Luxembourg or Munich?

Neither city has a sea, but Munich gives summer swimmers more. In town people lie on the gravel banks of the Isar at the Flaucher. The Starnberger See and the Ammersee, with their lawns and jetties, are under an hour away by S-Bahn.

From Luxembourg the swimming is further off. The Upper Sûre reservoir is about an hour north, and the old gravel pits at Remerschen are in the Moselle valley. In both places a lake swim is a hot-day outing, not a reason to go.

Munich has the stronger and more distinctive food culture, built on beer. You eat in brewery halls and chestnut-shaded beer gardens, have white sausage and pretzels before noon, and graze at the Viktualienmarkt. Bavarian cooking runs deep, though other cuisines are narrower.

Luxembourg's table is more French, and its pleasure is wine. Moselle Riesling and crémant are poured by the glass, and there is a serious tier of fine dining. Cheap, casual meals are harder to find, so lunch is the meal to plan around.

Munich is a city of museums and palaces in a way Luxembourg is not. The Kunstareal alone, with the Alte Pinakothek, the Glyptothek and the Lenbachhaus's Blue Rider painters, can take several days. The Residenz, Nymphenburg and the Deutsches Museum come on top of that.

Luxembourg's strength is its setting rather than its collections. The UNESCO-listed fortress wraps the old town. You can walk through the Bock casemates and look down from the Corniche onto the Grund. It makes a striking set of sights, but you will have seen it in two days.

Munich has more going on after dark. Evenings start in a beer hall and often stay there. The Glockenbachviertel has dense rows of cocktail bars and gay bars, and a few serious techno clubs stay open until morning at weekends.

Luxembourg's going out is smaller and quieter. There are bars and a couple of clubs at the Rives de Clausen, and pubs in the Grund. The busy nights are Thursday and Friday, because many residents leave at the weekend.

Munich has the mountains and Luxembourg does not. The Alps rise about an hour south, with hiking around Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Zugspitze in summer and skiing in winter. In town, the English Garden is big enough to lose an afternoon in, and surfers ride the standing wave on the Eisbach.

Luxembourg's outdoors is gentler and starts in the city, in the wooded gorges of the Pétrusse and Alzette. The best of it is the mossy rock passages and beech woods of the Müllerthal. It is walking and cycling country, at its best in autumn.

Both cities are excellent bases, and Munich has the longer list. It covers Salzburg and Innsbruck across the border, Nuremberg and Regensburg, and the royal castles of Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee.

Luxembourg's advantage is being next to three countries in a small space. Roman Trier and Gothic Metz are each under an hour by train. Vianden's castle, Echternach and the Moselle wine villages are closer still, and the trains there are free.

Munich is much better for children. It has the Hellabrunn zoo along the Isar meadows, hands-on halls at the Deutsches Museum, an aquarium in the Olympic Park, and beer gardens with playgrounds. Legoland is within reach for a longer stay.

Luxembourg is safe and calm, and children love the casemate tunnels and ramparts. Beyond those there is little made for them: the small Parc Merveilleux and a natural history museum, with no zoo or theme park. Two or three days is about right.

Both are very easy, in different ways. In Luxembourg, trams, buses and trains across the whole country are free. Public lifts and a funicular take you between the upper town, the Grund and Kirchberg, which matters in a city built on several levels.

Munich is flat, and its walkable centre is largely pedestrianised. U-Bahn, S-Bahn and trams run as one network out to Nymphenburg, the lakes and the airport. Long riverside routes make it a good city for cycling.

Munich is the better shopping trip. Maximilianstrasse has the luxury houses and Kaufingerstrasse the department stores. There are independent boutiques in Glockenbach and Schwabing, and specialist tailors make dirndls and lederhosen. December's Christmas markets fill the old town with craft stalls.

Luxembourg has luxury brands along the Grand-Rue and chains on Avenue de la Gare, but few independent shops. The things worth taking home are porcelain made locally for centuries, and Moselle wine and crémant.

Neither is cheap, but Luxembourg is the dearer of the two. Its hotels and restaurants are priced for business travellers and the European institutions. Free transport, free museums and lunch menus help, and some visitors stay in Trier or Metz and come in by train.

Munich's hotels are expensive too, especially during the Oktoberfest and trade fairs. Daily costs are easier to keep down: beer-hall meals are fair value, you can bring your own picnic to a beer garden, and the parks and lakes cost nothing.

Munich is one of Europe's great music cities. The Bavarian State Opera plays in the National Theatre, and the city has three orchestras of real standing. There is chamber opera in the gilded Cuvilliés Theatre and operetta at the Gärtnerplatztheater, so a few nights here can be planned around performances.

Luxembourg does well for its size. The Philharmonie on Kirchberg has excellent acoustics, and the Grand Théâtre stages opera and dance. In summer there are open-air concerts at Neimënster in the Grund. Most of the programme is visiting companies rather than local ones.

Munich has a real bathing tradition. There are vaulted pools and a Roman-style steam bath at the Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad, textile-free public saunas, and the huge thermal complex at Erding about forty minutes out. The old spa towns of Bad Tölz and Bad Reichenhall lie towards the mountains.

Luxembourg has one main draw, the mineral spring and thermal park at Mondorf-les-Bains, half an hour away. Otherwise its calm comes from quiet evenings and slow walks by the river.