Loire Valley or Normandy?

Normandy has an actual seaside. The Côte Fleurie resorts of Deauville, Trouville and Cabourg have wide sand, boardwalks and striped cabins, and the west Cotentin has quieter, wilder beaches. The Channel stays cool, though, and at low tide the sea goes out a long way, so the beach is part of the trip rather than the reason for it.

The Loire Valley has nothing comparable. Swimming in the river is dangerous, so summer bathing means a roped-off leisure lake such as the Lac de Maine at Angers, or the pool at your rental house.

The two regions eat equally well, but the flavours come from different places. The Loire Valley is wine country, from Sancerre to Chinon to sparkling Saumur aged in tufa caves. Its cooking suits the wine: rillettes, river fish in beurre blanc and goat cheeses such as Sainte-Maure.

Normandy cooks with cream and apples. Camembert and Livarot come from its farms, and cider, pommeau and calvados are sold along the Pays d'Auge route. Oysters and scallops come in from the coast. Tours and Angers have the Loire's widest choice of restaurants, while Normandy's best meals are often harbour-front seafood in Honfleur or Granville, or pressed duck in Rouen.

Both regions have world-class sights, but of different kinds. The Loire Valley is about one subject in depth: the densest group of Renaissance châteaux anywhere, from Chambord and Chenonceau to royal Blois and Amboise. Older layers sit alongside them, such as Fontevraud Abbey and the Apocalypse Tapestry in Angers, and all of it is within reach of a single base.

Normandy covers a thousand years in separate places. There is the Bayeux Tapestry, the abbey on Mont-Saint-Michel, Rouen's cathedral and half-timbered streets, Monet's garden at Giverny and the D-Day beaches with their cemeteries. The variety is wider, but the sights are spread across the region.

Neither region is a place for going out. In both, the evening is mostly a long dinner. The Loire's liveliest spot is Place Plumereau in Tours, where students fill the café terraces in the medieval lanes on warm nights. Normandy splits its evenings between Rouen's bars near the cathedral, Caen's Vaugueux quarter and, in summer, the casino and hotel bars of Deauville.

Both regions are gentle lowland country with no mountains, but their scenery differs. The Loire Valley is a river landscape. You follow the Loire à Vélo route past willows and sandbanks, paddle out to islands where terns nest, or float over the châteaux in a hot-air balloon. The Sologne adds heath and deer forest.

Normandy's best scenery is on the coast. There are chalk arches and a clifftop path at Étretat, wild granite headlands at Cap de la Hague, and guided walks across the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, where seals rest on the sandbanks. Inland, the Suisse Normande offers climbing and kayaking, which the Loire lacks.

The Loire Valley is the easier region for day trips, because so much sits close together. From Tours you can reach Amboise, Blois, Chinon, Loches, Saumur's troglodyte villages and the Vouvray cellars without long drives, and Paris is about an hour away by high-speed train.

Normandy has plenty to see too, from Honfleur and the Pays d'Auge villages to the Cotentin fishing ports and Saint-Malo just over the border. In summer you can take a ferry to Jersey. The distances are longer, though, and covering the region usually means moving between two bases.

The Loire Valley offers children more. The ZooParc de Beauval is worth a full day, and Clos Lucé's park of full-size Leonardo machines and the Maison de la Magie at Blois turn château visits into something they will enjoy. The flat cycle route and gîtes with pools fill the gaps, although too many formal interiors will tire young children.

Normandy has sandcastle beaches, rock pools, the walk-through submarine at Cité de la Mer and the Cerza safari zoo. Against that, the water is cold, the weather changeable and the drives between attractions longer.

You can manage the Loire Valley without a car more easily. One rail line follows the river through Orléans, Blois, Amboise, Tours, Saumur and Angers, Chenonceau and Chinon have their own stations, and the riverside bike route, with luggage sent ahead, makes cycling between towns a practical way to travel.

In Normandy, trains reach the main cities, but the landing beaches, the Étretat cliffs and Mont-Saint-Michel are hard to reach without a car or an organised tour. Rouen to Mont-Saint-Michel is about three hours by road.

In both regions the best things to take home are edible. From the Loire that means wine bought at the cellar door and Cotignac quince paste from Orléans. From Normandy it means calvados and salted-butter caramels. Normandy has slightly more to browse beyond food: lace from Alençon and Bayeux, copper pans from Villedieu, Honfleur's art galleries and a few Deauville boutiques. The Loire's crafts are Gien faience and Saumur leather.

Both cost about what you would expect in provincial France, and you need a car in both. What strains the budget differs. In the Loire Valley it is the separate entrance fee at every château, which adds up over a day of visits. In Normandy many D-Day sites, cemeteries and beaches are free, but Deauville, Honfleur and the area around Mont-Saint-Michel charge noticeably more in high summer.

Both regions offer a solid provincial programme that few people would travel for. The Loire's highlights are tied to its setting: sound-and-light shows at Blois and Amboise, chamber music in the medieval Grange de Meslay, and Angers' street-arts festival in September. Normandy's best-known event is Jazz sous les Pommiers in Coutances in spring, and its main year-round stage is Rouen's Théâtre des Arts.

Normandy is the better place for a spa trip. Thalassotherapy centres with heated seawater pools line the coast at Deauville, Cabourg and Granville, and Bagnoles-de-l'Orne is a belle-époque spa town built around its springs and lake.

The Loire Valley has no spa or bathing tradition. You will find wine-based treatments in the spas of converted châteaux, but its real draw for unwinding is the pace: riverside rides, the gardens of Villandry and quiet guesthouses among the vineyards.