Lausanne or Nuremberg?

Lausanne has the edge here because the lake is part of the city. On summer days you can walk down to the lawns, piers and shingle at Vidy and Bellerive and be in the water within minutes, and the old Bellerive lido makes an easy afternoon.

In Nuremberg, swimming in open water means an hour's trip to the Brombachsee and the other Franconian lakes, which have small sandy strips. In town you have outdoor pools. Neither city is a beach destination, and both seasons are short.

The two are about level, but you drink wine in one and beer in the other. Lausanne pairs lake perch, papet vaudois and winter fondue with Lavaux Chasselas, which you can taste in village caveaux. It also has some of Switzerland's most celebrated restaurants.

In Nuremberg you eat small beechwood-grilled bratwurst, Schäufele and Lebkuchen, and drink beer from Franconia's many small breweries in taverns and riverside beer gardens. It is heartier and easier to eat cheaply than Lausanne, where budget meals take some finding.

Nuremberg offers more history to explore. It has almost complete medieval walls, the Kaiserburg, the churches of St Sebaldus and St Lorenz and Dürer's house, and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum alone can fill a day. The Rally Grounds documentation centre and Courtroom 600 add a sobering second layer that Lausanne has nothing to match.

Lausanne's old town is smaller and steeper, built around the Gothic cathedral, where a night watchman still calls the hours. Its museums are the stronger half: the Olympic Museum at Ouchy, the art and photography collections at Plateforme 10 and the unusual Collection de l'Art Brut.

Both are good for an evening out rather than a reason to go, but the style differs. Lausanne goes out in the Flon, a valley of old warehouses full of clubs and late bars that is busy on weekends. Nuremberg is more about bars, with the alternative bars of Gostenhof the most interesting, and a round costs far less there than in Lausanne.

Lausanne is in a different league here. The French Alps fill the view across the lake, and the UNESCO-listed Lavaux terraces give one of Switzerland's best walks right on the edge of town. The lake is good for sailing and rowing, and the Vaud Alps, with skiing and the Glacier 3000, are about an hour away.

Nuremberg's outdoors is quieter: easy walks and cycling in the Reichswald forest, and the limestone towers and caves of Franconian Switzerland, which are good for hiking and rock climbing. You will not find mountains there.

Both are excellent bases with no car needed, and the difference is in what you see. From Lausanne you can visit Swiss lake towns and castles: Montreux, the Château de Chillon on its rock, Gruyères, Geneva and Bern's arcades, or take a boat across to Évian.

Nuremberg's day trips are a string of old German towns: Bamberg, Regensburg on the Danube, Würzburg's Residence, and the walled towns of Rothenburg and Dinkelsbühl, with Munich an hour away by fast train.

Both work well with children. Lausanne's outings revolve around water and woods: the hands-on Olympic Museum, the aquarium-vivarium, pedal boats and the lookout tower at Sauvabelin, and paddle steamers on the lake. The steep streets are hard work with a pushchair, though.

Nuremberg's long toy-making history gives it a toy museum, a railway museum with full-size locomotives and a zoo in old quarries with a dolphin house. Eating out as a family costs much less than in Lausanne.

Lausanne is built on a slope, and that shapes every journey. The metro climbs more than 300m from the lakeshore at Ouchy through the station and the Flon to the upper town, and stairs, bridges and lifts link the levels in between, so walking uphill is real exercise.

Nuremberg is flat by comparison. Its walled centre is small enough to cross on foot in about twenty minutes, and the cobbled climb to the castle is the only effort. One ticket covers the U-Bahn, trams and S-Bahn out to the Rally Grounds, the zoo and Fürth.

Neither is a shopping destination, so it comes down to what you take home. In Lausanne that means a Swiss watch or chocolate from Rue de Bourg, or a bottle of Lavaux wine. In Nuremberg it means Lebkuchen in decorated tins, wooden toys and crafts from the Handwerkerhof, and in Advent the Christkindlesmarkt makes shopping worth the trip.

This is where the two differ most. Lausanne is expensive in every way: hotels, restaurants, wine and taxis. To keep costs down, visitors picnic, walk the free lakeside promenades and save restaurant meals for a treat.

Nuremberg is mid-priced, with filling tavern meals, cheap beer and low transport costs. The one thing to watch is hotel prices during the big trade fairs and Advent. Outside those dates, a stay costs a fraction of the same stay in Lausanne.

Lausanne has the more distinctive stage life, especially for dance. It is home to the Béjart Ballet and the Prix de Lausanne, the Théâtre de Vidy sends its productions on tour across Europe, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in July is a short train ride away.

Nuremberg's programme is respectable but regional. The Staatstheater stages opera, ballet and drama in its Art Nouveau house, the orchestras give a free-feeling open-air concert in the Luitpoldhain, and the Bardentreffen folk weekend fills the squares in summer.

In Lausanne, relaxing means the lake and the vines. You can stroll the promenades at Ouchy and Vidy, wander the quiet lanes through Lavaux or book into the spa at one of the grand lakeside hotels. For warm water, Yverdon-les-Bains is under half an hour by train, and Lavey, with Switzerland's hottest springs, is under an hour away.

Nuremberg relaxes the German way, in the sauna. A large thermal spa with sauna gardens is a short U-Bahn ride away in Fürth, the leisure pools on the city's edges have nude, mixed saunas, and at Bad Windsheim you can float in saline pools. Otherwise, locals unwind with a slow afternoon in a beer garden by the Pegnitz.