Ding-dong! Hello.

Good morning madam! Look, I don't want to buy any double glazing.

Well today's your lucky day, madam, because this is the Croatia Doorstep Challenge! The what?

Madam, are you completely happy with your old Tuscany? Oh yes. I always choose it for me and my family. As far as Tuscanies go, it's the best available.

Well, madam, we'd like to challenge you to try New Tuscany, Croatia! Croatia?

Yes! We guarantee new Croatia will make your holiday more Tuscany than Tuscany, or your money back! Hmmm. Alrighty, but I warn you, it'll take a lot to make me give up my Tuscany.

Madam, you won't be disappointed! What's so special about New Tuscany, Croatia anyway?

New Tuscany, Croatia offers the same high standards of your old Tuscany - an authentic Mediterranean holiday, sun, sea, sand, and beautiful countryside, no plebian crowds, high-rise hotels or unpleasant fast-food chains... Yes?

But the beauty is, it comes at a fraction of the cost of old Tuscany! But... How?

Well madam, in layman's terms, it substitutes that £400,000 villa in the Tuscan countryside for a £250,000 five-bedroom stone house just outside Dubrovnik. That's unbelievable!

Despite there being hardly any estate agents offering properties in Croatia, an estimated 300 second homes there were sold to Britons last year. Gracious!

Yes! They were wooed by Croatia's sublime architecture, fine weather, and rich cultural history. But hang on a second, wasn't Croatia once part of the former war-torn Yugoslavia?

Yes, but now it's just like old Tuscany used to be, 50 years ago, before all that A Room With a View nonsense, and before the Tonys and Cheries started going. Well, madam, what's your verdict? I'll never go back to my old Tuscany again!