Munich or Venice?

Venice has a proper sea beach on its doorstep. The Lido offers kilometres of fine sand facing the Adriatic, with shallow water that warms well in high summer, and the wilder Pellestrina lies further along.

Munich's swimming is in fresh water: gravel banks on the Isar at the Flaucher, and the Starnberger See and Ammersee by S-Bahn, with lawns and jetties but cooler alpine water. Neither city is a beach destination, but only Venice can give you a real afternoon by the sea.

The two eat equally well but in very different ways. Munich's meals happen sitting down in beer halls and chestnut-shaded beer gardens, with roast pork, white sausage and pretzels, plus coffee and cake in the afternoon and the Viktualienmarkt for picking at cheese and snacks.

Venice is about grazing standing up: cicchetti and a spritz at the bacari around the Rialto, then lagoon seafood such as cuttlefish risotto in black ink. Venice has more tourist traps around its main routes, Munich is the heavier and meatier of the two, and neither goes far beyond its own regional cooking.

Venice is ahead, because its streets are the main exhibit. Every walk passes Gothic palazzi and churches with no modern buildings in sight, and the art goes from the Accademia and the Frari to Tintoretto's cycle at San Rocco and the Biennale at the Arsenale.

Munich's strength is in its royal collections more than its streets. The Alte Pinakothek and the rest of the Kunstareal, the Residenz, Nymphenburg and the vast Deutsches Museum are first rate, but the old town was largely rebuilt after wartime bombing and lacks Venice's unbroken old fabric.

Munich gives you a much longer night. After the beer halls there are the cocktail and gay bars of Glockenbachviertel and Gärtnerplatz, student pubs in Schwabing, and techno clubs open until morning at weekends, while the Oktoberfest takes over the whole city each autumn.

Venice peaks at aperitivo time on the Fondamenta della Misericordia, and Campo Santa Margherita keeps a few student bars going later. After midnight the canals fall silent, which is lovely for a walk but means going to the mainland or Jesolo for any clubbing.

Munich is far stronger here. The Alps begin about an hour away, with hiking in the Wetterstein and around Tegernsee in summer and skiing in winter. In town, the English Garden is huge, surfers ride the Eisbach wave and cycle paths follow the Isar out into the countryside.

Venice's outdoors is the lagoon: salt marshes around Torcello and Sant'Erasmo with egrets and flamingos, explored by kayak or on a Venetian rowing lesson. Beyond that the land is flat, the Dolomites are more than two hours away and there is little green space in the city.

Both are superb bases, but for different kinds of day out. From Munich you get fairy-tale castles such as Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee, alpine villages like Oberammergau, and a second country with Salzburg and Innsbruck, alongside the old towns of Nuremberg and Regensburg.

From Venice the trains run to the art cities of the Veneto: Giotto in Padua, Palladio in Vicenza, the Roman arena in Verona. The lagoon adds days out with no train at all, among the glass furnaces of Murano, the painted houses of Burano and lonely Torcello.

Munich is much the easier city with children. It is green and calm, transport takes pushchairs, and there is Hellabrunn zoo along the Isar, the hands-on Deutsches Museum, beer gardens with playgrounds and Legoland within reach for a day.

Venice appeals to children's imagination, with boats for buses, no cars and glass-blowing on Murano, and the Lido's shallow sand is ideal for little ones. Day to day, though, the stepped bridges, packed alleys, summer humidity and lack of playgrounds make it best for a short stay with older children.

An integrated network against a city you cross on foot: of the two, the network is far easier. In Munich the compact, largely pedestrianised old town puts Marienplatz, the Residenz and the Viktualienmarkt a short walk apart. U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses on one system reach Nymphenburg, the Olympic Park, the lakes and the airport, and the flat streets and Isar paths suit a bike. The main nuisance is delays on the central S-Bahn line.

Venice has no cars or bikes, so you walk, and walking without traffic is a pleasure in itself. But the alleys twist and dead-end at canals, the stepped bridges are hard on wheeled luggage, and the vaporetto along the Grand Canal is slow and crowded at busy times. The traghetto gondolas that cross between the bridges help a little.

Munich offers the broader shopping trip. There are luxury houses on Maximilianstrasse, department stores along Kaufingerstrasse, independent boutiques in Glockenbach and Schwabing, and Tracht tailors for a dirndl or lederhosen, while the Christmas markets fill December.

Venice is narrower but more distinctive: Murano glass, Burano lace, papier-mâché masks, marbled paper and furlane slippers. The catch is the imported imitations along the main routes, so it pays to find workshops in Dorsoduro and Castello. There are no department stores in the historic centre.

Neither is cheap, but Munich is the gentler on a budget. Its hotels are dear and rise sharply at Oktoberfest and trade fair times, yet the beer garden picnic custom, free parks and lakes and token Sunday museum entry all help.

Venice costs more on almost every front: rooms in the centre, visitor-priced water transport, church entry and the famous café bills on Piazza San Marco. Standing for cicchetti, sleeping in Mestre and coming in late autumn or winter are the main ways to bring it down.

Munich is the stronger music city. The Bavarian State Opera at the National Theatre is among the world's best, three major orchestras play in halls such as the Herkulessaal, the rococo Cuvilliés Theatre stages chamber opera, and jazz clubs and big Olympic Park concerts widen the range.

Venice has La Fenice, a great house with a Verdi and Rossini history, and the Biennale's contemporary festivals. Beyond that, most evenings mean Vivaldi concerts in churches and scuole, which vary from excellent to routine, and there is little jazz or rock.

Munich has a real bathing culture and Venice does not. Munich offers the Art Nouveau pools of the Müller'sches Volksbad, textile-free saunas with infusion rituals, the vast Erding thermal baths about forty minutes out, and spa towns like Bad Tölz.

In Venice the options are hotel spas in palazzi or on the Lido, or the thermal mud of Abano Terme about an hour away. Its calm comes instead from the hush of early mornings and the residential quiet of Castello, Cannaregio and Giudecca, away from the San Marco crowds.