Rothenburg ob der Tauber or Zermatt?

Neither place is for swimming. The difference is in what you do instead. Rothenburg has an outdoor town pool, and about an hour away are the grassy bathing areas of Franconian lakes such as the Altmühlsee, which make a proper summer swimming day possible. In Zermatt the mountain tarns are for photographing the Matterhorn's reflection, not for swimming, so a hotel pool is all there is.

Rothenburg's food is hearty and plain: Schäufele, bratwurst and sauerkraut, with Silvaner from the round Bocksbeutel bottle. Many places around the Marktplatz cook for coach parties, so the better meals are in family-run guesthouses and Tauber valley wine taverns.

Zermatt eats better, mostly because of its mountain chalets. In the hamlets of Findeln, Furi and Zum See you can have a long lunch on a terrace with raclette, air-dried beef and a glass of Petite Arvine, and getting there on skis or on foot is part of the fun. The village also has a few ambitious fine-dining kitchens, though cheap meals are hard to find.

Here Rothenburg is far ahead. The whole town is the sight: a complete medieval walled town with a covered walkway along the wall, the Plönlein view between two gate towers and the Rathaus tower over the Marktplatz. Inside St Jakob is Riemenschneider's carved altar, one of the finest pieces of late Gothic woodcarving anywhere.

Zermatt's heritage is small and all about climbing. The underground Matterhorn Museum tells the story of the 1865 first ascent, the mountaineers' cemetery holds climbers' graves, and old larch barns stand on stone slabs in the Hinterdorf. It is worth a morning, but people come for the peaks, not the monuments.

Rothenburg goes quiet once the day visitors leave. The evening's highlight is following the night watchman on his lantern-lit tour, then a glass of wine in a tavern, and the lanes are silent by eleven.

Zermatt has more going on, at least in winter. Après-ski bars on the runs into the village fill up from late afternoon, and a few bars and small clubs on the main street stay open past midnight on busy weekends. Summer evenings end early, because the hikers and climbers have dawn starts.

Rothenburg's outdoors is gentle. Paths drop from the walls into the Tauber valley past mills and the Topplerschlösschen, and the Tauber valley cycle path runs downstream through vineyards. Spring blossom and autumn colour are its best moments.

Zermatt is on another scale entirely. The Matterhorn stands over the village, a ring of four-thousand-metre peaks surrounds it, and lifts climb to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise at over 3,800m. There is skiing across the border into Italy, some glacier runs stay open in summer, and hundreds of kilometres of trails pass marmots, ibex and the suspension bridge on the Europaweg.

Rothenburg is a far better base for exploring. Walled Dinkelsbühl is about 45 minutes away and crater-ringed Nördlingen a little further. Schwäbisch Hall, Weikersheim's palace gardens, Würzburg's Residenz and Nuremberg's castle are all about an hour by car, so the Romantic Road becomes a string of easy outings.

From Zermatt, every excursion starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion, with its two castle hills and the Valère basilica, is the most rewarding trip, and Brig's Stockalper Palace is the nearer alternative. Most visitors would rather spend their spare days up in the mountains.

Rothenburg works like a storybook for a day or two. Children can walk the ramparts, climb the Rathaus tower and follow the night watchman, and older ones love the torture devices in the Crime Museum. After that it runs out of ideas, and the cobbles make pushchairs hard work.

Zermatt holds families a little longer, especially active ones. There is no traffic in the car-free streets, and the village has ski schools and nursery slopes on the Sunnegga side in winter, and marmots and cog railways in summer. The viewpoints above 3,000m can be too cold and thin-aired for small children, and rainy days are hard to fill in either place.

Both centres are walkable, and both keep cars out. Rothenburg's old town takes fifteen minutes to cross on foot, but leaving it is harder. The branch line usually means a change at Steinach, and regional buses are sparse, so a car is close to essential for the surrounding area.

Zermatt is easier overall. The Gornergrat railway, the underground funicular to Sunnegga and the gondolas all start within walking distance, and electric taxis reach the outer lift stations. Leaving the valley takes over an hour, but the trains connect smoothly into the Swiss rail network.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what they sell is very different. Rothenburg is about Christmas, with year-round shops on the Herrngasse full of glass baubles, nutcrackers and Erzgebirge carvings, plus one of Germany's most atmospheric Christmas markets. Zermatt's single main street sells Swiss watches and jewellery for wealthy skiers, along with genuinely good ski and mountaineering gear.

Rothenburg costs far less. Prices are those of small-town Germany with a tourist premium on top, inn beer and wine are fairly priced, and staying in a village nearby cuts costs further.

Zermatt is among the most expensive places in the Alps. Even plain hotels charge a lot in season, and terrace lunches and lift and railway tickets add up fast. Self-catering apartments or a bed down the valley in Täsch help, but Zermatt can't be done on a tight budget.

Both towns are thin on live performance, so it's mostly a matter of timing your visit. Rothenburg's highlight is history in costume: the Meistertrunk play about the Thirty Years' War, plus summer open-air theatre and organ concerts in St Jakob. Zermatt brings in musicians for two festivals, acoustic sets at Zermatt Unplugged in spring and chamber music in the church in late summer. The rest of the year, its live music is the band in an après-ski bar.

Rothenburg's calm comes in the early mornings and evenings, when the lanes empty and a walk on the walls is very quiet. It has only a few small hotel spas, so for proper bathing you drive to the saltwater pool of the Franken-Therme at Bad Windsheim or to Bad Mergentheim.

Zermatt is the more restful choice. It has an unusual number of excellent hotel spas, many with mountain views, and some sell day passes. The car-free streets and clear air add to the calm, although the mood in peak weeks is more active than slow.