Lausanne or Zermatt?

Lausanne at least has a swimming season. From late June to early September Lake Geneva is warm enough to swim from the lawns and pebble shores at Vidy, Bellerive and towards Lutry, and the old Bellerive lido makes an easy afternoon.

Zermatt has no water to swim in. Its tarns are meltwater, lovely with the Matterhorn reflected in them but far too cold, so swimming means a hotel pool. Neither is a beach destination, but only Lausanne lets you fit a summer swim into the day.

Both serve Swiss Alpine classics such as fondue and raclette, with good local white wine. Lausanne has more range: lake perch, papet vaudois, the Saturday market around Riponne, Chasselas poured by the growers in the Lavaux caveaux, and some of the country's most celebrated tables close by.

Zermatt's best meals are up the mountain: long terrace lunches in chalets at Findeln, Furi or Zum See, with Valais wines and the Matterhorn in view. Down in the village there is less choice, and many kitchens close between seasons.

Lausanne has a city's worth of sights. There is the Gothic cathedral with its night watchman, the steep lanes and covered stairways of the old town, the Olympic Museum at Ouchy, the museum cluster at Plateforme 10 and the unusual Art Brut collection, which together fill two or three days.

Zermatt's heritage is almost all about mountaineering. The Matterhorn Museum, the climbers' cemetery and the old larch barns of the Hinterdorf take a morning, and after that the mountains are the attraction.

Neither is a party destination, but Lausanne has a proper district for going out. Students fill the clubs and late bars in the Flon's old warehouses at weekends, and in summer the Ouchy waterfront stays lively into the evening.

Zermatt's nights are mostly winter après-ski: loud bars at the bottom of the slopes from late afternoon, then a few late bars along the main street. In summer the hikers and climbers are in bed early.

Lausanne's setting is superb. The French Alps rise across the lake, the Lavaux terraces make a fine walk, and the Vaud Alps and the Jura are about an hour away. Zermatt, though, is in the high Alps.

From the village, lifts climb past 3,800m to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, among dozens of four-thousand-metre peaks, with skiing linked into Italy and on the glacier in summer. From Lausanne the mountains are a day out. In Zermatt they start at the end of the street.

Lausanne is one of the best bases in Switzerland. Montreux and Chillon, Geneva, Bern, Fribourg and Gruyères are all easy by train, boats cross to Évian, and you need no car for any of them.

From Zermatt, every outing starts with more than an hour on the train down the valley. Sion with its two castle hills is worth the trip, and Brig and Saas-Fee are possible, but most visitors spend their spare days up in the mountains instead.

Lausanne has more aimed at children: the Olympic Museum, the aquarium-vivarium, Sauvabelin's animal park and wooden lookout tower, paddle steamers on the lake and summer pools at Ouchy and Bellerive. The steep streets are the main nuisance with a pushchair.

Zermatt's strengths are its car-free streets, its children's ski schools and the gentle nursery slopes at Sunnegga. Beyond skiing, marmots and cog railways there is little for children, rainy days are hard to fill, and the highest viewpoints can be too thin-aired and cold for small children.

Both are easy without a car, for different reasons. Lausanne's challenge is the climb. The m2 metro handles it, rising from Ouchy through the station to the upper town, while buses, lake boats and fast trains cover the rest.

Zermatt is car-free by design. You arrive by train via Täsch, walk the compact village and ride the cog railway, funicular and gondolas into the mountains. The drawback is the valley itself: leaving it takes far longer than leaving Lausanne.

Shopping is a side activity in both, but Lausanne has more to browse. Rue de Bourg has watchmakers, jewellers and chocolatiers, the streets around Saint-François have the international names, the Flon adds a few design shops, and on market days cheese and crafts fill the old town squares.

Zermatt is a single main street of watch boutiques, souvenir shops and very good ski and climbing outfitters. Come for gear, not for browsing.

Neither suits a tight budget, as both are among the most expensive places you can visit in Europe. The difference is where the money goes. In Lausanne the cost is hotels, meals and wine, while the lakeside promenades, the parks and a supermarket picnic cost nothing extra.

In Zermatt, lift and cog railway tickets come on top of steep room rates in season, and you pay them for the very thing you came to do. Self-catering, or sleeping down the valley in Täsch, is the main way to save.

Lausanne has a stage life that many larger cities lack, and dance leads it. There is the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, the Prix de Lausanne, contemporary productions at the Théâtre de Vidy, a full opera season and a respected chamber orchestra. The Montreux Jazz Festival in July is a short ride along the lake.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Zermatt Unplugged in spring and a chamber music festival in late summer are the exceptions. The rest of the year, live music means a band in an après-ski bar.

Lausanne's calm lies on its edges, away from the steep, busy centre: the Ouchy promenade, the parks and the lanes through the Lavaux vines. It is also the one with real thermal water close by, with warm springs at Yverdon-les-Bains and Lavey-les-Bains, each a short train ride away.

In Zermatt the quiet is part of the village itself. Car-free streets and clear air make evenings after skiing very still, and the hotel spas have pools that look out at the peaks, with a few open to non-residents. Lausanne's grand lakeside hotels have extensive spas too, but in Zermatt's peak weeks the mood is active rather than slow.