French Life-expat France

I don’t often mention changes I make to the main francethisway site on this blog, and probably you wouldn’t be interested anyway, but something I have been working on recently deserves fanfares, trumpets, and a round of applause. In my humble opinion, of course.
We have added a feature so that for any given destination you [...]

In the last of the ’La Rochelle trilogy’ I thought I would offer some words of advice to the town tourist office, which seems to have forgotten that the town is so dependent on tourism.
Yes, there is much of beauty in La Rochelle that you will discover without their help but that doesn’t excuse [...]

We’re still in La Rochelle, where I am trying in vain to save our bank balance from numerous assaults and attacks. Latest challenge came when someone, somehow, discovered that men’s jeans were on sale on the top floor of Galaries Lafayette.
How they discovered it is still a mystery to me, but off we trotted so [...]

Woo-oo we’re on holiday. Our first ’traditional summer holiday’ together in six years - it’s difficult getting away in summer because we have gites ourself. (We don’t have the promised internet access so postings will be irregular.)
We are in La Rochelle for a week or so, staying in an apartment in the heart of the [...]

Looking at the statistics for our gites in France section I can get a reasonably good idea of which regions of France people are looking at the most - which also tells us whether you are going to end up squeezed in a traffic jam and queueing an hour for an ice-cream…or whether you will [...]

A long time ago I had a good camera and took lots of ’slides’ of fascinating places. Remember slides? Little bits of plastic that you watched by projecting the picture onto a big white screen. These are now sitting in the attic going brown and spotty until I get them converted to digital photos.
But for [...]

I just got back from my whistle-stop tour around the Camargue, Arles and Nimes, and very nice it was too. I saw everything I wanted to see, ate all alone in restaurants while others sat in happy family groups, and generally rushed about with an “it’s Tuesday so this must be Nimes” type visit.
There is [...]

I love this time of year in the south of France. Apart from the occasional storm, the weather is usually bright and sunny, the countryside is looking at its best, there are flowers everywhere, and the roads haven’t yet been taken over by tourists.
It’s warm enough to enjoy cycling or walking, but not so hot [...]

Living as we do near the Dordogne region, we see our fair share of tourists. Which is good because we have gites to rent out! Most of my exploring of the region is done on my bike, often with a group of local cyclists. This helps me discover loads of hidden away places I would [...]

We are always searching for photos of France, and frequently people are kind enough to send some in to us to be used on the francethisway site.
All we ask or hope for is holiday snaps - not especially great photos, just those that show what a particular town or location really looks like to visitors. [...]

Pretty impressive don’t you think. The Dune de Pilat is just south of Arcachon, and is the highest sand dune in Europe. One side pushes up against the great forest of the Landes department, as you see, and the other side is a nice sunny beach on the Atlantic coast.
Nearby you have the attractive and [...]

When I got married, rather a long time ago I have to admit, we spent our honeymoon in Paris. Now wasn’t that romantic. It was probably the only romantic thing I’ve ever done, so I remember it quite clearly.
It was very pleasant, we saw all the sights, ambled hand in hand along the Champs-Elysées in [...]

I have just added ‘audio guides to France’ to the site, and have been too busy listening to them to write the blog - they are kind of addictive!
Usually I am a mercenary kind of person, only adding things if someone offers to cross my palm with Dairy Milk chocolate first, but this time I [...]

Planning a romantic marriage proposal? A declaration of amour, French style? A super-duper romantic wedding anniversary? I’ve found just the thing for you!
How about an exclusive romantic dinner and fireworks in a French chateau? Or perhaps you would like your marriage proposal projected onto the Eiffel Tower? Maybe a horse drawn carriage through a romantic [...]

If a holiday is truly relaxing it can change an ‘It was fine’ type holiday into a ‘wow that was great’ type holiday. And the great thing is, your relaxing break needn’t cost more than a stressful French holiday!
So for our French holidays section I’ve been trying to think of the things that make the [...]