Provence or Tuscany – which of Europe’s great holiday regions is best?

Comparing excellent wine, tumbledown ruins and quaint villages, our experts pit two of the most well-loved holiday spots against each other

Classics become classics for a reason. And there is no doubting why Provence and Tuscany are among our most popular holiday destinations. Who wouldn’t fall in love with those green hills that roll down to the warm Mediterranean, and those balmy summer nights when the cicadas rasp and the fireflies glow?
Who doesn’t relish a long lunch on a shady terrace, choosing from a menu cooked up from the local market and a wine list from a nearby vineyard? And who isn’t at least mildly stimulated by a little cultural sightseeing – especially when you have some of the greatest art ever made on your holiday doorstep?
You can be a classic only if you have been around for a while, of course. And both Tuscany and Provence have been favourites from the dawn of (holiday) time in the 19th century. At first, each region’s appeal was quite different. In Provence, it was the coast that drew travelling Victorians; only later did we start to explore the idyllic villages in the hills of the Var and the Vaucluse, before Peter Mayle (the British businessman turned author who moved to France in the 1980s) cemented them into our imaginations.
In Tuscany, the initial draw was a cultural one: the Renaissance art, the churches and palazzi of Florence and Siena. But it wasn’t long before we discovered the complementary pleasures of villa life in Chiantishire. 
So, which one is for you? You may already have a natural inclination. Perhaps you are more drawn to the French than the Italian way of life. You may prefer Matisse to Michelangelo. But then maybe you favour chianti over rosé, and pasta over ratatouille. 
Then again, perhaps you are wavering, or your mind is open to some gentle persuasion. If so, our destination experts are out to win you over to their cause – read on, as we pit two classic destinations against each other once and for all.
Tim Jepson 
Tuscany is served by three airports. The best for most of the region is Pisa, which is well connected by road and rail to most major towns.
British Airways flies from Heathrow (1-2 flights daily), while easyJet flies from Gatwick (2-3 flights daily), Bristol (one daily) and Luton (one daily, six days a week). 
Ryanair provides connections from Stansted (2-4 flights daily), Manchester (four weekly), Edinburgh (one daily Mon-Fri), and East Midlands, Glasgow and Birmingham (all twice weekly). Jet2 has (often seasonal) flights from Manchester (1-3 daily), Birmingham (three weekly) and Leeds (one weekly).
With flights from most major UK airports and carriers, Rome Fiumicino is convenient for connections to the extreme south of the region, while BA serves Florence’s small airport from Heathrow (one daily), Stansted (one daily) and London City (1-3 daily, seasonally) – often with higher fares than flights to Pisa – along with Vueling from Gatwick (twice daily). 
If you prefer the train (raileurope.com; from £135), the quickest journey time between London and Pisa is 14 hours, 40 minutes, with a minimum of two changes.
The city of Florence dominates the region, but its artistic and other credentials are well documented, so let’s put it aside in favour of the wider region, which overflows with seductive towns and villages.
Where to start? Unmissable Siena and Lucca (see below) are among the larger centres, almost faultless in their artistic, historical, cultural and contemporary allure. 
Down a notch, Montalcino and Cortona are both busy, with good reason; as is Arezzo, not least for Piero della Francesca’s cathedral frescoes and Pisa, of course, with its Leaning Tower.
There are plenty of under-the-radar towns to explore, too – Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, to name a handful, all with unheralded medieval centres that would be unmissable elsewhere. 
And then there are the glorious villages. San Gimignano is the most well known, thanks to its crop of medieval towers (be sure to stay overnight or come off-season to avoid the day-trippers), but there are almost infinite quieter options too: Capalbio, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Roccastrada, Casole and Castiglione d’Orcia, Sovana, San Quirico, Bagno Vignoni, Cetona, and Radda – the prettiest of the Chianti villages. Simply meander through the region, and you’ll stumble upon any number of others – virtually unknown, each one lovelier than the last. Nowhere else in Europe can compare.
