Stuttgart or Berlin?

Neither city has a coast, but Berlin at least has proper lake bathing. There is Strandbad Wannsee with its sandy shore and wicker chairs, the Müggelsee, and the forest lakes of Schlachtensee and Krumme Lanke, all reachable by S-Bahn and good for swimming in July and August.

Stuttgart has nothing like this. The Neckar is a working river and Max-Eyth-See is not for bathing, so summer swimming means the outdoor pools, some of them fed by mineral springs, or a trip of more than two hours to Lake Constance.

Berlin wins on range and on cheap eating. It has Turkish grill houses and bakeries in Kreuzberg and Neukölln, good Vietnamese, Levantine and Korean kitchens, street-food evenings in the market halls, and beer gardens. Its own cooking, though, barely goes beyond currywurst and pork knuckle.

Stuttgart is the opposite. It has a real regional cuisine of Maultaschen, Käsespätzle and Zwiebelrostbraten, wine from vineyards inside the city, and seasonal Besen taverns run by growers in their own houses. Go there for Swabian dishes and a glass of local Trollinger, and to Berlin for variety and casual late meals.

Berlin is in another league here. Museum Island, the Gemäldegalerie and Charlottenburg Palace would justify a trip on their own. The Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, the Reichstag and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe let you walk through twentieth-century history where it happened, and there is easily a week's worth.

Stuttgart's sights are fewer and more specialised: the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums, the Staatsgalerie, and Le Corbusier's houses on the Weissenhof Estate. Both cities lost much of their historic fabric in the war, but Stuttgart's essentials fit into two or three days.

This is where the two cities differ most. Berlin's techno clubs in old power stations and warehouses run from Saturday night into Monday, and Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Neukölln have bars open at almost any hour.

Stuttgart offers a lively weekend strip of bars on Theodor-Heuss-Strasse and quieter wine bars in the Bohnenviertel, but on weekdays it winds down early. Its big nights come with the beer tents of the Cannstatter Volksfest in autumn and the wine village in late summer.

Stuttgart has the better landscape close at hand. The city sits in a basin of wooded hills and vineyards, wine trails begin just above the Neckar, and the cliffs and caves of the Swabian Jura and the fir-covered ridges of the northern Black Forest are about an hour away.

Berlin is flat. It has plenty of green space, from the Tiergarten and the old Tempelhof runways to the Grunewald and the Havel lakes, and the Wall Trail makes an easy bike ride. But there is nothing to climb, and Brandenburg's lake country is pleasant rather than striking.

Stuttgart has more within easy reach, and more variety. Baroque Ludwigsburg and half-timbered Esslingen are a short S-Bahn ride away, and Tübingen and Heidelberg are both under an hour. Further out are the monastery at Maulbronn, Hohenzollern Castle, the spire of Ulm Minster, and even Strasbourg.

Berlin has one superb outing in Potsdam's palaces and gardens, plus Wittenberg, Leipzig, the Spreewald and the Sachsenhausen memorial. Dresden makes a long day, and after that the choice runs out.

Berlin gives children more to do. It has two large zoos, a towering dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum, and trains, planes and hands-on science at the German Museum of Technology. The flat streets are easy with a pram.

Stuttgart has one standout in Wilhelma, the zoo and botanical garden set among Moorish-style pavilions, plus the Killesberg park railway and the fairy-tale garden at Ludwigsburg. It is calm and well organised, but the hills make pushing a pushchair harder work.

Berlin's network is larger, trains run through the night at weekends, and the flat city is ideal for cycling. The catch is size: Mitte, Kreuzberg and Charlottenburg are separate centres, so you take trains between them.

Stuttgart's centre is small and easy to walk, and the Stadtbahn, the rack railway and the funicular deal with the hills. Away from the flat core, though, the steep slopes and Stäffele stairways make getting about on foot or by bike more of an effort.

Berlin is the better city for browsing. There are concept stores around Hackescher Markt, vinyl and vintage clothing in Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg, and Sunday flea markets at Mauerpark and Boxhagener Platz full of East German curios. KaDeWe and the Kurfürstendamm cover the big brands.

Stuttgart suits a straightforward brand-shopping trip. Königstrasse is a long pedestrian high street, a long-established family department store carries the designer labels, and the outlet town of Metzingen is half an hour away. There is less to discover off the main streets.

Neither is a bargain, but your money goes further in Berlin. Hotels are cheaper than in most capitals, and döner stands, Vietnamese canteens and corner Kneipen keep daily costs down.

Stuttgart is a prosperous business city where hotels charge more, especially during trade fairs, and cheap street food is harder to find. Weekend stays and the generous portions in its taverns help to balance this.

Berlin offers more on any given night. It has three opera houses, the Berlin Philharmonic in Scharoun's Philharmonie, the Berliner Ensemble and the Volksbühne, the Friedrichstadt-Palast revue, and a deep circuit of jazz and experimental music.

Stuttgart punches above its size, and its ballet, famous since John Cranko's time, is a reason to visit on its own. With the bold productions of the Staatsoper, concerts at the Liederhalle and the musicals at Möhringen, it fills a short stay well, though it cannot match the sheer amount on in Berlin.

Stuttgart has what Berlin lacks: natural mineral springs. At Bad Cannstatt and Berg you can soak in warm, naturally carbonated water indoors and out, the larger baths have saunas, and vineyard paths nearby make for a quiet walk afterwards.

Berlin relies on its sauna culture instead, with large clothes-free complexes and the columned halls of the Stadtbad Neukölln. For thermal spring water you have to travel about an hour into Brandenburg.