Let me put it personally. The appeal of Provence is as follows: as I am edging towards the cusp of excess maturity, so Provence reminds me that I have been young while, and here’s the thing, surrounding me with timelessness. This is, for a start, France’s number one playground. Exhortations to hike, bike, ride, hang-glide or otherwise knock oneself out by tea-time are unrelenting. Despite age, I have myself taken to occasional white-water rafting. In canyons and gorges, this is fantastic.

And, though the natural playground is exceptional – mountains, rivers, sea, plateaux serene with lavender – this region has also been enhanced by man ever since we discovered leisure. Romans scattered arenas and theatres about the landscape. Fourteenth-century popes brought licentiousness as well as liturgy to Avignon. Artists and crooks almost certainly outnumbered clerics.

And artists, at least, have been showing up ever since, attracted by limpid light and malleable morality. In the 18th-century, the Marquis de Sade, among his other pastimes, instigated the world’s first theatre festival at the family château in the village of Mazan. Where the divine marquis lead others followed. The July drama extravaganza turns Avignon into Edinburgh-on-Rhône, as music and opera burst forth at Aix and Orange and southern music rocks Arles.

Then, in Provence, sustenance for the soul segues seamlessly to the sensuous. At my age, pleasures of the flesh start with lust for food and drink, and pretty much stop there, too. That said, the rounded shapes, high colours and rampant fertility of markets at Arles, Aix and Vaison still allow the mind to slip the leash. The voluptuousness is legendary. 

It is also rooted. Leisure and cultural matters dance across the surface of an ancient land hardened by geography and hectic history. Religious and political strife have been constants. Provençal people are anchored less in tourism, more in family and farming, festivity and feuds around the fountain. The place is anything but a theme park of itself. Provence would live on, whether visitors showed up, or not. Which is why we show up.

Here’s a 12-day trip through some highlights of Provence. I may well be somewhere along the route myself. You’ll recognise me. I’ll be falling from a raft.

Stepping into Avignon – where we kick off – is stepping onto ground pre-hallowed by the papal presence in the 14th-century. From Clement V, popes made the city the centre of Christendom for 75 years. The Gothic papal palace radiates monumental authority but, if time is short, appreciate it from the exterior only. The interior, though stately, is pretty empty. Prefer the Petit Palais across the square, where cardinals once gathered. It now boasts an outstanding collection of Italian art, including a Botticelli Virgin And Child so beautiful that you’ll wonder why any other artist ever bothered.

Walk up to the Rocher des Doms and attendant park, where Avignon started. Views across the Rhône, and the world’s most famous one-fifth of a bridge, are outstanding. Wander now among the sinuous streets to the market, to plunge stomach-deep in Provençal culture. All the abundance which nourishes quotidian sensuality is here. So is Jonathan Chiri’s lunch stand, a rare incursion into French market life by a Californian chef. He cooks brilliantly (jonathanchiri.com). 

Book into the Hotel de Cambis, a four-star with fine wine bar in 17th-century surroundings (hoteldecambis.com; doubles from £123). Dine nearby at the youthful Agape bistro, three courses for £31 (restaurant-agape-avignon.com).

To Arles (by train; it’s around 15 minutes, for £7). This is the most Provençal of all towns – bright and loud with colour, culture, skulduggery, horses and cowboys from the nearby Camargue galloping through when the occasion demands. Romans were here. The resultant arena is as imposing as any outside Italy. Experience it best during a course camarguaise bull-running show – during which the animal gets irritated but not killed. You can see the rest of classical Arles at a lick: theatre and baths may be appreciated from outside and the Musée d’Arles Antique isn’t quite worth the slog out from the centre.

Van Gogh was here, too, and painting furiously: 300 works in 16 months – most famously, Starry Night Over the Rhône. He painted it just off Place Lamartine. Stand where he did, and Don McLean suddenly makes sense. 

Much more recently, LUMA Arles has shown up, transforming former French Rail workshops into a 25-acre contemporary art park. It gathers around a shiny, nine-storey Frank Gehry tower which gleams like a stack of tin cans. However, contemporary art-speak is often impenetrable  – one LUMA exhibition was described as a “testamentary wager, battle against finitude, testimony in extremis, rearrangement of time and other time-related equations” – but do go. You need to make your own mind up. Lunch at one of the three LUMA eateries (luma.org). Later, stroll the seething squeeze of central streets, before training back to Avignon, the hotel, and dinner at La Fourchette trad Provençal restaurant (la-fourchette.net; three course dinner £33).

