Karlovy Vary or Strasbourg?

Neither city has a sea, and both answer a hot day with fresh water. Karlovy Vary's best swim is Lake Medard, a flooded mine about half an hour away. Closer in is the warm, spring-fed outdoor pool on the hillside, which works even when the air is cool.

Strasbourg's gravel-pit lakes are easier to reach. The Baggersee is on the tram line, and several lakes have lifeguards in July and August. Its warmer summers make an afternoon on the grassy banks more likely, but neither city is worth choosing for swimming.

Strasbourg eats far better. Alsace mixes French and German cooking, so you get choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée in wood-panelled winstubs, with Riesling by the pichet from vineyards just to the south. Add foie gras, a serious fine-dining tier and a covered market for Munster and charcuterie.

Karlovy Vary's table is narrower: dumplings, goulash and svíčková with Pilsner-style beer, and cake in the riverside cafés. Its two treats of its own are the warm spa wafers and Becherovka. The food suits a gentle spa routine, but it is not a reason to travel.

Both towns have UNESCO-listed centres, but Strasbourg has much more to see. You can fill two or three days with the pink sandstone cathedral and its astronomical clock, the timber-framed Grande Ile and Petite France, the imperial Neustadt and the three museums in the Palais Rohan. The European institutions add a modern layer.

In Karlovy Vary the attraction is the whole townscape: pastel Belle Époque hotels rising up the Teplá valley, the colonnades and the Vřídlo geyser. Its museums are small and specialised, covering glass and the local liqueur, and a day or two is enough.

Neither city is for a big night out, but Strasbourg has a student life to lean on. Krutenau and the streets around Place Saint-Étienne fill with bars and beer cellars, and riverside terraces stay busy on summer evenings, though there are few clubs.

Karlovy Vary is largely asleep by eleven, leaving hotel bars, pubs and casinos. Only the film festival week in early summer brings parties and outdoor bars to the valley.

Both cities have green country close by, but of a different kind. In Karlovy Vary the beech and spruce forest starts right above the colonnades. Gentle old spa paths lead to the Diana tower and the lookouts, the moors of the Slavkov Forest lie beyond, and there is skiing at Klínovec in winter.

Strasbourg is flat, so its outdoors begins on a bike, along the Rhine and the canals and through riverside forests with storks and beavers. The hills are further away, with the Vosges and the Black Forest about an hour out. They offer more demanding walking and are easiest to reach by car.

Karlovy Vary's outings are smaller and closer to home. The castle town of Loket is twenty minutes away, the sister spas of Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně are about an hour, and Bečov keeps the St Maurus reliquary in its castle. Plzeň makes a longer day out, and Prague means about two hours each way by coach.

Strasbourg has the wider choice, and it reaches into three countries. Colmar is half an hour south by train, with the Alsace wine route and Haut-Koenigsbourg along the way. Baden-Baden, Freiburg and Heidelberg lie across the Rhine in Germany, and Basel, in Switzerland, is a train ride to the south.

Strasbourg is the far easier base for a family. It has a compact, car-free centre and trams, boat trips around the island, playgrounds and rowing boats in the Orangerie, and the Le Vaisseau science centre. Europa-Park is about an hour away.

Karlovy Vary is safe and tidy but built for adults taking cures. The geyser, the funicular to the Diana lookout and the thermal pool fill an afternoon or two. After that, the steep valley sides wear out anyone pushing a pushchair.

You can manage both without a car, but Strasbourg is simpler. Its island centre is flat and largely pedestrianised. Trams run to the station, the European quarter and across the Rhine to Kehl, and separated bike lanes often make cycling the quickest option.

Karlovy Vary is a long, narrow strip along the river. It is an easy walk along the promenades but steep wherever hotels and viewpoints climb the valley, where you rely on local buses and the funicular. Rail links out of town are slow.

Strasbourg has the wider range. Chain stores and a department store sit around Place Kléber, with delicatessens and bookshops in the lanes by the cathedral, and Alsace wine, Soufflenheim pottery and printed linens to take home. In December there is one of Europe's oldest Christmas markets.

Karlovy Vary's shopping is narrower and aimed at well-off spa guests, with jewellers and fur boutiques on the promenades. What it sells that Strasbourg cannot is Moser crystal from the maker's own showroom, local porcelain and Bohemian garnets.

Karlovy Vary is the cheaper stay. The grand spa hotels and colonnade restaurants charge for the setting, but a street back the pubs serve Czech food and beer at local prices. Buses, the funicular and the springs themselves cost little.

Strasbourg is priced like a large French regional city. Winstub meals and trams are fair value, but hotel rooms are the main expense and become much dearer during the Christmas market and the weeks when the European Parliament sits. In Karlovy Vary the week to avoid is the film festival.

Strasbourg has a proper arts season. The Opéra national du Rhin, the Philharmonic and the Théâtre National de Strasbourg all perform there, and the Musica festival in autumn and a respected jazz festival add more.

Karlovy Vary offers lighter evenings. The symphony orchestra carries on the old spa-concert tradition, sometimes outdoors on the colonnades in summer, and the ornate Fellner and Helmer theatre takes touring operetta and drama.

Wellness is the reason Karlovy Vary exists. Thirteen springs feed the colonnades, and guests sip from spouted porcelain cups on a drinking cure that has been prescribed there for centuries. Sanatoria offer carbonated baths, peat wraps and medical consultations, and booking a full spa stay is the best way to have the whole experience.

Strasbourg has the tiled Bains municipaux with its hammam and saunas. For real thermal bathing you cross to Baden-Baden, under an hour away. Otherwise its calm comes from canal walks and long lunches rather than a cure.