Interlaken or Zurich?

Interlaken's swimming is a reward after a day of hiking: grassy lidos and small shingle beaches at Neuhaus on Lake Thun, or a bracing dip in turquoise, glacier-fed Lake Brienz at Bönigen. The snow peaks behind make a better backdrop than anything in Zurich.

Zurich still makes more of its water. Its lake is a touch warmer, the shore from Utoquai to Tiefenbrunnen is lined with wooden bathing houses and lidos, and at the Letten river baths you let the current carry you down the Limmat right in town. Neither is a beach destination, but Zurich's swimming culture runs deeper.

Interlaken's restaurants serve fondue, raclette and rösti to a passing crowd, alongside Indian and Asian places, and little of it is worth seeking out. Its best meals are up in the mountains: a hut terrace over Grindelwald or Mürren, cheese from a mountain dairy, or a supermarket picnic with a view.

Zurich eats considerably better. Altstadt taverns and guild-house dining rooms cook veal in cream sauce properly, the tea rooms on Paradeplatz are a chocolate and confectionery institution, and Kreis 4 and 5 add casual international cooking and a solid fine-dining tier.

Interlaken's sights take about an hour: the grand hotels and the Kursaal along the Höheweg, a few old timber houses in Unterseen and a small museum of local history. The town was built as a base for the mountains, not as somewhere to tour.

Zurich gives you several full days. There is the Kunsthaus with its Monets and Giacomettis, the Swiss National Museum beside the station and the Museum Rietberg in its lakeside villa. In the Altstadt, the Grossmünster and the Chagall windows of the Fraumünster face each other across the Limmat.

Interlaken goes to bed early because its visitors are up early for trains and paragliding. Nightlife means a few backpacker pubs and basement clubs near the hostels, the casino in the Kursaal and a drink on the Höheweg.

Zurich has a real night out, built on electronic music. Clubs in Kreis 4 and 5 and Zurich West keep going until morning at weekends, Langstrasse stays loud until late, and in August the Street Parade takes over the lake shore. In summer the drinking moves out to bars in the bathing houses.

In Interlaken the high Alps are the view from your hotel window. Mountain railways climb to the Jungfraujoch, the waterfalls of the Lauterbrunnen valley and trailheads at Schynige Platte and Mürren, and paragliders land on the Höhematte in the middle of town. With canyoning, rafting and paddling on two lakes as well, it is an adventure base that Zurich cannot match.

Zurich is impressive for a city, with the Glarus Alps at the far end of its lake and forest trails along the Uetliberg and the Albis ridge. But Rigi, Pilatus and the real mountain hiking are an hour's journey away rather than outside your door.

From Interlaken the outings are fewer but scenic. Bern is under an hour away, paddle steamers call at the castles of Thun, Spiez and Oberhofen, and Brienz pairs its woodcarving with the Ballenberg open-air museum. Lucerne, though, is a two-hour ride over the Brünig Pass.

Zurich sits at the hub of the rail network and reaches more of the country with ease. Lucerne is under an hour, Bern and Basel take about an hour each, and the Rhine Falls with Stein am Rhein, St Gallen's abbey library and Einsiedeln's Baroque abbey all make easy days out.

Both are safe and easy with children, but the days look very different. In Interlaken the cog railways, gondolas and steamers are the entertainment, backed up by summit playgrounds, summer toboggan runs, the St Beatus caves and the farm animals at Ballenberg.

Zurich copes better with rainy days and toddlers. It has its zoo with the Madagascar rainforest hall, shallow lake lidos and the Technorama in Winterthur, and none of the high altitudes that can trouble very young children above Interlaken.

Interlaken is small and flat, about twenty minutes on foot between its two stations. Its strength is the regional web of narrow-gauge trains, cog railways, gondolas and steamers that covers the whole Jungfrau region without a car, though the busiest mountain trains get crowded in summer.

Zurich is easier still. Trams, the S-Bahn, funiculars and lake boats all run on one ticket and keep to time, and the airport is a short ride from the main station.

The two main shopping streets serve very different customers. Along the Höheweg in Interlaken, the stores sell to tour groups passing through: big watch and jewellery houses, army knives, cuckoo clocks and chocolate, plus outdoor gear for anyone who arrived underprepared. Woodcarving from Brienz is the one local craft worth hunting for.

Bahnhofstrasse, running from Zurich's main station down to the lake, is one of the world's great luxury streets and offers far more choice for anyone buying a serious watch. Away from it are boutiques and antique shops in the Niederdorf, design shops in the arches of the Zurich West viaduct and flea markets on summer Saturdays.

Neither will stretch a budget, and both charge full Swiss prices for rooms, meals and drinks. In Interlaken most of the money goes on the mountain railways, the Jungfraujoch above all, and on adventure activities. Regional passes, hostels and walking from the valley floor are where you save.

In Zurich the city itself is the expense, from a simple hotel room to a casual lunch. The free lake lidos, the drinking fountains and a visitor card that covers both transport and museums do the most to soften it.

The gap is wide when it comes to evenings in a theatre or concert hall. Performance in Interlaken is small and mostly seasonal: the amateur open-air William Tell staged in the woods each summer, folklore evenings of yodelling and alphorns, and the odd concert at the Kursaal. For anything more serious you have to go to Bern.

Zurich runs a full season of opera and ballet at the Opernhaus on the lake shore, and the Tonhalle Orchestra plays in its restored nineteenth-century hall. The Schauspielhaus is also here, though most of its plays are in German. Jazz, indie and electronic acts play the Rote Fabrik and the clubs of Kreis 4 and 5.

Neither place has a deep bathing tradition, but only Zurich has thermal pools close at hand. Interlaken has no springs of its own, and its centre is busy with coach groups and set up for activity rather than rest. Calm means a hotel spa on the Höheweg, a slow steamer crossing or a night in quiet Wengen or Mürren.

Zurich is better for a stay built around bathing. It has thermal pools and a rooftop pool in the vaults of the old Hürlimann brewery, and wooden bathing houses on the lake that turn into saunas in winter. The hot springs of Baden, used since Roman times, are twenty minutes away by train.