Paris or Stuttgart?

Neither city is a beach destination, and swimming in both comes in improvised forms. Paris dresses its riverbanks with sand and deckchairs in summer and has open-air swimming in the Bassin de la Villette and the Seine, as well as some handsome Art Deco public pools. Its nearest real coast is the cool Channel at Deauville and Trouville, about two hours by train.

In Stuttgart, people swim in outdoor pools, some of them fed by the city's mineral springs, because the Neckar is a working river with barges and locks. The nearest open water worth the trip is Lake Constance, more than two hours away.

Paris is one of the world's great food cities. Neighbourhood boulangeries, cheese shops and street markets such as the Marché d'Aligre are part of daily life. Eating out runs from zinc-counter bistros to haute cuisine, and the immigrant kitchens add couscous in Belleville and pho in the 13th. The range and depth are far beyond what Stuttgart offers.

Stuttgart's strength is a distinct regional table: Maultaschen, Käsespätzle and Zwiebelrostbraten, eaten with Trollinger or Riesling from vineyards inside the city limits. Its seasonal Besen taverns are a real local treat. Outside these, there is less variety and very little cheap street food.

Paris is far ahead here. The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Gothic glass of the Sainte-Chapelle and the Haussmann boulevards could fill a week before you reach the smaller museums, and the Seine embankments themselves are UNESCO-listed.

Stuttgart's sights are mostly modern. The Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums, the postmodern Staatsgalerie and the Le Corbusier houses on the Weissenhof Estate are its highlights. Bombing left the old core in fragments around Schlossplatz, so two or three days covers it well.

A night out in Paris has more choice and goes on much longer. The bars of Oberkampf, Belleville and the Canal Saint-Martin fill the streets on warm evenings, Pigalle has its cocktail bars and the Marais its gay scene, and after the bars close the clubs and summer barges run until dawn.

Stuttgart is sociable but limited. It has the bar strip on Theodor-Heuss-Strasse at weekends, basement clubs with a loyal electronic crowd, and its liveliest weeks during the Cannstatter Volksfest and the wine village.

Stuttgart has the edge for outdoor time. The city sits in a basin ringed by vineyards and woods, so wine trails, the deer forests of the Rotwildpark and the Schönbuch can be reached on foot or by tram. Within about an hour you can be on the cliff-edge paths of the Swabian Jura or the fir-covered ridges of the northern Black Forest.

Outdoors in Paris mostly means parks: the formal Luxembourg, the hilly Buttes-Chaumont and the big woods of Boulogne and Vincennes. The forest of Fontainebleau, with its famous climbing boulders, is the main escape and gives gentler walking.

Both make good bases, but Paris has the longer and grander list. Versailles, Chartres cathedral, Monet's garden at Giverny and the Champagne houses of Reims are all easy trips, and fast trains bring the Loire châteaux and Brussels within a day.

From Stuttgart, the trips are smaller in scale but varied. You can reach the baroque palace at Ludwigsburg, the riverside lanes of Tübingen, Heidelberg's castle, Hohenzollern on its hilltop and the abbey at Maulbronn, with Strasbourg for a longer day.

Paris has more to offer children: Disneyland and Parc Astérix close by, the hands-on Cité des Sciences, and puppet shows and toy sailboats in the Luxembourg gardens. Day-to-day life is harder, with metro stairs, crowded trains and small hotel rooms.

Stuttgart is the easier city with a pushchair, apart from its hills. Wilhelma, with its zoo and Moorish-style pavilions, fills a day, and Killesberg's miniature railway and the little rack railway delight younger children. For a big theme park, though, you would have to travel.

Paris is the better city on foot. Its central walks along the Seine are often the best part of the day, and the dense metro puts a station a few minutes away almost everywhere. The weak points are long corridors without lifts and packed trains at rush hour.

Stuttgart's centre is flat but small. Beyond it the city climbs its basin, and a single ticket covers the Stadtbahn, the S-Bahn, the rack railway and a funicular. Steep public stairways called Stäffele make walking shortcuts up the hillsides.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Paris has the couture houses of Avenue Montaigne, the domed Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché, designers in the Marais, the covered passages and the vast Saint-Ouen flea market.

Stuttgart is mainly for brand shopping. Königstrasse has the familiar chains, Breuninger covers designer fashion, and the outlet town of Metzingen is half an hour away. Its antiques, markets and browsing are modest.

Neither is cheap, but Stuttgart costs noticeably less. Its hotel prices are set by business travel, so rooms are much cheaper at weekends and outside trade fairs, and beer gardens and taverns give generous portions for the money.

Paris is expensive almost everywhere, with small, costly rooms and expensive drinks on terraces. Free permanent collections in the city's own museums, lunchtime set menus and picnics by the river help keep costs down.

Paris has the bigger and broader stage. It has two opera houses with the Palais Garnier's ballet, the Philharmonie, candlelit concerts in the Sainte-Chapelle, jazz cellars in Saint-Germain and cabaret in Pigalle, though most of its theatre is in French.

Stuttgart punches well above its size. The Stuttgart Ballet is one of Europe's most respected companies and is reason enough for a visit, and the Staatsoper is known for bold productions. The Liederhalle keeps a strong Bach tradition, and the musicals at Möhringen are a lighter option.

Stuttgart has a real bathing culture that Paris lacks. The springs of Bad Cannstatt and Berg are among the most productive mineral sources in Europe, and they fill the warm carbonated pools and saunas of the Mineralbad Cannstatt and Leuze.

In Paris, relaxing mostly means the tiled steam rooms and mint tea of the Grande Mosquée hammam, a hotel spa, or an unhurried hour in the Luxembourg gardens.