So, Provence v Tuscany: the clash of the travel titans. This week, Hollywood joins the fray with the release of the romantic blockbuster Under the Tuscan Sun, starring Diane Lane. Based on a memoir by the best-selling American writer Frances Mayes, the movie gives those golden Italian hills the full silver-screen treatment, and seems sure to reopen the debate. What Mayle did for Provence, Mayes looks like doing for Tuscany.

Both destinations are sun-kissed, sensuous and simply irresistible. But which is tops? We found a passionate proponent of each region and invited them to slug it out on behalf of their favourite, with the criteria ranging from Renaissance art to rock-climbing. In the red corner, it’s Thomas for Tuscany. In the blue, Peregrine for Provence. Let the battle of the holiday heavyweights begin. Ding ding ...

Unless stated, package prices are per person, based on two sharing, and include flights from London. For UK regional and Irish departures, ask the operator

Round 1

THE LANDSCAPE

Tuscany: in his biography of Michelangelo, Irving Stone wrote of Tuscany: “Its countryside is so lovingly designed that the eye sweeps the mountains and valleys without stumbling over a single stone.”

This is a landscape born for the artist’s canvas. In high summer, the fields are full of crops: vines heaving with deep-red grapes; olive trees wiry, dusty and old. Roads are lined with cypress trees, tall and true, like soldiers awaiting orders. Then there are hill towns that simply fit, as if the aim of their 13th-century founders was to provide a focal point for painters.

One of the best ways to appreciate Tuscany is to drive through it, chasing farmers on their three-wheeled Piaggio “Apes”. Best for motorised meanders are the gravel tracks that run between the main north-south routes. The tiny road that passes through the hamlet of Lilliano as it crosses the heart of the Chianti wine region takes in spectacular scenery: leave the 222 at Malafrasca and make for Poggibonsi, on the main Cassia highway. For cypress trees at their most stately, head for La Foce, near Montepulciano.

Sample package: Citalia (020 8686 5533, www.citalia.com) has a two-centre trip from £846, B&B, staying in four-star hotels, with four nights in Florence and three in Siena. The price includes car hire.

Provence: the picture books tell few lies. Provence is indeed a region of lavender, of hilltop villages perched for protection — breathtaking only by accident — and of old blokes bringing ancestral wisdom to the game of boules.

It is warm, ancient and voluptuous. Pure southern light bathes and blazes by turns, and the resultant primary colours intoxicate. “It’s a question of giving the sun and blue sky their full force and brilliance, yet not omitting the fine aroma of wild thyme,” wrote Van Gogh in St-Rémy. But you don’t have to be a genius for the assault on the senses to be occasionally overpowering.

There is different drama on the coast, where the Maures, Esterel and Alps gang up on the sea. Behind, Provence rises via forests and ravines into the Haut-Var and the harder-core Haute-Provence. Here are crags, abandoned hamlets, and remote folk who only recently disentangled Christianity from paganism. Should you persist in thinking that Provence is soft-centred, peep over the edge of the Verdon Gorges, France’s Grand Canyon. It is 800 metres straight down — a very long way from aperitifs by the pool.

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