Karlovy Vary or Lucerne?

Neither city has a sea, but Lucerne has real summer swimming. Its old wooden lake baths, the Lido and the lawns at Ufschötti put clean, calm water a few minutes from the Old Town in July and August, with mountains behind.

Karlovy Vary's nearest open water is Lake Medard, a flooded mine near Sokolov about half an hour away. In town the choice is the warm, spring-fed pools, which are fine for a dip but no reason to visit.

Both cities eat in a hearty, traditional way, and neither is a food destination. Karlovy Vary means roast pork, dumplings and svíčková with Czech beer, plus spa wafers warm from the colonnade stalls and a glass of the town's own Becherovka. Lucerne serves fondue, rösti, lake perch and its veal-filled Chügelipastete in wood-panelled guild houses.

The real differences are setting and cost. Karlovy Vary has the stronger café culture for coffee and cake along the Teplá. Lucerne adds a Saturday riverside market and a few modern bistros, but every meal there costs a great deal more.

Both are compact places you can see in a day or two, but they appeal in different ways. In Karlovy Vary the whole town is the attraction: tiers of pastel spa architecture, carved and colonnaded halls over the springs and the Vřídlo geyser, together listed by UNESCO among the Great Spa Towns of Europe.

Lucerne has fewer set pieces, but some are better known: the wooden Chapel Bridge, the towers of the Musegg Wall and the Lion Monument. It also has the stronger museums, with the Rosengart's Picasso and Klee against Karlovy Vary's small collections of glass and liqueur.

Neither is a city for big nights, but Lucerne gives you more after dinner. There are wine bars by the Reuss, cocktail bars and a small club scene in the Neustadt, and students keep weekends going. Karlovy Vary is largely asleep by eleven, and its choice is hotel bars, Czech pubs and casinos.

Each town breaks the pattern once a year. Karlovy Vary has its film festival in early summer, and Lucerne has Fasnacht before Lent, when the Old Town stays out in costume until dawn.

This is Lucerne's strongest card. The mountains rise straight from the lake, with cogwheel railways up Pilatus and Rigi and glacier snow on Titlis. Steamers let you join a boat, a train and a hike in a single day.

Karlovy Vary's countryside is green and rolling. Beech and spruce forest climbs above the spa, gentle paths lead to the Diana tower, the Slavkov Forest has upland moors, and there is skiing at Klínovec in the Ore Mountains. It is pleasant walking country rather than a landscape people travel for.

Both towns have good outings, but Lucerne reaches further. Zurich, Bern and Basel are each under an hour by train, and the lake itself becomes an excursion to Vitznau, Brunnen and the Rütli meadow.

From Karlovy Vary the best trips are smaller and slower. Loket and its castle are twenty minutes away, the sister spas of Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně are about an hour off, and the castle at Bečov holds the St Maurus reliquary. Prague is possible, but only as a long day by coach.

Lucerne is the easier choice with children. The Swiss Museum of Transport fills a day on its own. Steamers, cogwheel trains and the summer toboggan run on Pilatus make the excursions part of the fun, and the flat lakeside lawns are good for picnics in between.

Karlovy Vary is safe and fun for an afternoon, with the geyser, the funicular and warm wafers. It is built for adults taking a cure, though, and the steep valley sides are hard work with a pushchair.

Both centres are walkable, but Lucerne's is flatter and better connected. The station, the boat piers and the Old Town sit side by side. Integrated Swiss tickets cover lake boats, trains and cable cars, so you never need a car.

Karlovy Vary's spa quarter is an easy stroll along the Teplá, but many hotels and viewpoints sit up steep slopes. Regional trains are slow, and the forest villages are much easier to reach with a car.

Neither is a shopping destination, and both sell local crafts more than fashion. Karlovy Vary's best buys are Moser crystal, local porcelain and Bohemian garnets, sold along Stará louka beside spa cups and Becherovka. In Lucerne the main buy is a Swiss watch from the jewellery houses on Schwanenplatz, along with army knives, chocolate and produce from the Saturday riverside market.

The gap here is wide. Karlovy Vary is moderately priced. Czech pubs one street back from the colonnades charge local prices, and the springs, the colonnades and the local buses cost little or nothing.

Lucerne is very expensive at every step, from central hotels to simple meals. The mountain railways that make the stay worthwhile take a large share of the budget. Picnics from the supermarket by the lake help, but it stays a costly trip.

Lucerne is the better choice for music. The Lucerne Festival brings the world's leading orchestras to Jean Nouvel's lakefront concert hall, which also runs its own programme all year, and the city theatre adds opera and dance.

Karlovy Vary offers a pleasant evening rather than an event. Its symphony orchestra grew out of the old spa bands and plays light classics, sometimes outdoors on the colonnades. Touring operetta and drama fill the Fellner and Helmer theatre.

Karlovy Vary pulls clearly ahead here, because the town exists for its waters. Visitors sip from thirteen springs with spouted cups, and the sanatoria offer carbonated baths, peat wraps and pools of warm spring water.

Lucerne has no thermal tradition, so a soak means a hotel spa or Mario Botta's mineral bath on the Rigi, about an hour away. Its calm comes from steamer rides and lakeside walks, though tour groups crowd the Old Town in the middle of the day.