Karlovy Vary or Stuttgart?

Neither city is a place for swimming, and in summer locals in both use outdoor pools fed by mineral springs. The difference is the natural water nearby. Karlovy Vary has Lake Medard, a flooded mine about half an hour away, and small reservoirs in the hills. Stuttgart's Neckar and Max-Eyth-See are not for bathing, and Lake Constance is more than two hours away.

Both kitchens are hearty, but Stuttgart's has much more range. Swabian dishes such as Maultaschen and Käsespätzle come with Trollinger and Riesling from vineyards inside the city limits. The Art Nouveau Markthalle is a good place to browse regional produce, and there is a serious fine-dining tier on top.

Karlovy Vary keeps to standard Czech cooking: roast pork, dumplings and svíčková with Pilsner-style beer, plus its own warm spa wafers and Becherovka. What it does best is coffee and cake in a riverside café, not a memorable dinner.

Karlovy Vary's appeal is a single, unified townscape. Pastel Belle Époque hotels are stacked up the sides of the Teplá valley around the colonnades and the Vřídlo geyser, all inside the UNESCO-listed spa quarter. Its museums are small, so the pleasure is in walking the town rather than going indoors.

Stuttgart has the deeper collections: the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums, the Staatsgalerie and the modernist houses of the Weissenhof Estate. Wartime bombing left only pockets of the old centre, so the city suits museum-goers and design fans more than people looking for a beautiful old street scene.

Of the two, only Stuttgart offers a real night out. Theodor-Heuss-Strasse fills with bars at weekends, clubs in basements and old industrial buildings play electronic music, and in autumn the beer tents of the Cannstatter Volksfest take over.

Karlovy Vary is asleep by about eleven, and a late evening means hotel bars, Czech pubs or a casino. The one exception is the film festival week in early summer, when parties fill the valley.

In both cities a forest walk starts close to the centre, but the country around them differs. Karlovy Vary's old spa paths are gentle trails to lookouts such as the Diana tower, with the moors of the Slavkov Forest, easy canoeing on the Ohře and winter skiing around Klínovec further out. Stuttgart has vineyard trails above the Neckar, and within about an hour the cliffs and caves of the Swabian Jura and the fir-covered ridges of the northern Black Forest.

Both make good bases, but Stuttgart reaches much more, and faster. Ludwigsburg's palace and the half-timbered streets of Esslingen are a short S-Bahn ride away, and Tübingen is under an hour. Fast trains put Heidelberg, and even Strasbourg, within a day.

From Karlovy Vary, the castle town of Loket is the best short outing. Mariánské Lázně, Františkovy Lázně, the reliquary at Bečov and the mining town of Jáchymov make a fine regional circuit. Slow regional trains mean longer journeys, though, and Prague takes a long day by coach.

Stuttgart is much the easier city with children. Wilhelma fills a day on its own, Killesberg park has a narrow-gauge railway and animal enclosures, and Ludwigsburg adds a fairy-tale garden for younger children.

Karlovy Vary is safe and pleasant, but it is built around adults taking cures. The geyser, the funicular, spa wafers and an outing to Loket castle keep children happy for a day or two. The steep valley sides are hard work with a pushchair.

Karlovy Vary's spa quarter needs little transport, but Stuttgart is plainly the easier city to get around. In Karlovy Vary most of what you want lies along the promenades of the narrow Teplá valley, with local buses and the funicular for the steep climbs to hotels and the Diana lookout. Beyond the town, regional trains are slow, so a car helps with the forests and villages.

Stuttgart has a flat, compact core where Königstrasse, Schlossplatz and the Markthalle are a short walk apart. Where the basin climbs, the Stadtbahn, S-Bahn, buses, a rack railway and a funicular all run on one ticket. They reach the car museums, Wilhelma and the airport without a car, and the long public stairways called Stäffele make shortcuts up the hills on foot.

Stuttgart is the better city for a shopping trip. It has the long pedestrian Königstrasse, the Breuninger department store for designer fashion, and the outlet village at Metzingen about half an hour away. Karlovy Vary's promenades are smaller and more specialised. Moser crystal, local porcelain and Bohemian garnets are the things worth taking home, alongside spa cups and Becherovka.

Karlovy Vary is the cheaper stay. The grand hotels and colonnade restaurants charge for the setting, but pubs one street back serve food and beer at ordinary Czech prices, and the buses and funicular cost little.

Stuttgart is a prosperous business city, and central hotels and smart restaurants push costs up, especially during trade fairs. Weekend rates and traditional taverns bring the bill down, but it stays the more expensive of the two.

On stage, Stuttgart is in a different league. Its ballet is one of the most respected in Europe, the Staatsoper is known for bold productions, and the Liederhalle and the big musical theatres keep stages busy through the season.

In Karlovy Vary, a show is a pleasant evening rather than part of a scene. The town's symphony orchestra plays light classical concerts, sometimes outdoors on the colonnades, and touring productions come to the ornate municipal theatre.

Karlovy Vary was built for this. Drinking cures from thirteen springs, medical spa stays with carbonated baths and peat wraps, and a slow daily round of walks and coffee make the whole visit restorative. It is best booked as a stay at a spa hotel.

Stuttgart's mineral springs are surprisingly productive, and the Mineralbad Cannstatt and Mineralbad Leuze are fine for an afternoon's soak and sauna. The city around them is businesslike, though, so the baths make a break from sightseeing rather than a retreat.