lakes and the airport, and the flat streets suit cycling.

Interlaken is small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes. Its strength is how well the narrow-gauge trains, cog railways, gondolas and steamers connect for climbing into the Jungfrau region. The popular mountain trains get crowded in summer.

Munich is a real shopping city. It has luxury houses on Maximilianstrasse, department stores along the Kaufingerstrasse, independent boutiques in Glockenbach and Schwabing, and specialist tailors for dirndls and lederhosen.

Interlaken's Höheweg sells watches, army knives, cuckoo clocks and chocolate to tour groups, plus outdoor gear for anyone who arrived underprepared. Carved wooden pieces from Brienz are the one local craft worth buying.

Both are expensive, but Interlaken is in another league. Swiss hotel and restaurant prices come on top of mountain railways and cable cars, and the Jungfraujoch alone takes a big share of the budget.

Munich's hotels are its main expense, especially during Oktoberfest and trade fairs. Day to day it is gentler: a picnic in a beer garden, free parks and lakes, and token museum fees on Sundays.

Munich is one of Europe's great music cities. The Bavarian State Opera plays in the National Theatre, three orchestras of real standing give concerts in the Herkulessaal and the Prinzregententheater, and the rococo Cuvilliés Theatre stages chamber opera.

Interlaken's own offer is the amateur open-air William Tell performed in the woods each summer, and folklore evenings with yodelling and alphorns. For an orchestra or a theatre, you go to Bern.

Munich has a proper bathing culture. There is the Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad with its Roman-style steam bath, there are traditional German saunas, and the huge thermal baths at Erding are about forty minutes away. Lazy afternoons in a beer garden or on the lawns of the English Garden help too.

Interlaken has hotel spas and a public wellness area but no springs. Its calm is found outside the town centre, on the lakeshore, on a slow steamer crossing or up in Wengen and Mürren.