Lucerne or Salzburg?

Neither city has a beach, and lake swimming is a summer extra in both. The difference is distance. In Lucerne you can swim in the centre, from the Lido, the wooden lake baths or the lawns at Ufschötti. Salzburg's river is too fast and cold to swim in, so a proper swim means half an hour or more out to Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee or Mondsee, where the shores are pebbly and the lakes slightly warmer.

Salzburg is the better place to eat, mainly for the setting. Long afternoons in Viennese-style coffee houses, the monastery beer hall in Mülln with its chestnut garden, and the soufflé shaped like three peaks give a meal more sense of place. The best cooking is in the inns on the edge of town.

In Lucerne, cooking is reliable but narrower: Chügelipastete, fondue, rösti and lake perch in the guild houses. Riverside terraces are good for a glass of wine. In both old towns, many menus are aimed at tour groups.

Salzburg has the deeper sightseeing. A whole UNESCO-listed old town built by the prince-archbishops, the cathedral and Residenz, the fortress of Hohensalzburg, the Mirabell gardens, the catacombs of St Peter and Hellbrunn fill two or three full days.

Lucerne has a handful of famous images rather than a full programme. The Chapel Bridge and Water Tower, the Musegg towers and the Lion Monument are memorable, and the Rosengart Collection is strong on Picasso and Klee, but a day or two is enough.

Both cities are quiet by midnight, so don't choose either for clubbing. The difference is in style. Salzburg's evenings centre on beer halls with long tables, plus student pubs on Rudolfskai, and Munich is the real night out. Lucerne is more about a wine bar by the water and a few cocktail bars in the Neustadt, except during Fasnacht, when the whole town parties in costume until dawn.

Lucerne has the more dramatic setting, with peaks rising straight out of a long, branching lake. Pilatus is climbed by the steepest cogwheel railway in the world, Rigi has wide ridge walks across the water, and Titlis keeps glacier snow all year about an hour away. Steamers and mountain railways tie it all together, though low cloud can hide the views for days.

Salzburg has mountains on its doorstep too, and here they start inside the city, with the wooded Mönchsberg and Kapuzinerberg ridges, a riverside bike path out to Hellbrunn and the Untersberg cable car on the southern edge. Further out, paragliders use the Gaisberg, and the Salzkammergut lakes and the Königssee fjord across the German border add sailing, paddling and lakeside trails.

Both are excellent bases, with different themes. Lucerne's excursions are Swiss cities and national history: Bern, Basel and Zurich are each under an hour by train, and the lake boat runs to the Rütli meadow and William Tell country. From Salzburg, the trips are about salt and lake villages: Hallstatt, the mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, and the clifftop fortress at Werfen, with Munich across the border. Lucerne's trips are easier by public transport, while some of Salzburg's lake villages really need a car.

Both are small, safe and easy with children. Lucerne has one big attraction, the Swiss Museum of Transport, plus cogwheel trains and a summer toboggan run that depend on the weather. Salzburg spreads its appeal more widely: Hellbrunn's trick fountains, a zoo, the hands-on Haus der Natur and miners' slides in the salt mines. On a rainy day it has more to fall back on, but its cobbled lanes are harder with a pushchair than Lucerne's flat riverside.

Lucerne is easier to get around. The station, the boat piers and the Old Town are side by side, and one integrated ticket system takes you from the city bus onto lake steamers and up mountain railways, so a car is never needed.

Salzburg's centre is just as walkable, and trolleybuses cover the rest of town. The difference shows on excursions: regional buses to the lakes are slow, and many visitors hire a car for that part of the trip.

Neither is a strong shopping city, but each has its own speciality. Lucerne means Swiss watches, sold in big watch and jewellery houses on Schwanenplatz, along with army knives and chocolate. In Salzburg, look for Tracht: dirndls and loden jackets, often made to measure, sold around Getreidegasse, plus a long-established Advent market on Domplatz. Fashion and design shopping is thin in both.

Lucerne is in another price bracket. Central hotels, even simple restaurant meals and the mountain railways that make the stay worthwhile all cost a great deal. A Swiss travel pass and supermarket picnics by the lake soften the bill, but only a little.

Salzburg is expensive for its size, but it leaves you more room to save. The inns and beer halls of the outer districts are fairly priced, and a city card bundles transport with the fortress and most museums. Prices climb sharply during the summer festival and the Advent markets, when rooms and tables run short.

Salzburg goes deeper for anyone planning a trip around opera and concerts. Lucerne's strength is a single world-class venue, Jean Nouvel's lakefront hall, famous for its acoustics, where the Lucerne Festival brings leading orchestras in late summer and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra plays through the year. Add the city theatre and the brass Guggenmusik bands of Fasnacht, and you have a good programme, but a modest one.

In Salzburg the summer festival fills the Grosses Festspielhaus, the Haus für Mozart and the Felsenreitschule, a riding school cut into the cliff, and Jedermann is played outdoors in front of the cathedral. Mozart Week and the Easter Festival come on top of that, and between festivals the Mozarteum, the Landestheater and the Marionette Theatre keep the stages busy.

Salzburg has much more real bathing within easy reach. In Lucerne, rest comes mostly from the scenery: an afternoon on a steamer watching the shore, quiet evening walks along the lake promenades and the old wooden lake baths in summer. For a proper soak, you go up to Mario Botta's mineral bath high on the Rigi, about an hour away by boat and cogwheel train.

Salzburg has no hot springs of its own either, but the spa towns next door make up for it. Bad Reichenhall's brine baths are about twenty minutes away across the German border, and the radon springs of the Gastein valley are about an hour and a half south. In town, the Paracelsus Bad has saunas and a pool that looks out on the Kapuzinerberg.