Leipzig or Salzburg?

Neither city has a coast, and both rely on lakes for a hot afternoon, but the lakes are very different. Leipzig's are flooded lignite mines just south of town, with sandy shores and beach bars, and you can get there by tram or bike.

Salzburg's swimming is in the alpine lakes of the Salzkammergut, half an hour or more away. The water there is clear and green, with steep hills behind it, and you get in from lawns, jetties and small pebble shores rather than sand. In both cities the season is short.

The two are evenly matched: hearty regional cooking and a strong coffee-house tradition in both. Leipzig offers Saxon roasts and the sour, salted Gose beer, and its more interesting cooking is in the casual international places of the Südvorstadt and Plagwitz.

Salzburg puts Austrian classics and the Salzburger Nockerl on the table, and the beer garden of the Augustiner monastery brewery in Mülln is hard to beat. Its old town, though, is full of overpriced menus for tour groups. Head for the inns on the hills, or the few serious fine-dining kitchens near the city, which Leipzig largely lacks.

Salzburg has the stronger sights, and they come as one whole: a UNESCO-listed Baroque old town where the cathedral, the Residenz and the arcaded squares are minutes apart. Hohensalzburg fortress rises above it, and Mozart's houses and Mirabell Palace lie close by.

Leipzig's appeal is more about stories than set pieces. Bach's grave is in the Thomaskirche, the 1989 revolution began with prayers in the Nikolaikirche, and the former Stasi headquarters tells the GDR story. Each city fills two or three days.

Leipzig is in another league after dark. It is a student city whose club scene grew up in empty warehouses and squats, with electronic music, relaxed door policies and weekend nights that end after sunrise. On top of that come the bar streets of the Karli, Connewitz and the converted mills of Plagwitz.

Salzburg's evenings usually mean a concert, dinner and a litre mug in a beer hall, and the old town falls silent around midnight. A few student pubs on Rudolfskai stay open later, but for clubbing people take the train to Munich.

Salzburg is the outdoor city by a wide margin. Wooded ridges rise in the centre itself, and the Untersberg cable car lifts you to about 1,800m for limestone ridge walks. The Gaisberg is used for paragliding, Berchtesgaden National Park is about half an hour away, and ski areas lie within an hour's drive.

Leipzig is green but flat. Its best outdoor time is under the oaks of the Auwald floodplain forest, paddling the canals from Plagwitz or cycling round the old mining lakes. For real hiking you need a two-hour train ride.

Both cities make excellent bases, but for different kinds of outing. From Leipzig, everything goes by train: Dresden and Weimar are about an hour away, Wittenberg, Naumburg and Dessau's Bauhaus are easy trips, and Berlin is close. Expect a run of German towns full of history, art and the Reformation.

From Salzburg, the trips are about landscape and salt: Hallstatt on its strip of shore, the lake villages of St Wolfgang and St Gilgen, and the salt mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden. Some of these are much easier with a car.

Leipzig's flat streets and trams make it the easier city with a pushchair, and its zoo is the bigger single draw, with a covered tropical hall for rainy days. Belantis theme park sits beside a sandy lake just south of town.

Salzburg's highlights are smaller and more playful: the trick fountains at Hellbrunn, the hands-on Haus der Natur and the wooden miners' slides in the nearby salt mines. There is no theme park, and the cobbled, steep lanes are hard work with a buggy.

Leipzig runs on rails. Trams reach the outer districts, an underground S-Bahn line heads south towards the lakes, the flat streets have plenty of cycle lanes, and every day trip leaves from the one main station.

Salzburg's centre is a walk rather than a ride. The fortress, the old town and Mirabell lie within about fifteen minutes of each other, and trolleybuses cover the rest of the city. The weak point is the slow regional buses to the lakes, which lead many visitors to hire a car.

Neither is a shopping destination, and each has one distinct speciality. Leipzig's trade-fair arcades keep you dry, though they are filled mostly with chains. The independent shopping is in the west, around the vintage and record shops of Karl-Heine-Strasse and the galleries of the Spinnerei, a former cotton mill.

Salzburg is the place to buy traditional Alpine dress, with dirndls and loden jackets made to measure near Getreidegasse. In Advent, the Christmas market on Domplatz is one of the oldest in the region.

Leipzig is clearly the cheaper stay. You can sleep within walking distance of the old town for much less than in most German cities, as long as you avoid the big trade-fair weeks. Meals and drinks cost the national average.

Salzburg charges a lot for its beauty. Central hotels are expensive all year, and during the summer festival and Advent both rooms and restaurant tables become scarce. To keep costs down, stay across the river or in the suburbs, eat in the outer inns and use the city card.

These are two great music cities of about equal weight, built around different composers. Leipzig's music runs all year: the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Thomanerchor singing Bach in his own church and the Bachfest in June. Rock clubs, cabaret and the huge Whitsun goth gathering add range beyond classical music.

Salzburg's high points come in seasons. The summer festival brings opera to the Felsenreitschule and Jedermann in front of the cathedral, and Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more. Those tickets need planning well ahead, and jazz and contemporary music are thin.

Salzburg is the better place to unwind. The city has the Paracelsus Bad, with saunas looking out at the Kapuzinerberg, and real spa culture is close by: the brine baths of Bad Reichenhall are about twenty minutes away, with the thermal springs of the Gastein valley further south.

Leipzig's offer is limited to modern sauna complexes and hotel spas. Its main way to relax is a long walk through the floodplain forest on a quiet Sunday.