Rothenburg ob der Tauber or Vienna?

Neither place has a coast, but Vienna at least has real summer swimming inside the city. The Danube Island's gravel shores and the warmer, calmer Alte Donau with its old lidos are a U-Bahn ride from the centre.

In Rothenburg swimming means the town's outdoor pool or an hour's drive to grassy lake shores such as the Altmühlsee. Neither is a reason to go.

Vienna has a cuisine of its own, from Tafelspitz and schnitzel in wood-panelled Beisl taverns to strudel and Sachertorte in the grand coffee houses, plus wine poured in Heuriger taverns on the city's own slopes. Its weakness is international range, not quality.

Rothenburg's table is narrower: roast pork, Schäufele and bratwurst with Silvaner from the Bocksbeutel, and the sugary Schneeball. The good meals hide in family guesthouses away from the Marktplatz, and there is little beyond Franconian cooking.

Rothenburg is a single, near-complete medieval townscape: the wall walk, the Plönlein, the Rathaus tower view and Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar in St Jakob's. It is memorable but done in a day.

Vienna works on another scale. The Hofburg and Schönbrunn, St Stephen's and the Ringstrasse, then Bruegel, Klimt and Schiele in first-rank museums, with Jugendstil buildings as a second great era. A week barely exhausts it.

Rothenburg's evenings end with the night watchman's tour and a glass in an inn; there are no clubs and Würzburg is the nearest real night out. Vienna has a relaxed but genuine scene, with late bars under the Gürtel railway arches, the Bermuda Triangle in the old town, summer deckchair bars on the Danube Canal and, in winter, the formal ball season.

Vienna's green edges are bigger and more varied: the beech-covered Vienna Woods with vineyard trails to the Kahlenberg, the wild floodplain forest of the Donau-Auen, and the Rax and Schneeberg mountains within reach for a day.

Rothenburg offers a gentler kind of countryside. Paths drop from the walls into the Tauber valley past mills and meadows, and the Tauber valley cycle path makes an easy family ride, but there are no mountains or wild country nearby.

Both are well placed, but in different ways. From Rothenburg the outings are more medieval and half-timbered towns along the Romantic Road, Dinkelsbühl, Nördlingen in its crater, Schwäbisch Hall, plus Würzburg's Residenz and Nuremberg, and a car is close to essential.

From Vienna the range crosses borders: Bratislava by train or boat, the Wachau with Melk and Dürnstein, Eisenstadt's Esterházy palace and Brno, most of it easy by rail.

Rothenburg feels like a storybook to children, with ramparts to walk, a tower to climb and the lantern-carrying night watchman, while older ones relish the Medieval Crime Museum. Beyond that there is little for them, and cobbles are hard on pushchairs.

Vienna can hold a family for a week: Schönbrunn Zoo and its maze, the Prater's Ferris wheel and rides, sharks in the flak-tower aquarium, and the Natural History and Technical museums for wet days. Trams that take prams easily help too.

Inside Rothenburg's walls you can cross the town on foot in fifteen minutes, but leaving it is the problem: a branch line with a change at Steinach and sparse buses make a car the practical choice.

Vienna combines a walkable centre inside the Ring with U-Bahn, trams and buses on one ticket, reaching Schönbrunn, the Danube and even the vineyard villages. Here a car is a burden rather than a help.

Rothenburg's shops sell one thing above all, Christmas: year-round baubles, nutcrackers and Erzgebirge carvings along the Herrngasse, with little in the way of fashion or everyday shopping.

Vienna has a fuller offer, from luxury houses on the Kohlmarkt and Graben to everyday fashion on Mariahilfer Strasse and independent designers in Neubau. Augarten porcelain, crystal and Loden coats make the more distinctive gifts.

Costs come out much the same, though they bite in different places. In Rothenburg it is the tourist premium on rooms and meals inside the walls, easily avoided by sleeping in a nearby village. In Vienna it is full admission at the big palaces and museums, offset by cheap transport passes, free palace gardens and opera standing places.

This is where the two are furthest apart. Rothenburg's stage is mostly history: the costumed Meistertrunk play, a small summer open-air theatre and organ concerts in St Jakob's, with evenings otherwise spent at dinner.

Vienna is a music capital without rival: a different opera most nights at the State Opera, the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein's Golden Hall, the Burgtheater, the Volksoper and the Boys' Choir, with the music of Mozart, Haydn and Strauss played every night.

Rothenburg's calm comes from emptiness: the walls and the Tauber valley are deeply quiet early and late, and for thermal bathing you drive to Bad Windsheim or Bad Mergentheim.

Vienna builds rest into daily life, with long coffee house afternoons and vineyard evenings, and has thermal water close at hand in Therme Wien, the Art Deco Amalienbad and the sulphur springs of Baden.