Salzburg or Zakopane?

Neither town has a beach, but Salzburg at least has real summer swimming. Fuschlsee, Wolfgangsee and Mondsee are clear green lakes in the Salzkammergut, under an hour away. In July and August their water is pleasantly warm, and you get in from lawns and wooden jetties.

Zakopane has almost nothing like this. Swimming is banned in the Tatra lakes, and the reservoir at Czorsztyn, an hour's drive away, has only a few modest bathing spots. Most visitors swim in the heated thermal pools instead, which at least works in winter as well.

The two are close, and both serve hearty mountain food with a narrow range. Salzburg's strengths are its coffee houses with cake and the monastery beer garden at Mülln, where you bring your own food. It also has a few serious fine-dining kitchens nearby.

Zakopane's cooking is smokier and rougher: grilled oscypek with cranberry jam from street stalls, sauerkraut soup and lamb in timber inns, often with fiddlers playing. In both places the main tourist strip, Salzburg's old town or Krupówki, serves the dullest meals, and the better food is in the outer inns.

Salzburg has far more to see. Its old town is a complete Baroque ensemble of cathedral, Residenz and arcaded squares, with one of Europe's largest medieval fortresses above it. Add Mozart's two houses, the catacombs of St Peter and the palace at Hellbrunn nearby, and it fills two or three days well.

Zakopane's heritage is smaller and more particular. It centres on the wooden Zakopane style, seen at Villa Koliba and the Jaszczurówka chapel, along with the Tatra Museum and the carved grave markers in the old cemetery on Kościeliska Street. One day covers it.

Zakopane has the livelier nights, though only at certain times. On winter weekends and in the ski season, the pubs, dance clubs and rowdy inns along Krupówki fill with groups of friends, and New Year's Eve there is a big national event.

Salzburg's evenings tend to be a concert, dinner and a litre of beer in a hall full of locals. The old town is quiet by midnight, and anyone wanting clubs takes the train to Munich.

Both are excellent mountain bases, and the difference is in the kind of mountain. Zakopane sits under the granite Tatras, with cirques and glacial lakes, the walk to Morskie Oko, the climb to Rysy and the chained Orla Perć ridge. The popular trails get very crowded in high season.

Salzburg offers more variety than raw height. It has the Untersberg cable car and limestone ridges, sailing and paddling on the Salzkammergut lakes, and the Königssee in Berchtesgaden. For skiers, Salzburg's bigger resorts an hour away outclass Zakopane's short slopes.

Salzburg has more within easy reach. Hallstatt's lakeside village and prehistoric salt mine, the imperial spa town of Bad Ischl, the cliff fortress at Werfen and Berchtesgaden's salt works all fit into a day, and Munich is an easy train ride away.

Zakopane's best outings are Kraków and the Wieliczka salt mine, two hours away on a busy road, plus the painted wooden church at Dębno and Spiš Castle across the Slovak border. Weekend traffic can make any of these journeys much longer.

Both work well with children, but in different ways. Salzburg suits families who like sights: the trick fountains at Hellbrunn, the zoo beside them, the hands-on Haus der Natur, the marionettes, and the miners' slides in the salt mines nearby.

Zakopane is for families who like to play outdoors. There is the summer toboggan run on Gubałówka, flat valley trails for pushchairs, sledging and nursery slopes in winter, and thermal water parks for wet days.

Getting around is easier in Salzburg. The main sights are about fifteen minutes' walk apart, trolleybuses reach Hellbrunn and the Untersberg, and trains run straight to Munich and Vienna. Only the lake villages really call for a car.

Zakopane's minibuses to Kuźnice and the valley entrances make reaching the trails without a car easy. The hard part is getting there: the road from Kraków jams badly at peak times, and the train winds slowly through the hills.

Salzburg offers more to shop for. It has the guild-signed lane of Getreidegasse, made-to-measure dirndls and loden jackets, regional cheese at the Andräkirche farmers' market, and one of the region's best-known Christmas markets on Domplatz.

Zakopane's shopping is mostly souvenirs. Its good side is the craft market below Gubałówka, with sheep's-wool sweaters, sheepskins, carved boxes and wheels of oscypek.

Salzburg is the dearer of the two, though planning makes a real difference. Rooms in and around the old town stay costly in every season, but the traditional inns and beer halls of the outer districts feed you for noticeably less than the centre. A city card bundles the buses with the fortress and most museums, and staying across the river or in the suburbs and riding in by trolleybus is how most visitors keep the bill down.

Zakopane is cheaper in any season, and it is at its cheapest in spring and autumn, when the guesthouses are quiet and easy to book. Its own peaks are the catch: over Christmas, New Year, the winter school breaks and long summer weekends, rooms fill early and cost noticeably more, so a trip at those times needs booking well ahead.

For classical music, Salzburg is in a different league. The summer festival fills the Grosses Festspielhaus and the Felsenreitschule with world-class opera and orchestras, and Mozart Week and the Easter Festival add two more seasons. Outside the festivals, the Mozarteum and the Landestheater keep a steady programme.

Zakopane's live culture is folk rather than classical. Highland string bands play in the inns, the small Witkacy Theatre puts on plays, and in August the mountain folklore festival fills the streets with dancers.

Zakopane is the better place to unwind, thanks to the hot water under the Podhale valley. Several thermal complexes, at Chochołów, Białka Tatrzańska and elsewhere, are within half an hour, and their outdoor pools face the peaks. The town centre itself is noisy in high season, though.

Salzburg's calm comes from its quiet gardens, river paths and coffee houses once the day-trippers leave, plus the Paracelsus Bad in the city park. For real spa bathing you have to travel out, to Bad Reichenhall or the Gastein valley.