Contrary to image, the Luberon is not merely a holiday design concept for Parisian media types. It’s a proper 40-mile mountain, forested, wild and liable to turn turbulent in a twist in the trail. These days, the villages wear the sheen of outside money but their rhythms remain regulated by a past of poverty, hard work and strife. Hill-topping Gordes, the loveliest of all, was awarded a Croix de Guerre for its 1940-45 Resistance activity. Much earlier, entire Luberon villages were wiped out as local Vaudois – pre-Reformation protestants – were slaughtered in a 1545 royal purge. Mérindol has a commemorative museum (vaudoisduluberon.com; open Saturday mornings) and, after a stiff climb to the ruined château, a moving commemorative plaque.

You will roam, perhaps, from Gordes to Roussillon – where ochre quarrying has pitted the landscape – to Ménerbes and onto movie director Ridley Scott’s Mas d’Infermières wine domain at Oppède-le-Vieux. Lunch at the nearby Le Petit Café des Jeanne (lepetitcafedesjeanne.fr; mains from £19). Continue up and over the massif to Mérindol and, after the hike to the castle, return to Avignon via the antique shops of l’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. Dine at Aurélie and Jonathan Thomassin’s Première Edition (premiereedition.fr; mains from £18).

Leave Avignon for Aix-en-Provence, where you need to see local lad Cézanne’s studio – it’s been left as if he’d just nipped out for tobacco – Nicola Froment’s Burning Bush triptych in the cathedral, and the Cours Mirabeau, the most elegant avenue in southern France. It evinces not a shred of self-doubt.

Then wander the warren of old streets in what has long been the brainiest and most cultivated town in the French south, before lunch at Le Patio (lepatioaix.fr; mains from £18). Afterwards, drive round the edge of the Mont Ste Victoire, painted into submission by Cézanne. His later works strip it to its absolute essentials. Skirt Marseille for the perched La Cadière-d’Azur. Check into the Hostellerie Bérard, whose four-star rooms are scattered about the village (hotel-berard.com; doubles from £109). Dine in either Jean-François Bérard’s Michelin starred restaurant, or his associated bistro (menus £79 and £34 respectively).

Explore La Cadière, then the nearby Le Castellet, villages as cute as kittens in a basket. For lunch, head for Guillaume Tari’s Domaine-de-la-Bégude in the Bandol wine appellation. Among other activities, you may walk the superb vine-scape or take a guided tour and tasting, accompanied by local terrines, cold meats and cheeses, from £30pp. Book ahead (domainedelabegude.fr). 

Continue down to the little seaside resort of Bandol, where both DH Lawrence and Katharine Mansfield spent time. Next door Sanary-sur-Mer has the breezy insouciance of flashier spots further east on the Riviera, but stripped of the hauteur. It, too, has a literary sub-plot, as refuge to Thomas Mann and other 1930s German intellectuals fleeing Fascism. Pick up the leaflet “In The Steps Of German And Austrian Exiles” from the tourist office and follow them round town. Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger and others would meet in Le Marine and Le Nautique bars. Both still exist. Have a beer or wander to the Plage Dorée, the little town’s best beach, perhaps taking with you a copy of Brave New World. Aldous Huxley wrote it in Sanary.  

Later, drive on to Toulon and the swishly contemporary l’Eautel, near the port. Dine there, too (leautel-toulon.com; doubles from £69, menus from £31).

No-one ever suggested you spend a day in Toulon, so please consider this a first. As we all know, Toulon has long been a city of two tales. The big story concerns its role as France’s main naval base, historic home to Jacques Tar’s bid to rule the waves. Within the big story was the second, a saltier story of sailors, guns, darkened bars and dirty money swilling between mobsters and politicians.

In recent times, though, Toulon has cleaned up its act impressively. The setting – harbour, bay, hills behind – remains grandiose but brightness now radiates along pedestrian streets. Shops, galleries and coffee roasters abound. The main Place Puget has smartened up its act and, nearby, a food court has recently colonised the indoor market. I’d lunch there.

