Lubeck or Malmo?

Both offer a pleasant summer extra in cool, shallow water rather than a beach vacation. Lübeck's version is a proper resort: Travemünde, with its hooded wicker beach chairs and a chain of seaside towns along the bay, is twenty minutes away by train, and its season runs into early September.

Malmo's Ribersborg is a city beach you can cycle to, with dunes, swimming piers and the Öresund Bridge on the horizon. The finer, emptier sand is half an hour south at Skanör and Falsterbo.

Malmo has the wider range of food. Its international population has filled Möllevångstorget with falafel counters and Middle Eastern bakeries, the market hall brings together Skåne cheese, fish and bread, and a few modern Nordic kitchens cook with the region's vegetables, eel and goose.

Lübeck's food is narrower but has a character of its own: marzipan in the old confectioners, herring and fish sandwiches from the harbour kiosks, Rotspon from the cellars, and a meal under the ship models in the Schiffergesellschaft. Beyond those it is mostly solid taverns, so food lovers will find more to explore in Malmo, though dinners there cost more.

On culture, Lübeck is far ahead. Almost the whole island old town is a World Heritage site: seven brick spires, the leaning Holstentor, the Marienkirche that served as the model for brick Gothic churches around the Baltic, and stepped-gabled merchants' houses with courtyards behind them. The Hansemuseum and the houses devoted to Thomas Mann, Günter Grass and Willy Brandt add real depth.

Malmo shares the brick Gothic heritage in St Petri Church but has a much smaller historic core around Stortorget, Lilla Torg and the moated Malmöhus castle, and the sight most visitors remember is modern, the Turning Torso. It is agreeable rather than absorbing, and history lovers based there tend to look to Lund and Copenhagen.

Neither is a party city, and locals in both go elsewhere for a big night: Lübeck to Hamburg, Malmo over the bridge to Copenhagen. Malmo still has more going on at home, with bars, small clubs and late kitchens in Möllevången at weekends, and terraces on Lilla Torg where summer after-work drinks run on into the night.

Lübeck's evenings mean pubs and wine bars in the old town and along the Obertrave, with Travemünde's promenade livelier in summer, and most of the city is asleep by midnight. The one point in its favour is cost, because drinks in Malmo are heavily taxed.

Both sit in gentle, flat country made for cycling, and neither has mountains. Lübeck's strength is water and woods close at hand: canoeing on the Wakenitz towards the Lauenburg lakes, walks along the clay cliffs of the Brodtener Steilufer, and the Holstein Switzerland lakes within an hour.

Malmo's best outdoor places are further out but a little wilder. There is the forested ravine of Söderåsen National Park, there are sea cliffs and kayaking on Kullaberg, and birds of prey pass over Falsterbo on their autumn migration. In town, the Ribersborg promenade is a fine place to cycle at sunset.

Malmo is the better base, mainly because a whole capital lies thirty-five minutes away. Copenhagen leads on to Kronborg, the Louisiana museum and Roskilde's cathedral and Viking ships, Lund is ten minutes up the line, and Ystad and Ales Stenar are an hour east. Being able to see two countries on one trip is a real advantage.

Lübeck has its own big city in Hamburg, under an hour by train, and a good ring of smaller places around it: Wismar, Schwerin's island castle, Ratzeburg and Eutin. After a few days, though, its choices run out sooner than Malmo's.

Both are calm, flat and easy with children, and both rely on a shallow summer beach. Lübeck has more seaside entertainment, with Travemünde's resorts, an aquarium along the bay and the Hansa-Park amusement park half an hour up the coast.

Malmo has no theme park or zoo, but everyday life with children is easy there: there are playgrounds in nearly every park, prams ride free on buses, and children can cycle on separate lanes. The maritime museum has a real submarine to climb inside. Outside summer there is less to do in both, and museums have to fill the wet days.

Both are compact enough to explore on foot, and neither needs a car except for the countryside. Lübeck's sights are packed onto an island old town about 2km long, with the station just across the river and a regional train to Travemünde.

Malmo spreads a little wider, out to the Western Harbour and the beach, so it is best seen by bike on its dense network of separate lanes. Its rail tunnel under the centre also makes Lund, Copenhagen Airport and Copenhagen itself very simple to reach.

Lübeck's shopping is modest. Breite Strasse and Königstrasse have German chains and a department store, and you will find galleries, craft shops and independents in the courtyard streets around Hüxstrasse and Fleischhauerstrasse. Marzipan is the souvenir to carry home, and anyone after fashion in depth takes the train to Hamburg.

Malmo is the better place to browse, mainly for Swedish design. The lanes around Lilla Torg and Gamla Väster hold homeware and interiors shops and small boutiques, Möllevångstorget has its open-air market, and Hyllie has a large mall. Even so, serious shoppers there save their time for Copenhagen.

Lübeck is easier on the wallet, with the moderate prices of a Western European provincial city: reasonable rooms in the old town, inexpensive tavern meals and fish kiosks, and cheap trains to the coast. Only the beach resorts in July and August push costs up.

Malmo is mild by Scandinavian standards but still dearer, above all after dark, when dinners, drinks and taxis add up quickly. The weekday set lunch, the falafel counters and the many museums that cost little narrow the gap for travellers who eat their main meal at midday.

Lübeck's music is more intimate. Theater Lübeck, in an Art Nouveau building, stages opera and drama, and the Philharmonic plays by the river. There are organ concerts in the Marienkirche, where Buxtehude played, and well-known performers come for the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in summer. Rock, pop and jazz are limited to a few small venues, so for those you go to Hamburg.

Malmo has the bigger stages and the stronger contemporary scene. Malmö Opera is one of the largest houses in Scandinavia, and the symphony orchestra plays at Malmö Live. The Moriska Paviljongen and the stages around Möllevången bring in touring bands, and the Malmö Festival fills the streets with free concerts in August. Much of the theatre is in Swedish, though, and Copenhagen is close by for a deeper programme.

Malmo has one ritual worth travelling for: Ribersborgs Kallbadhus, a wooden bathhouse from the 1890s standing on a pier, where locals move between wood-fired saunas and the sea all year, even in January. It is a sociable, unfussy way to see how the city lives.

Lübeck's equivalent is Travemünde's long tradition as a seaside spa, kept up by wellness hotels, saunas and the seawater pool complex at Scharbeutz, while courtyards and riverside benches set a slow pace in the old town. Neither is made for a dedicated spa trip, but Malmo gives you the more memorable reason to unwind.