Name a single corner of the continent – indeed, the world – more wholesomely handsome than Tuscany. Your first rural stop should be the Val d’Orcia, a swathe of countryside near Pienza which is so glorious it has World Heritage status – a perfect microcosm of the region’s classic pastoral medley of olives, villas and cypress-topped hills.
Between Florence and Siena, Chianti offers a more rugged landscape of vineyards and high, wooded hills, while beyond Lucca in the north are the spectacular mountains of the Orecchiella and Alpi Apuane.
Similar to Chianti, but with barely a visitor, are the Pratomagno, north of Arezzo – hills studded with pretty-as-a-picture villages – and the even more untravelled Mugello, north-east of Florence, known for its ancient forests.
More variety awaits in the Crete, the distinctive clay hills around Siena; the sea-fringed plains of the Maremma in the far south; and – often forgotten – the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, not least Capraia and Elba. 
For a region so universally loved, Tuscany nevertheless succeeds in keeping some of its best bits, if not entirely hidden, then at the very least lesser-known. In the south, there is Niki de Saint-Phalle’s Tarot Garden, the nearby beaches of Chiarone, tiny Sovana, Radicofani’s fortress, and the cathedral in Massa Marittima.
Beyond busy Pienza, explore the sleepy villages of Montisi, Petroio and Castelmuzio, along with the church of Sant’Anna in Camprena. Detour to Monte Oliveto Maggiore, a fresco-filled abbey hidden in the hills, and then Sant’Antimo, among Tuscany’s loveliest Romanesque buildings – slightly better known, but tucked away in rolling countryside.
North of Montecatini is a sublime rural corner known locally as “Little Switzerland”, centred on Vellano, while north of Lucca, Barga is a gem of a village perfect as a base from which to explore the surrounding mountains.
Surely there’s no need to explain that Tuscany has the best food and wine on the planet? The hearty soups – ribollita or pappa al pomodoro, say – are argument enough, but add Florence’s bistecca (T-bone steak) and pastas like pappardelle with porcini and truffles in autumn, and there can be no plausible doubt that Tuscany has well and truly won at comestibles. 
And it’s not just about the eating – you can get in on the action too. Learn to cook regional specialities with a company such as Flavours, or book into the Badia a Coltibuono (double B&B from £144), a beautiful 11th-century abbey high in the hills, and take a class as part of your stay.
And we haven’t yet touched on the wine. Tuscan wines have long moved on from workaday chiantis. Brunello and vino nobile are among Italy’s finest reds, along with the often innovative wines from Bolgheri on the coast. Many wineries welcome visitors, including one of the bigger and better producers, Antinori, while Grape Escapes offers seven wine tours in Tuscany, including the four-day Exclusive Chianti from £1,164 per person.
Let’s be honest: Greece might be its closest rival, but Italy has the monopoly when it comes to fascinating, ancient and beautifully preserved historical wonders. The medieval and Renaissance eras dominate much of Tuscany, but the region embraces other historical epochs, not least the Roman and Etruscan. Central Florence and Lucca retain their Roman grid street plans, and the latter boasts the wonderful Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, a medieval piazza incorporated into a Roman amphitheatre.
The Etruscans have an even stronger presence, especially in Chiusi and Volterra – the latter preserves traces of fourth-century BC walls and a great museum. Some of the most striking remains, though, are the necropolis and tomb-lined roads of Vie Cave in southern Tuscany around Sorano, Sovana and Pitigliano.
Let’s cheat and go for a single town, Lucca, a place the American writer Henry James said “overflowed with ease, plenty, beauty, interest and fine example”. It has all the usual Italian temptations – art, architecture, food, wine – but also the more intangible appeal of calm and charm; a world apart kept safe and unspoiled within medieval walls.
Make the 30-minute train journey from Pisa, then stay in style at the historic Grand Universe (granduniverselucca.com; doubles from £205).
Of course you can dive into Tuscany’s culture alone, phone or guidebook in hand, but for curated insights into some of the region’s less-visited corners, consider Martin Randall’s seven-day trip, Val d’Orcia and the Sienese Hills (020 8742 3355), from £2,440 (departs April 10, 2025), including most meals but excluding flights, with visits to Montalcino, Montepulciano, La Foce, San Gimignano, Sant’Antimo, Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Siena and more.
