Munich or Milan?

Neither city has a coast, but Munich makes summer swimming part of the city itself. Locals sunbathe on the Isar's gravel banks at the Flaucher, and the Starnberger See and Ammersee are under an hour away by S-Bahn, with lawns and jetties. The alpine water is fresh rather than warm.

Milan offers the Idroscalo basin near Linate and its public pools. For anything better you take a train to the pebbly lidos of Como or Maggiore, where the water is a little warmer in August, but that is a day out rather than an afternoon.

Milan is the stronger city for eating out. Its own butter-rich cooking, from ossobuco to cotoletta, sits alongside cuisines from the rest of Italy and a serious tier of fine dining, and the aperitivo ritual in Brera, Isola and on the Navigli makes the early evening a meal in itself.

Munich's table is built around beer: roast pork, white sausage before noon, and Obatzda eaten under chestnut trees in a beer garden, where you can bring your own picnic. The Viktualienmarkt is livelier than anything Milan offers in the way of open markets, but beyond Bavarian food the choice is narrower.

Here the two are evenly matched, and the difference is in the kind of heritage. Milan has a few sights of the very first rank: the marble Duomo with its rooftop among the spires, the Last Supper, the Brera and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà in the Castello, set in a largely modern city.

Munich's strength is royal collections in depth. The Kunstareal groups the Alte Pinakothek, the Glyptothek and the Lenbachhaus, the Residenz and Nymphenburg show how the Wittelsbachs lived, and the Deutsches Museum fills an island in the Isar. Its old town is handsome but much of it was rebuilt after the war.

Milan gives a fuller night out. Aperitivo leads naturally into bar-hopping along the Navigli towpaths, Porta Venezia has the gay scene and a relaxed mix of bars, and the clubs around Corso Como expect you to dress for the door, with warehouse nights on the city's edges. Expect it to go quiet in August.

In Munich a night often begins and ends in the beer hall. Glockenbach and Gärtnerplatz have the cocktail and gay bars, and a few techno clubs run until morning at weekends, but many districts are quiet by midnight on weeknights, except during the two weeks of Oktoberfest.

Munich has the better outdoors. The Alps begin about an hour south, with trains to the Zugspitze, Garmisch and Tegernsee for summer hiking and winter skiing, and in the city the English Garden, the Eisbach surfers and the Isar cycle paths bring open space close to every hotel.

Milan's own green space is limited to Parco Sempione and the canal towpaths out into the rice fields. The steep shores of Como and Maggiore and the via ferrata on the Grigne are fine, but the city's ski resorts are a full day away, not an easy outing.

Both are excellent bases. What differs is where the trains take you. From Milan, high-speed lines reach Verona's arena, Turin's Egyptian Museum and Bologna in about an hour, and Bergamo, Pavia's Certosa, Mantua and the lake villages are close. Lugano adds a Swiss detour.

Munich's excursions mix medieval Germany with the mountains: Augsburg, Nuremberg and Regensburg by train, baroque Salzburg and Innsbruck across the border, and the fairy-tale castles of Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee. Choose Milan for Italian art cities and Munich for castles and Alpine towns.

Munich is much easier with children. It is clean, green and safe, the Hellabrunn zoo spreads along the Isar meadows, the Deutsches Museum has a children's area, and beer gardens often have their own playgrounds, so parents can sit down while the children play.

Milan copes, with the science museum's submarine and trains, the small aquarium and the playgrounds in Parco Sempione, but its signature sights are for adults and summer humidity tires small children. Both cities have theme parks within reach, Gardaland and Leolandia for Milan, Legoland for Munich.

Both centres are compact and flat, so the main sights in each lie a short walk apart. In Milan, five colour-coded metro lines and a dense tram network, the old orange cars included, cover the rest, and trains from Centrale, Garibaldi and Cadorna run straight out to the lakes. The drawbacks are the summer heat underground and Malpensa's distance from the city, which makes the airport journey a long one.

Munich is the smoother of the two. U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses work as one network that reaches Nymphenburg, the Olympic Park, the lakes and the airport, and the riverside and park routes make cycling an easy way to get about. Delays on the central S-Bahn line are its main weak point.

Milan is a destination for shopping in a way Munich is not. The great Italian fashion houses have their flagships on Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga, the Galleria and La Rinascente have set the standard for generations, and design showrooms and the Navigli antique markets add depth.

Munich is a well-heeled place to shop, with luxury on Maximilianstrasse and chains along Kaufingerstrasse. What you take home from Munich is local: a dirndl or lederhosen from a specialist tailor, delicacies from Dallmayr, or crafts from the December Christmas markets.

Neither is cheap. Each is the most expensive city in its country, and in both the hotels hurt most, especially during trade fairs, with fashion weeks pushing up Milan's rates and Oktoberfest pushing up Munich's.

The ways to save are different. In Milan, an aperitivo spread can replace supper and office-worker lunch menus are good value. In Munich, beer-hall meals, a picnic in a beer garden, free parks and lakes and token Sunday museum fees do the same job.

Opera lovers are well served in both. Milan has La Scala, the most famous name of all, whose season opens in December on Sant'Ambrogio's day, along with the Piccolo Teatro and big summer concerts at San Siro. Summer is quiet for classical music.

Munich is broader rather than grander. The Bavarian State Opera plays for most of the year and has a summer festival as well, three major orchestras fill the Herkulessaal and the Prinzregententheater, and the rococo Cuvilliés Theatre is a jewel for chamber opera. For a summer visit, then, Munich has more on.

Munich is the better place to unwind. The Art Nouveau Müller'sches Volksbad has a Roman-style steam bath, the public saunas keep German infusion rituals, and Erding's huge thermal complex is about forty minutes away. Lazy afternoons on the English Garden lawns and quiet Sundays help.

Milan is a working city, so relaxing there means its thermal spa, a few hotel spas or a summer afternoon at the 1930s Bagni Misteriosi pools. Most visitors who want real rest leave for the villas on the lakes.