Cotswolds or Normandy?

Normandy has a real coast with a seaside tradition: sandy resorts at Deauville, Trouville and Cabourg, quieter beaches near Granville, and shingle under the Étretat cliffs. The water is cool and the tides go out a long way, so it suits a few beach days within a wider trip.

The Cotswolds have no beach at all. The Severn Estuary below the escarpment is mudflats and strong currents, not a place to swim. In summer the Cotswold Water Park's lake beach is the best you will find.

Normandy is the stronger choice for food. Its cheeses, butter, cider, pommeau and calvados come straight from the farms of the Pays d'Auge, and Honfleur, Trouville and Granville add oysters, scallops and mussels cooked in cream. Rouen has the deepest restaurant scene.

In the Cotswolds, eating out centres on the country pub, with local lamb, autumn game and cream teas, plus good farmers' markets in Stroud and Cirencester. It is enjoyable, but there is no regional cooking to match Normandy's. A really good meal often means booking a pub away from the busiest villages.

The Cotswolds' great sight is the whole landscape of golden wool towns: Chipping Campden, Burford and Bibury, the fine wool churches, and Blenheim Palace nearby. It is lovely, but it is a single theme, and there are few museums of any size.

Normandy offers more variety and more sights of world fame. Mont-Saint-Michel, the D-Day beaches and the Caen Memorial, the Bayeux Tapestry, Rouen's cathedral and Monet's garden at Giverny cover a thousand years of history, from William the Conqueror to the Second World War.

Neither region is a place for late nights, but Normandy has a little more going on. Rouen and Caen are university cities, with bars and a few clubs around the cathedral and the Vaugueux quarter. The Cotswolds have Cheltenham's cocktail bars on the Promenade and in Montpellier, and little else once the village pubs close.

Both are gentle, farmed landscapes without mountains, but the scenery is different. The Cotswolds offer rolling wolds, beech woods and the escarpment views along the Cotswold Way, with an easy footpath linking almost every pair of villages.

Normandy's best scenery is on the coast: the white chalk arches at Étretat, the granite headlands of Cap de la Hague, and walks across the sands of Mont-Saint-Michel bay. Inland, the Suisse Normande adds climbing and kayaking.

The Cotswolds have the better list of day trips and shorter distances to them. Oxford, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick and Gloucester are all within about an hour, and several can be reached by train.

Normandy has plenty of outings too: Honfleur, the Pays d'Auge villages, the Cotentin fishing ports, Saint-Malo across the Breton border, and Paris by train from Rouen. The distances are greater, though, so you need to choose your base with care.

Both are calm, easy places for children, with a gentle pace rather than big thrills. The Cotswolds offer the wildlife park near Burford, Bourton's model village, lambing at farm parks and Warwick Castle nearby.

Normandy's advantage is real sand for castles and rock pools, along with the walk-through submarine at Cherbourg's Cité de la Mer and the Cerza safari zoo. The sea is cold, though, and some D-Day sites are too sombre for young children.

You will want a car in both, but Normandy is the easier of the two. Its roads are good and generally quiet, and trains link Paris with Rouen, Caen, Bayeux and Cherbourg. Cotswold lanes are narrow and walled, and parking in Bourton and Bibury is a summer headache. On the other hand, the villages there sit close together, while in Normandy Rouen to Mont-Saint-Michel takes about three hours by road.

The Cotswolds are the better place to shop, especially for antiques and homeware. Tetbury and Stow are full of dealers, Burford and Chipping Campden have galleries, and Cheltenham has a proper high street.

Normandy's best souvenirs are mostly edible: calvados from the farm, cheeses and salted-butter caramels. Lace in Bayeux, copper pans from Villedieu-les-Poêles and Rouen faience add some craft.

Normandy is clearly the cheaper of the two. Chambres d'hôtes, rented cottages and set menus in market towns are reasonably priced, and many D-Day sites are free, though Deauville, Honfleur and the area around Mont-Saint-Michel cost more in high summer.

The Cotswolds are expensive, from inns and cottages to the better pubs, and each stately home charges full admission. Sharing a cottage with a group and picnicking from farm shops are the main ways to save.

The Cotswolds have a slight edge, largely thanks to Cheltenham. Its jazz, classical and literature festivals are worth planning a visit around, Longborough stages summer Wagner in a converted barn, and from the northern villages the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford makes an easy evening out.

Normandy's main stage is Rouen's Théâtre des Arts, with opera, ballet and an orchestral season, and the small town of Coutances holds Jazz sous les Pommiers each spring. Away from the towns, in both regions, most evenings have little on.

Both regions are good for slowing down, but the spas are of different kinds. In the Cotswolds, wellness means country-house hotel spas set in barns and gardens, with the thermal rooftop pool in Bath close to the southern edge.

Normandy has public bathing traditions: thalassotherapy centres with heated seawater pools along the coast from Deauville to Granville, and the belle-époque spa town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne inland.