To Tuscany (03301 242148), in business since 1998, has varied properties in classic and less well-known parts of the region. Typical is Villa Beba (sleeps 10) in Chianti, with a pool, from £2,543 per week. Invitation To (020 8444 9500), Tuscan specialists since 1982, has a similarly excellent portfolio, including Pietrina (sleeps 10) in the Pratomagno, from £2,570.
Tuscany’s countryside makes it a premier destination for walking and biking. ATG Oxford (01865 315678) has an eight-day Paths of Chianti self-guided hike which takes you from Florence to Siena and costs from £1,380 per person.
Saddle Skedaddle (0191 265 1110) has a seven-day self-guided biking trip from Siena to San Gimignano from £1,045, while Headwater (01606 218848) has the seven-night Taste of Tuscany trip through the Val d’Orcia, from £1,665 per person, with optional e-bike rental. All prices include B&B and luggage transfer.
Anthony Peregrine
I’m defining “there” as Provence strictly drawn, so not including the Riviera (Cannes, Nice, Antibes) or any of the Alpes-Maritimes département. The handiest airports include Marseille, with flights from Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh, Bristol and Glasgow and Heathrow. Toulon is also useful, with flights winging in from Gatwick. Further east, Nice welcomes planes from Liverpool, Bristol, Luton and Gatwick, from Stansted and Heathrow. 
Train-wise, the quickest service from London to somewhere centrally Provençal like Avignon takes around seven hours, from £88 one way, or 22 hours by coach (from £50).
We all know what Provençal villages are like: fanning out from the fountain in a conspiracy of winding stone streets barely wide enough for two goats; flowers here and there; dentally challenged old blokes playing boules; ladies in housecoats discussing the latest deaths; Parisian chatterati moving through, pretending to fit in and sunlit markets on a weekly basis. It’s all real, wonderful and true, with bars for pastis and churches for cooling off in.
We’re thinking Bonnieux or Gordes unravelling down Luberon hillsides as if overflowing from the top. Or the vertiginous Tourtour – and Bargemon, where the Beckhams once holed up. There are dozens similarly entrancing. But the postcard slivers of reality – see the pictures of shepherds and pottery cicadas – disguise another Provence rendered perfidious and turbulent by merciless geography and hectic history. The villages were perched for defence, not photographs. This is a land that grows reckless and elemental in the turn of a hairpin. Basic lives have been lived tough since the Ligurians.
If tourists are now numerous, they have only walk-on parts. Provençal villages remain overwhelmingly products of their past, held together by farming, family and beliefs which slip from spiritual to sensual with no pause for breath. They’ve survived far worse than tourism, which is why tourism prospers.
Meanwhile, key towns are extensions of the countryside by other means. There’s the Provençal A-team: Aix the brainiest, Arles the most steamily Provençal of all, and Avignon pre-hallowed by memories of the 14th-century popes. Then the rest.
I’d direct you to country towns like Apt, Sisteron and Forcalquier, for as much culture and architecture as you can handle, then tapenade, toastlets and a bottle of rosé.
And, when it all gets too relaxing, Toulon and Marseille await, providing the beat of big port cities. They’re both more on the straight and narrow these days, but even the straight and narrow has edges. Otherwise, there’d be no point in going.
The Provençal landscape comes to us wrapped in warmth and light, in lavender, olives, vines and a sense of sunshine civilisation. The promise is of apéritifs around the pool, moonlit dinners and life as sweet as a maiden’s breath. Yes. OK. But then there’s the hard core underneath. The soft, ripe aspects of Provence dance across a surface of grand and unyielding beauty. We see it in the soaring calanques of Marseille, sun-roasted garrigue, cliffs and creeks. Elsewhere on the coast, the Esterel and Maures massifs sigh to the sea, ceding beaches and coves. These stretches couldn’t be overdeveloped short of using nuclear bombs.
