Nuremberg or Trieste?

Nuremberg has no swimming of its own beyond outdoor pools and leisure baths. Its nearest open water is the Franconian Lake District, a chain of reservoirs about an hour south with small sandy strips and a short season.

Trieste lives with the sea from June to September. There is almost no sand, so you swim from the concrete platforms and pine-shaded lawns at Barcola, from the old bathing establishments in town or from the pebble coves under the cliffs at Sistiana and Duino. If you are happy climbing down a ladder into clear Adriatic water, it is a real swimming city.

Both cities eat heartily and both lean on pork and sauerkraut, but Trieste's table is broader. Nuremberg's food is Franconian: finger-sized bratwurst grilled over beechwood, Schäufele on Sundays and Lebkuchen. Above all there is beer from the region's many small breweries, poured in old-town taverns and beer gardens.

Trieste has more to explore. There are boiled meats carved at the buffet counters, fried or marinated sardoni, jota and Habsburg cakes, as well as a coffee culture with its own vocabulary. Up on the Karst, farmhouse osmize pour Vitovska and Terrano. Neither city is a fine-dining destination.

Here you choose between medieval walls and a Habsburg seaport. Nuremberg's old town lies inside almost complete fortifications below the Kaiserburg, with the Gothic churches of St Sebaldus and St Lorenz, Dürer's half-timbered house and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, which can fill a whole day. The Rally Grounds and Courtroom 600 add a sobering twentieth-century layer.

Trieste was built on a grand neoclassical scale. Piazza Unità opens onto the sea, San Spiridione stands on the Canal Grande, and San Giusto has its cathedral mosaics, with a Roman theatre below and the white Miramare Castle along the coast. Nuremberg has the weightier museum, while much of Trieste's appeal lies in the cityscape and its literary past.

Neither city is built for a big night out, but Nuremberg has a little more going on. Gostenhof, west of the walls, has small bars and alternative venues, there are a handful of clubs, and students from Erlangen keep weekends busy.

Trieste's evening is the aperitivo: spritz or local white wine around Piazza Unità, the Canal Grande and Cavana, then the kiosks on the Barcola seafront in summer. It is lovely for a long drink by the water, but with few clubs it winds down early, especially on winter weeknights.

Trieste has the more dramatic outdoors, and it starts on the doorstep. The Karst plateau rises straight behind the city, with the Strada Napoleonica and the Rilke Path along the cliffs, the Val Rosandra gorge and the Grotta Gigante. The gulf offers serious sailing and a marine reserve at Miramare for snorkelling, and the Julian Alps are within reach.

Nuremberg's landscape is gentler. The Reichswald pine forest starts at the city's edge and the Pegnitz valley is good for riverside cycling. The limestone valleys, caves and climbing crags of Franconian Switzerland are about an hour away. It is good country for walkers and cyclists, without mountains or coast.

Both make excellent bases, and the difference is between easy train trips and a wider spread across borders. From Nuremberg almost every trip is to a historic German town reached by train in about an hour: Bamberg, Regensburg on the Danube, Würzburg's baroque Residence, the walled towns of the Romantic Road, or Munich.

From Trieste you can cross into three countries. There are Roman Aquileia and the Friuli towns, Piran and Ljubljana in Slovenia, the Istrian coast of Croatia, and Venice for a long day. The mix is richer in contrast, though Istria and the wine villages are easier with a car.

Nuremberg is the more child-friendly of the two, thanks largely to its toy-making past. It has a Toy Museum, a railway museum with full-size locomotives and a large zoo with a dolphin and manatee house. Just outside town there is a toy-brand play park, and in Advent a children's market with carousels.

Trieste is safe and calm but has fewer places aimed at children. Miramare's gardens, the Grotta Gigante, a small aquarium and a science centre will fill a few days. Rock swimming and steep streets make it better for older children than for toddlers.

Nuremberg is the simpler city to move around. Nearly everything lies within walls about 1.5km across, the station sits at the southern gate, and one ticket covers the U-Bahn, trams, buses and S-Bahn out to the Rally Grounds, Fürth and Erlangen.

Trieste's flat seafront core is just as walkable, but the city climbs steeply behind it. With no metro, you rely on buses for Barcola, Miramare and the Karst, plus boats across the bay to Muggia. A car helps for the wine villages and trips across the border, while Nuremberg's regional trains make one unnecessary.

Neither city is a shopping destination, though Nuremberg gives you a little more to do. Department stores line the route from the station to the Hauptmarkt, the Handwerkerhof sells crafts, and wooden toys and tins of Lebkuchen make good souvenirs. In Advent the Christkindlesmarkt adds a famous seasonal reason to browse.

Trieste's Corso Italia has ordinary clothing and shoe shops, and the more rewarding browsing is in the antique shops of the old town. The best things to take home are edible: coffee from local roasters, Karst wine and honey, and presnitz.

The two cost much the same, and both are easier on the budget than the bigger names in their countries. Nuremberg's food, beer and transport are inexpensive. What to watch for is hotels, which become scarce during the big trade fairs and the Advent market season.

In Trieste, rooms get tight around the autumn regatta and in high summer, and seafood restaurants charge ordinary Italian city prices. On the other hand, swimming at Barcola, the waterfront and the Karst walks are all free.

Both cities offer a proper season of opera and ballet rather than a world-famous stage. Nuremberg's Staatstheater, in an Art Nouveau house by the walls, is joined by two orchestras and big summer events: a large open-air concert in the Luitpoldhain, a free folk and world music weekend in the old town and a rock festival by the Zeppelinfeld.

Trieste's Teatro Verdi on the waterfront has an unusual Habsburg attachment to operetta, and Slovenian-language theatre and summer concerts in the San Giusto castle courtyard add character. Nuremberg suits festival-goers better, Trieste opera lovers.

Nuremberg is better for a proper spa day in the German style. A large thermal spa with sauna gardens is a short U-Bahn ride away in Fürth, leisure pools have nude mixed saunas, and the saline pools of Bad Windsheim are about an hour west.

Trieste has only hotel spas and day spas, so for thermal baths you have to leave the city. Its relaxation comes from the pace instead: long sittings in old coffee houses and sunset walks along the Molo Audace pier.