Strasbourg or Zermatt?

Neither city has a sea, but Strasbourg at least has somewhere to swim. In July and August the gravel-pit lakes around the city, such as the Baggersee, which you can reach by tram, are lifeguarded and have grassy banks for an afternoon in the sun. Zermatt's mountain tarns are lovely for photographing the Matterhorn but stay far too cold to swim in, so a swim there means a hotel pool.

Strasbourg eats better and more widely. Its winstubs serve choucroute, baeckeoffe and tarte flambée with Riesling from the vineyards just to the south, the covered market sells Munster and charcuterie, and there is a strong fine-dining tier. It is weakest on other cuisines and on the tourist menus around the cathedral.

Zermatt's best meals are up on the mountain, with long lunches at chalets in hamlets such as Findeln and Furi, reached on skis or on foot with the Matterhorn in view. The Valais menu of raclette, fondue and air-dried beef is good but narrow, cheap meals are hard to find, and many kitchens close between seasons.

There is a wide gap here. Strasbourg has a UNESCO-listed ensemble: the pink sandstone cathedral with its astronomical clock, the timber-framed Grande Ile, the locks of Petite France and the imperial avenues of the German Neustadt. It also has the three museums of the Palais Rohan, the cathedral sculpture museum and a large modern art museum.

Zermatt's heritage is all about mountaineering. The underground Matterhorn Museum, the climbers' graves by the church and the larch-wood barns of the Hinterdorf fill a morning, and the Gornergrat railway of 1898 is the only other historic sight.

Both cities have modest evenings, but Strasbourg's last all year. The university keeps the bars of the Krutenau and Place Saint-Étienne lively, and in summer the riverside terraces stay full late, though there are few clubs and weeknights wind down by midnight. Zermatt's nightlife is winter après-ski: loud slope-side bars from late afternoon and a few late bars on the main street. In summer, with hikers up early, evenings end after dinner.

Zermatt is one of the great Alpine settings. The Matterhorn rises straight above the village, with dozens of four-thousand-metre peaks around it and the Gorner Glacier below. Lifts reach high terrain in both seasons, for skiing across into Italy in winter and hundreds of kilometres of trails among marmots and ibex in summer.

Strasbourg's outdoors is gentler and mostly further off. The city itself is flat, with the Orangerie park, storks in the Rhine forests and excellent level cycling. Proper hills start about an hour away, in the Vosges around Mont Sainte-Odile or the higher ridges of the Black Forest.

Strasbourg is a far better base for getting about. Colmar is half an hour away by train, and the Alsace wine route runs through Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Kaysersberg below Haut-Koenigsbourg. Across the Rhine are Freiburg and Heidelberg, and Basel and Nancy are both within reach by rail.

From Zermatt every outing starts with the long train ride down the valley. Sion's castle hills and Brig's Stockalper Palace make worthwhile days, but most visitors would rather spend a spare day higher up the mountain.

Strasbourg gives children more to do. There are boat trips through Petite France, storks and rowing boats in the Orangerie, the hands-on science centre Le Vaisseau and the clock's moving figures, and Europa-Park is about an hour away across the border.

Zermatt's car-free streets make it calm and safe, and it works well for families who ski or hike together, with nursery slopes at Sunnegga and marmots to spot in summer. A wet day is hard to fill, though, and the thin air at the highest viewpoints can be too much for small children.

Both cities are easy to get around without a car, in very different ways. Strasbourg's compact island centre is largely pedestrianised, with trams reaching the station, the European quarter and across the Rhine to Kehl, and separated bike lanes that often make cycling the quickest option. In Zermatt you walk the narrow village strip, and electric taxis, a funicular and a chain of lifts take you to the mountains. Getting there and away is slower, with more than an hour by train down the valley.

Strasbourg has more to browse. Chain stores and a department store sit around Place Kléber, and independent shops, delicatessens and bookshops line the lanes near the cathedral. The regional things to take home are Soufflenheim pottery, printed linens and Alsace wine, and the Christmas market adds crafts in December.

Zermatt's shopping is a single main street of watch boutiques, souvenir shops and very good mountain outfitters. It is useful if you need gear, but there is little else.

Strasbourg costs what a large French regional city does, and Zermatt is in another bracket altogether. In Strasbourg, meals, wine by the pichet and trams are fairly priced and many sights are free, and hotels are the one cost to watch during the Christmas market and Parliament sessions.

In Zermatt, plain hotel rooms, terrace drinks and the lifts everyone relies on all cost well above most of Europe. Self-catering and sleeping down the valley in Täsch help, but only so far.

Strasbourg has a proper arts season. The Opéra national du Rhin plays on Place Broglie, and the city has a philharmonic orchestra, the Théâtre National de Strasbourg and the autumn Musica festival of contemporary music, as well as jazz, dance and touring bands.

Zermatt has no theatre or concert hall at all. Its music comes from two festivals, Zermatt Unplugged in spring and a chamber music series in late summer, and otherwise from the bands in après-ski bars.

The two are fairly even here, but the kind of rest differs. Strasbourg has a public bathing tradition: the tiled pools, hammam and saunas of the early twentieth-century Bains municipaux, with Baden-Baden's thermal baths under an hour away. Zermatt has no springs but a dense cluster of excellent hotel spas with mountain views, a few of them open to day visitors, plus the quiet of a village without traffic, though the mood stays active rather than slow.