Inland, you’re rather quickly rather high, rather isolated and rather a long way from a double raspberry ice cream Magnum. Up through the forest and rocks of the Haut-Var, the Verdon gorges are what Europe has instead of the Grand Canyon. The main bit is 15 miles long, 2,000ft straight down in places and a vision of hell if you’ve the head for heights of a delphinium. Believe me.
Over towards the Rhône, the scree-topped Mont Ventoux is 6,263ft high, 16 miles long and oversees western Provence like an unforgiving elder. That said, the Toulourenc valley is less showy. It skirts the Ventoux to the north, ushering motorists into a better world of rocks, smudges of lavender and farmsteads, the little river providing the running commentary. The whole is just a few dancing shepherdesses short of ideal.
And better yet, on the southern edge of Porquerolles island, are the rocks, sea, far horizon and pure blinding light of the Calanque de l’Indienne. It’s what I expect to see when I’m ushered through the Pearly Gates.
Fifty minutes out of Hyères port, the island of Port Cros is the smallest of the Iles d’Hyères. No cars, no bikes, hardly any people: you set your bio-rhythms to “pre-steam”. Port Cros is the French Mediterranean before it started playing to the crowds. Beyond the sole, trading-post-style village (population: 35), forests rise to cliffs and drop to a coast too rockily chaotic for anything but three small beaches.
The most endearing is La Palud, 45 minutes walk from the port. And walking here is the thing – up to the forts which were useless defence-wise but had second lives as refuges for French literary figures in the mid-20th century. 
Or up and across, for 90 minutes, to Port Man Bay. There, in the remotest house on the island, one of Britain’s greatest 20th-century adventurers and travel writers, Vivienne de Watteville, elected home in 1929.
Seeds That the Wind May Bring tells her story of peace and eccentricity, of Brahms, austerity, a tea set bought to match her yellow parrot, a lust-crazed Neapolitan handyman and the suspicions of apparently decent people generated by an unmarried woman living alone. Once you’ve read the book, I’ll wager you’ll be on the next plane south.
Is there any prospect more pleasing than a Provençal market? Obviously there is (new wife, new baby, daughter’s graduation, son’s first concert, Morecambe Bay) but the market comes pretty high up – whether in Aix or Arles (two of the best) or anywhere else.
It will take you an hour to get to the tomatoes, for you’ll be talking and looking and touching and smelling and revelling in the earthy sensuality that informs Provençal eating. There’s voluptuousness to the rounded shapes and burgeoning fertility, the ambient ripeness, and the curves of a watermelon squeezed swiftly by basket-toting matrons.
Over there, sea bream, bass and turbot lie astonished on a slab, as if the tide has just receded. On the convent stall in the middle of Aix’s meat section, a nun with sleeves rolled up is cleavering chicken. There are olives, Sisteron lamb, Banon cheese, saucisson and the lively aromas of all that lot, heightened by herbs and spices. The great thing is that it’s all so damned healthy. Research this year indicated the Med diet of fruit and fish, veg and olive oil might even keep dementia at bay. So you’ll probably live and love forever.
In truth, and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s only the wine and pastis that gives mortality a chance. Kick off with a Henri Bardouin pastis – herbier than the big brands – before rosé from the Côtes-de-Provence (Miraval is Brad Pitt’s but there are dozens of others cheaper and as good) or maybe white from Cassis. Then red from Bandol or the southern Côtes-du-Rhône villages. They’ll restore life expectancy norms. As, admittedly, will some of Provence’s more monstrous dishes – notably bouillabaisse. A scrum of the ugliest beasts of the deep, it will knock out the faint of stomach.
Everywhere has lots of history. The difference in Provence is that hardly anything – industry, wars, bombings – has happened to disturb it. Even the much-criticised development isn’t anywhere near as pervasive, or invasive, as claimed. Certainly not up in the Vallée des Merveilles of the Mercantour National Park where thousands of rock carvings have been baffling people since the Bronze Age.
Later, the Romans scattered arenas and theatres around the region, pioneering Provence’s reputation as a playground for the polymath. The finest is in Nîmes. That’s in Languedoc, not Provence, but it’s a near miss (as is the Pont du Gard aqueduct; waterworks have been declining in majesty ever since).
