Rothenburg ob der Tauber or Salzburg?

Neither is a place for swimming, but Salzburg has the better summer option. Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are less than an hour away, with clear green water and lawns and jetties to swim from, which makes a hot afternoon easy to fill.

From Rothenburg, the choices are the town's outdoor pool or an hour's drive to the man-made lakes of the Franconian lake district, such as the Altmühlsee. They are fine for cooling off but not worth planning a trip around.

Both serve heavy, meaty regional food: Schäufele and bratwurst with Silvaner wine in Rothenburg, schnitzel, Tafelspitz and Salzburger Nockerl in Salzburg. Salzburg eats better overall. It has its old coffee houses, the beer from wooden barrels and shady garden of the Augustiner monastery brewery in Mülln, and a few serious fine-dining kitchens in the hills around town.

Rothenburg's choice is narrower, and many places around the Marktplatz cook for coach parties. The good meals are in family-run guesthouses and in wine taverns serving Tauber valley wines.

Each city is built around its old town, but they differ in period and size. Rothenburg is a walled medieval town with almost nothing modern inside. You see it best from the walkway on the walls, the Plönlein and the Rathaus tower, and Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar and the Medieval Crime Museum are its highlights. A day covers it well.

Salzburg has more: a Baroque city built by the prince-archbishops, with the cathedral and the Residenz, the Hohensalzburg fortress above, Mirabell, the Mozart houses, the catacombs of St Peter and modern art on the Mönchsberg. It fills two or three days without rushing.

Neither is a town for a big night out, but Salzburg at least has somewhere to go. Its beer halls fill with locals at long wooden tables, and Rudolfskai and the streets near the university have a few student bars that stay open late at weekends. Rothenburg goes quiet once the day visitors leave, and the night watchman's tour plus a glass in a wine tavern is the whole evening.

This is the biggest gap between the two. Salzburg has wooded ridges inside the city and a cable car up the Untersberg to about 1,800m. The Gaisberg is used for hiking and paragliding, and the Salzkammergut lakes for sailing and paddling. Berchtesgaden National Park is half an hour away, with ski areas within reach in winter.

Rothenburg's outdoors is gentle countryside: paths from the walls down into the Tauber valley, the riverside cycle route through vineyards, and the rolling Frankenhöhe hills. It is pleasant for an easy walk or ride, but there is nothing alpine about it.

Both make good bases, and a car helps in each. From Rothenburg, most trips mean more half-timbered history: Dinkelsbühl, Nördlingen inside its meteorite crater, Schwäbisch Hall and Weikersheim. The bigger sights of Würzburg's Residenz and Nuremberg are about an hour away.

Salzburg's options are more varied. There are lake villages such as Hallstatt and St Wolfgang, salt mines at Hallein and Berchtesgaden, Werfen's clifftop fortress, the Kehlsteinhaus and a direct train to Munich. That variety makes it the better base for a longer stay.

Rothenburg keeps children happy for a day or two. They can walk the ramparts, climb the Rathaus tower and follow the night watchman with his lantern, and older ones like the torture devices in the crime museum. After that, families have to look further afield.

Salzburg keeps them busy for longer. There are the trick fountains and the zoo at Hellbrunn, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the funicular up to the fortress and the marionette theatre, plus miners' slides in the salt mines and lake days outside town.

On foot the two are much alike. You can cross Rothenburg in fifteen minutes and Salzburg's main sights are just as close, both on cobbles with few cars. The difference starts beyond the centre.

Salzburg's trolleybuses reach Hellbrunn and the Untersberg cable car, and mainline trains run to Munich and Vienna. Rothenburg is at the end of a branch line and buses are sparse, so you really need a car to see the towns around it.

Rothenburg's shops are mostly Christmas decorations, sold all year: glass baubles, nutcrackers and Erzgebirge carvings, plus cuckoo clocks and pewter. Salzburg has more variety, with Getreidegasse under its wrought-iron guild signs and made-to-measure Tracht and loden. It also has the farmers' market by the Andräkirche and the Advent market on Domplatz. Neither suits fashion or luxury shoppers, but Salzburg is the better place to find something lasting to take home.

Rothenburg is the easier of the two on the wallet. Inside the walls you pay a tourist mark-up on small-town German prices, most of all in December and on summer weekends. Still, beer and wine in the inns are reasonable, entry fees are small and walking the walls is free. A room in a nearby village saves even more.

Salzburg is expensive all year for a city of its size. During the summer festival and the Advent markets, rooms and restaurant tables become hard to find as well as dearer. A city card covering transport, most museums and the fortress keeps sightseeing costs down. Most visitors save by staying across the river and eating in the beer halls of the outer districts.

This is a lopsided pair. Salzburg is built around music. The Salzburg Festival fills the Felsenreitschule and the Festspielhaus, Jedermann is staged in front of the cathedral, and Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons. The Mozarteum and the Landestheater keep a programme going all year.

In Rothenburg, performance mostly means the Meistertrunk history play, a small open-air theatre in summer and organ concerts in St Jakob's. On most evenings there is no show to go to.

In Rothenburg, rest mostly means quiet. Go for a walk on the walls or down into the Tauber valley early in the morning or after the coach groups have gone. For proper bathing, drive about an hour to the salt-water pool at Bad Windsheim, where you float, or to the old spa town of Bad Mergentheim.

Salzburg has more close at hand. The Paracelsus Bad in the city park has saunas and a pool looking out on the Kapuzinerberg, and the coffee houses and Mirabell gardens suit a slow afternoon. Bad Reichenhall's brine baths are only twenty minutes away, and the thermal springs of the Gastein valley lie further south.