Lucerne or Strasbourg?

Neither city has a sea, but Lucerne's lake gives it a real summer swimming culture: the Lido, the old wooden lake baths near the centre and the lawns at Ufschötti, with clear water and mountains behind. Strasbourg's swimming means a tram ride out to gravel-pit lakes such as the Baggersee, which are fine on a hot afternoon but have no view and are not worth planning a trip around. In both cities the season is July and August, and the shores are grass and jetties, not sand.

Strasbourg is the clear winner at the table. Alsace's blend of French and German cooking gives it a real regional cuisine: choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée with a pichet of Riesling in a wood-panelled winstub. On top of that come foie gras, a fine-dining tier and good covered and street markets.

Lucerne eats well but within a narrow range: fondue, rösti, lake perch and the creamy Chügelipastete in the old guild houses, with terraces along the Reuss for a long coffee. Both cities serve tourist menus around their best-known sights. In Lucerne there is less beyond them, and every meal costs more.

Lucerne's sights are a handful of famous images: the Chapel Bridge and Water Tower, the climbable Musegg towers, the carved Lion Monument and the Rosengart's Picasso and Klee. A day or two covers them.

Strasbourg has more depth. The cathedral with its astronomical clock, the Grande Ile, Petite France and the German-built Neustadt make up one UNESCO ensemble, and the Palais Rohan, the cathedral sculpture museum and the Alsatian Museum can fill another day. The European Parliament and the Council of Europe add a modern side that Lucerne has nothing to match.

Neither is a late city, but Strasbourg has more going on after dinner. Its large university fills the bars and beer cellars of the Krutenau and the streets around Place Saint-Étienne, and the terraces on the quays stay busy on summer evenings. In Lucerne an evening means a drink by the water and an early night, with a small club scene near the station, and only Fasnacht keeps the whole town out until dawn.

Lucerne has one of Europe's great mountain and lake settings. Pilatus and Rigi rise from the shore with railways to their summits, Titlis keeps glacier snow all year, and the steamers make it easy to combine a boat, a train and a hike in one day. Winter brings skiing and sledging.

Strasbourg's own landscape is flat: the Orangerie park, riverside forests with storks and beavers, and long, level cycle routes along the Rhine. The Vosges and the Black Forest offer good walking within an hour, but they are gentler hills, and a car makes them much easier to reach.

Both cities make excellent bases, and the difference is in the kind of trip. From Lucerne the outings are Swiss cities by fast train, with Bern, Basel and Zurich each under an hour away. The lake itself is another day out, with boats to the Rütli meadow and the William Tell country.

From Strasbourg the outings take in wine villages and two countries. Colmar is half an hour away, Riquewihr and Eguisheim sit on the Alsace wine route, and Freiburg and Heidelberg lie across the Rhine. Lucerne's trips all run on rails and boats, while the Alsace villages are easiest by car or bike.

The two are equally good with children, in different ways. Lucerne's draws are the Swiss Museum of Transport and the journeys themselves: cogwheel trains, paddle steamers and the summer toboggan run on Pilatus. All of these depend on clear weather, and the costs add up quickly.

Strasbourg gives families more to do in town for less money. There are boat trips around the Grande Ile, storks and rowing boats in the Orangerie, and the Le Vaisseau science centre. Its big extra is one of Europe's largest theme parks, about an hour away across the border.

Both are easy without a car, but Lucerne has the edge because its excursions are part of the same system. The station, the boat piers and the Old Town sit together on the lakefront, and steamers, cogwheel railways and cable cars run on integrated Swiss tickets right up into the mountains.

Strasbourg's compact, largely pedestrianised island is easy to cover on foot. Trams run out to the European quarter and across the Rhine to Kehl, and a bike is often the quickest way about. A car is only worth having for the wine villages and the Vosges.

Swiss watches are the reason to shop in Lucerne, and not much else. The big watch and jewellery houses on Schwanenplatz and along the lakefront cater to the tour groups, alongside shelves of army knives, chocolate and cuckoo clocks. There is little fashion, no department store worth a visit, and the main streets are short.

Strasbourg has a wider and more everyday mix, so it comes out a little ahead. Chain stores and a department store line the streets around Place Kléber and the Rue des Grandes Arcades, and the lanes near the cathedral hold independent delicatessens and bookshops. Alsace wine, Soufflenheim pottery and printed linens give more choice of regional things to take home, and December adds one of Europe's oldest Christmas markets.

Strasbourg is far easier on the wallet. It costs what you would expect of a large French regional city. Winstub meals, wine by the pichet, trams and bike hire are all reasonable, and the cathedral and the old town are free. Hotels are the main expense, especially during the Christmas market and the weeks when the European Parliament sits.

Lucerne is very expensive at every step, from rooms and simple meals to the mountain railways that are the reason to come. A Swiss travel pass and picnics by the lake soften the cost, but you still need to plan a generous budget.

For an evening of music, Lucerne is the stronger choice, mainly because of the Lucerne Festival. In late summer, and in shorter seasons at other times of year, it brings the world's leading orchestras and soloists to Jean Nouvel's lakefront hall. The hall is famous for its acoustics and runs a year-round programme with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, and the city theatre adds opera, drama and dance. At Fasnacht, Guggenmusik brass bands fill the Old Town.

Strasbourg can't match that level, but it has a solid calendar of its own. The Opéra national du Rhin plays on Place Broglie, the philharmonic has a full season, the Théâtre National de Strasbourg is one of France's leading stages, and every autumn the Musica festival is devoted to contemporary music. In both cities you'll need to plan evenings around the season, because there is little live music to stumble on.

Strasbourg is the better choice for bathing. Locals use its early twentieth-century Bains municipaux, with tiled pools, a hammam and saunas, as a matter of course. The Friedrichsbad and Caracalla thermal baths at Baden-Baden are under an hour away.

Lucerne has no bathhouse tradition of its own, so a soak means a hotel spa or Mario Botta's mineral bath high on the Rigi. What it offers instead is calm: quiet evenings, lakeside promenades and slow afternoons on a steamer, away from the tour groups that crowd the Old Town at midday.