Up the road, the town-centre Stade Mayol is still a rugby HQ, as in Jonny Wilkinson’s day. Further yet, the Mourillon district does the sea, sand and flip-flop thing as well as anywhere on the Riviera further east. Laze around a while, return to the hotel, and (if you book soon enough) have an apéritif and a game of indoor boules at the O’Boulodrome bar on Rue Chevalier (oboulodrome.fr). Dine at the nearby Le Pastel (restaurant-lepastel.eatbu.com; two course dinner £39).

Along the coast to Hyères, destination for top-end foreign tourists well before they discovered the Riviera. Health was the initial motive. Robert Louis Stevenson once said: “I was happy only once and that was at Hyères.” 

You’ll be happy, too, ambling the old centre. Pop into the new Museum of Culture and Landscape (hyeres-tourisme.com), then lunch opposite at Le Jardin (lejardin-hyeres.fr; mains from £16). Now motor on to Bormes-les-Mimosas, a glorious village tumbling down its slope in a cacophony of old stone, stairways and overflowing horticulture. Beach-wise, try the nearby Plage Pellegrin – which is handy, too, for the Château de Léoube vineyard owned by Sir Anthony Bamford, the “B” of JCB.

From here, gird your loins for a drive inland, over the Massif des Maures, to Les Arcs-sur-Argens. At the top of the town Le Château d’Argens, formerly the Logis du Guetteur, has been updated but remains a cracking hotel of medievalo-Provençal character. Dine there, too (chateaudargens.com; doubles from £97, menus from £46).

To the Château Ste Roseline wine domain, just outside Les Arcs. The wines are grand, some bearing Kylie Minogue’s imprimatur. Diverting, too, is the on-site former abbey chapel where the body of 14th-century abbess Ste Roseline lies a bit blackened but otherwise looking pretty good. She's in a crystal reliquary overseen by a Chagall mosaic and Giacometti bronze relief (sainte-roseline.com).

Then to the Haut Var, a rockier, rougher country of gorges, ravines and twisting roads which want you dead. Clamped to hill-tops, vertiginous villages – Châteaudouble, Bargemon (where Beckhams once lurked) and high-perched Tourtour – offer a wriggling sense of refuge, and some decent eating. Lunch at Tourtour’s La Table (latable.fr; three-course lunch £34).

Then loop back via Salernes and Cotignac to Thoronet Abbey, the finest of Provence’s three Cistercian houses, indicating that not all medieval clerics were debauched. Some, at least, embraced the sublime. Back to the hotel, before dinner at Sébastien Sanjou’s Michelin-starred Relais des Moines (lerelaisdesmoines.com; dinner menus from £86).

Further north today. Screw on your head for heights and hightail to the Verdon Gorges, Europe’s Grand Canyon. Here is nature on a supernatural scale: 15 miles long, 2000-feet straight down. Those unbothered by vertigo may pause to climb, hike or bike (verdontourisme.com). Others will weep as they drive the edges, then make for the far more suitable Lac Ste Croix nearby. Digest the splendour over lunch at Le Styx in La Palud-sur-Verdon, on the gorges’ north side (hotel-provence-verdon.com; two-course lunch £19).

At the gorge’s western end, Moustiers Ste Marie is a village too pretty for its own good. If the car park looks full (and it will), drive on to the Valensole plateaux where, in July, lavender and wheat come in alternating waves of mauve and gold. It is a spectacle of mesmerising purity. 

Beyond, Digne-les-Bains has lavender brightening its DNA (visit on the first weekend of August for the lavender festival), a spa and, because lacking airs and graces, the patina of working Provençal life. The setting is grandiose. Crags, peaks and ravines constitute a Unesco Geopark. Digne’s Musée Promenade provides the necessary introduction to geology, land art and 139 sorts of butterfly (geoparchauteprovence.com). Just out of town, one stays at the Villa Gaia as if staying with distant cousins from the Edwardian era, but with more effcient plumbing and better food (hotel-villagaia-digne.com; doubles from £74, three-course dinner £23).

Leave Digne for Forcalquier (the region’s herbiest pastis is made chez Henri Bardouin) and Limans (seek cheese and yoghurt from La Pourcine farm). Lunch in Banon at La Table de Panturle (latabledepanturle.eatbu.com; menu £26). You’re now skirting the Lure mountain for Sault, in whose valley the summer lavender is as lovely as on the Valensole plateau. 