The papacy’s 14th-century move to Avignon ushered in an age of magnificence, power politics and debauchery.
In the great Gothic papal palace, “prostitutes swarmed across papal beds,” wrote the poet Petrarch. Frankly, it’s less interesting these days. I’d prefer the Petit Palais museum across the square. It’s full of Italian primitives and early Renaissance works and raises once again the question why, once Botticelli had painted the Virgin and Child, did anyone else ever bother?
Meanwhile, the region’s great Cistercian houses – Thoronet, Silvacane and Sénanque (the one in all the photos fronted by lavender fields) – indicated that some Renaissance churchmen, at least, had a grasp of the sublime. Over at Les Baux, the château was full of minstrels, warlords and blokes chucking other blokes off cliffs. Aix still wears the magisterial air of the capital it was during Provence’s semi-independence to 1486. It retains, too, memories of local lad Paul Cézanne – studio, home, points where he painted – though town worthies considered him worthless when he was alive.
Down on the coast, Hyères will tell you of the 19th-century tourists (including Tolstoy’s brother) and Sanary of the German literary exiles (Mann, Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger) who showed up in the 1930s, fleeing fascism. History is ubiquitous, and not merely in monuments. It’s in the pointu fishing boat, the curve of an ancient street, the game of boules, bull-running, pastis, the markets and the lovely swirl of an Arlesienne’s skirt.
The lavender. It’s a Provençal cliché, but things become clichés for a reason, and lavender is essential, notably in high summer. Head for the Valensole plateau where, as July segues to August, lavender and wheat come in alternating waves of mauve and gold, smacking the senses with mesmerising purity. Continue to Digne-les-Bains where, on the first Sunday in August, the Corso de la Lavande is the highlight of a five-day festival that celebrates lavender.
The beaches, too – Ramatuelle, St Raphaël, Cavalaire – are frolicsome playgrounds which should be seen; though that we might caper there owes much to 94,000 Allied troops who fought their way ashore there from 8am on August 15 1944 – 80 years ago.
The landings – which involved US, French, French colonial, British and Canadian forces – have ever been overshadowed by D-Day in Normandy, 70 days earlier. But they were vital, liberating the south of France in a matter of weeks, rather than the expected two months. Memorials, museums and cemeteries now punctuate both the coast and inland, with special exhibitions this year. I’d start at the Mont Faron Mémorial, on the hill overlooking Toulon. It tells an important story well. Then follow the new signage to key sites, establishing the strong sub-plot to a spectacular region.
Provence is bespoke-tailored for almost every sort of outdoor activity short of whaling. But it’s best appreciated at no more than a steady pace. Irish specialists Macs Adventure will set you off on a self-guided, five-day pedal from L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, with B&B along the way and luggage transfers, from £790pp (00353 1221 0483). Meanwhile, Inntravel’s Colours of Provence walking holiday has you based at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse for seven nights, with indicated ambles every day. Car hire, B&B and three dinners are included (01653 617001).
British-run Pure France has one of the best selections of top-end villas in southern France, including the Villa Chautard in the Varois hills at Tourrettes: four bedrooms, four bathrooms, great garden, grounds and location, and a sense of privilege throughout. Weeks from £2,539 (0033 674 048 322). Simpson Travel (020 8392 5858) is also up there with the leaders. Off Provence’s main axes – at Villedieu, near Vaison-la-Romaine – the new-build, two-bedroom Maison de Villedieu has old charm, pool, garden, terraces and vineyards beyond the fence. From £1,875 per week.
There’s no region in France richer in culture. Cultural leader Martin Randall has six nights based in an Avignon five-star, whisking the rich and inquisitive round Roman and medieval Provence. This year’s trip is full, but there’s another in 2025, October 24-30, from £3,170 (020 8742 3355). ACE cultural tours has a cracking jaunt to Aix’s Easter music festival, plus private lecture recitals in the Luberon hills; all that and Cézanne and Picasso, too. April 11-17, 2025, £3,695 (01223 841055). 

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