Lucerne or Zermatt?

Lucerne has a real bathing culture in summer. People swim from the Lido, the old wooden lake baths and the lawns at Ufschötti, and the clean lake water is pleasant in July and August. You swim from grass and jetties rather than sand, and a swim fits easily between excursions.

Zermatt has nothing like it. Its mountain tarns are meltwater, lovely for Matterhorn reflections but far too cold to swim in, so swimming there means a hotel pool.

Neither town is a reason to travel for food, and the cooking in both is hearty and Swiss. What differs is where you eat. Lucerne's meals are in town: Chügelipastete and lake perch in Old Town guild houses, coffee on the terraces along the Reuss and the Saturday riverside market.

In Zermatt the best meal is lunch on the mountain, in chalets around Findeln, Furi and Zum See, with Valais wines and a Matterhorn view. The village adds a few ambitious kitchens, but many places close between seasons.

Lucerne has far more to see. The covered Chapel Bridge, the climbable towers of the Musegg Wall, the Lion Monument and the Rosengart Collection fill a day or two, and the Jesuit Church and Wagner's villa at Tribschen add depth.

Zermatt's heritage is about mountaineering. The Matterhorn Museum, the climbers' cemetery and the old larch-wood barns of the Hinterdorf take a morning, and after that the mountains take over.

Both are quiet places at night, but they come alive at different times. In Lucerne evenings mean wine bars by the river and a few cocktail bars in the Neustadt, steady all year, with Fasnacht turning the Old Town into an all-night carnival once a year.

Zermatt's nights depend on the season. In winter, après-ski bars on the runs into the village fill from late afternoon and a few clubs on the main street stay open past midnight. In summer hikers turn in after dinner, and between seasons the village shuts.

Both are superb for the outdoors, and the difference is the kind of landscape. Lucerne mixes lake and mountain: you can take a paddle steamer to Vitznau, ride the rack railway up Rigi and walk the ridge, or climb Pilatus by the world's steepest cogwheel line, all in gentle, easy stages.

Zermatt is the high Alps proper. Lifts reach over 3,800m among glaciers and dozens of four-thousand-metre peaks, the Five Lakes walk and the Europaweg suspension bridge lie close to the village, and guided climbs and summer glacier skiing are on offer. Lucerne has no equivalent at that height.

Lucerne is one of Switzerland's best bases for day trips. Bern, Basel and Zurich are each under an hour by train, Zug and Einsiedeln are closer still, and the lake steamer to the Rütli meadow makes a day out in itself.

From Zermatt every outing starts with a long train ride down the valley. Sion, with its castle hills and vineyards, is worth the trip, and Brig and Saas-Fee are easy enough, but most visitors spend their spare days on the mountain.

Lucerne gives children more to do. The Swiss Museum of Transport is a full day of trains, planes and a planetarium, the Glacier Garden and the Goldau wildlife park add more, and the flat riverside centre and lakeside lawns are easy with a pushchair.

Zermatt's appeal is its car-free calm, with ski schools and gentle nursery slopes at Sunnegga and marmots to spot in summer. Rainy days are hard to fill, though, and the thin air at the top viewpoints can be too much for small children.

Lucerne is a little easier. The station, the boat piers and the Old Town all sit together on the lakefront, the walks are short and flat, and lake steamers, trains and cable cars into the mountains all run on one integrated ticket system.

Zermatt is car-free, so you walk everywhere, with electric taxis and ski buses for the outlying lifts. Trains run straight up the valley into the village. Only visitors who come by car have to leave it at Täsch and take the shuttle. Hotels on the slopes mean a steep climb with luggage, and leaving the valley takes over an hour by train.

Both towns sell Swiss watches, chocolate and souvenirs to visitors, but Lucerne has a little more range. Alongside the watch houses on Schwanenplatz there are Old Town boutiques and the Saturday riverside market.

Zermatt's shops line one main street. Their real strength is ski and mountaineering gear, which is worth a look if you need equipment, but there is no market and little else to browse.

Neither is a place to save money: rooms, meals and above all the mountain railways cost a lot in both. Lucerne has a few more ways to cut costs, with Swiss travel passes covering the lake boats and supermarket picnics on the lakeshore.

Zermatt is steeper still in season, especially for drinks on a mountain terrace. Self-catering apartments and beds down the valley in Täsch are the main ways to save.

Lucerne is far stronger. The Lucerne Festival brings leading orchestras to Jean Nouvel's lakefront concert hall, which also has a year-round programme, and the city theatre stages opera, drama and dance.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall. Outside Zermatt Unplugged in spring and the late-summer chamber music festival in the village church, live music means a band in an après-ski bar.

Neither has a thermal bathing tradition, so in both you rely on hotel spas, and the calm feels different in each. Lucerne's restful side is a slow afternoon on a steamer or along the promenades, with the Botta-designed mineral bath on the Rigi for a soak with a mountain view.

Zermatt has more fine hotel spas, some open to day guests, and the car-free streets keep traffic noise away. The mood is active rather than idle, and proper thermal baths are further down the Valais valley.