Mont Ventoux, the towering elder of western Provence, fills the windscreen as you roll round and into Mazan, a village the colour of old piano keys. Check into the 18th-century Château de Mazan, once home to the Marquis de Sade. He pioneered theatre festivals here. Dine here too (chateaudemazan.com; doubles from £150, dinner menu £40). 

 Backtrack seven miles to Villes-sur-Auzon where the wine co-operative lays on electric bike outings among the vines, with tastings along the way (terraventoux.fr; £31). Then move to nearby Mormoiron, for a picnic lunch in the grounds of the Château Pesquié wine domain. Family owners provide food and wine for £22pp (famillechaudiere.com).

This afternoon, you might drive up the Ventoux – it tops out at 1,908m – passing shattered cyclists as you go. The experience is bracing, the views arresting. But my preference would be to roam the Roman and medieval parts of Vaison-la-Romaine prior calling in at Carpentras’ 14th-century synagogue, the oldest in France still in activity. It’s an engrossing way to get to grips with the story of “the Pope’s Jews” (synagoguedecarpentras.fr). Return to Mazan and, if it’s Thursday, Friday or Saturday, dine at the A-Ventoux, restaurant of the Chateau de la Croix des Pins wine domain (chateaulacroixdespins.com; dinner menu £33). On other evenings, eat at the hotel.

Round the sharp little Dentelles de Montmirail mountains, via wine villages Séguret, Gigondas and Vacqueyras, to Châteauneuf du Pape. Try the Cuvée Barberini at the Domaine Solitude. Florent Lançon’s family have been producing wine here since the mid-18th-century. They’ve had time to get things right (domainedesolitude.com). Lunch at the Verger des Papes at the top of the little town (vergerdespapes.com; lunch menu £33) before motoring back to Avignon and the Hotel de Cambis. Have an apéritif at le 17 wine bar (17placeauxvins.fr), then push out le bateau by dining at the 14th-century Mirande, the poshest spot in town. If the Michelin-starred menu seems steep – three courses for £88 – go for the bistronomic option, mains from £22. Either way, you’re ending on a high note (la-mirande.fr).

April through October, though high summer can be arrestingly hot.

No off-the-peg tour mirrors our itinerary exactly, or even nearly. But one or two companies offer pretty good tours, all the same. Kirker has a seven night, top-end jaunt around Avignon, Aix and the Luberon from £1,748pp, flights and car hire included (kirkerholidays.com). Travel Editions lays on a six-night escorted group tour round the region from an Avignon base, train travel from the UK included, from £1,225pp (traveleditions.co.uk). And Inntravel’s Colours of Provence holiday provides a hire car, a hotel near Avignon and sets you off driving and walking the region. Seven nights, outward travel excluded, from £1,105 (inntravel.co.uk).

Whatever you’d usually pack for a warm weather holiday.

If you’ve not done Provence accompanied by James Pope-Hennessy’s 1952 classic, Aspects of Provence, then you probably haven’t done Provence at all. Nicholas Woodsworth’s Seeking Provence is also diverting, while John Flower’s Provence covers much ground with erudition. You’ll need the Marcel Pagnol books, starting with My Father’s Glory and My Mother’s Castle. No-one tells tales of Provence – warmth, characters, menace and all – so winningly. Don’t ignore, either, the Peter Mayle Provence books, A Year In Provence and the rest. Despite what critics say, these are brilliant evocations of elements of the region.

1. You’ll be tackling Provençal gastronomy – Sisteron lamb, daube beef stew, aioli garlic mayonnaise with cod, ratatouille, bouillabaisse, enough other fish, fruit and veg to keep mortality at bay indefinitely – but do hesitate before ordering pieds-et-paquets. A stew of lambs’ belly and feet, simmered in wine, the dish is Provence’s main weapon in keeping international tourism at bay. 
2. Wine-wise, Provence is known for rosé, often more grey than pink and dry as you like. But don’t ignore the region’s reds – whether from Bandol, the Côtes de Provence, Ventoux, Aix or, like Châteauneuf du Pape, from the southern Côtes du Rhône. Whites from Cassis are terrific with fish. 
3. In conversation, please don’t assume that the French give a damn about Brexit. They don’t.