Around our property we have quite a lot of land, including about a hectare of woodland and another hectare of field that we are turning back to woodland – partly for the environment and partly because we like trees. One thing that we also briefly considered was planting a tree for each family that stay [...]
It was a fine sunny day last week and I was approaching Saint-Montan, a quaint medieval village, just before lunchtime. I had big plans to explore the little village and then find somewhere for eat. I was in good spirits. The car park – about the size for 30 cars I suppose – was completely [...]
Brittany travel bulletin!! Here’s one to watch out for if you are in the Morbihan region of Brittany this summer – the 18th exhibition of ‘Art in the Chapels’. I’m a big fan of these large scale installation art events and might well try and get up there myself in September, weather and time permitting. [...]
Fancy being able to look into the future? Well, at last the clever people at google have made it possible for us to see what is going to happen in the next few months. Sounds improbable? Think again. Any ‘buying decision’ goes through various stages before cash gets handed across the table, and all these [...]
Ever heard of the label Grand Sites of France? I think not. It’s a classification for places in France that get gazillions of visitors each year, and are of great interest because of their natural beauty or historical importance. The principle is that they have all shown an ability to cope with having 1000000000000 visitors [...]
As a rule I keep this blog separate from travel bargains, special offers, and other travel deals I hear about, however tempting they sound, because that isn’t what you or other readers are here for. But I just heard about a great prize draw competition from pv-holidays that I thought I would mention. They are [...]
In France there are 36,569 communes, a commune being an ‘administrative unit’ (like a local council). Mostly these date from the Revolution, when an inspired bureaucrat decided that every hamlet, village and town should have its own little ‘management team’. How many of these comunes would be worth visiting on your travels? Unfortunately I have [...]
Definition: Glamping combines the words glamorous and camping and is the new art of camping in luxury and style. Tales of glamping often start with a story about the horrors of ‘old-fashioned camping’. I’m not going to, because tales of my teenage days camping on the Gower Peninsula in Wales and getting drunk and sunburned [...]
Mrs B suggested a few ideas for those who are trying to book their holiday in France but are concerned it will be too expensive next year. So here they are. 1) Shared swimming pools For many people, a swimming pool is indispensable on holiday, even more so perhaps for those with children. Hours of [...]
(photo is copyright) Let’s pay a special tribute to the 37,000 communes in France. The commune is the smallest administratve unit (like a local council) in France, and each has its own mayor (and usually at least one or more assistants). The place in the photo is in a commune called Rochefourchat, and If you [...]
A while ago I grumbled about some of the issues involved in hiring a car, but there was another I wasn’t aware of. This problem emerged as I was on my way to return the car to the rental station, after a week of travelling the roads of Provence. I had driven around all week [...]
Finding the best (cheapest!) prices for travel is not easy, to say the least, and is often very time-consuming and confusing. Usually the search ends because the time and hassle involved all becomes too much and the customer settles for the best they’ve seen so far. For cheap car hire in France I’m pretty convinced [...]
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 [...]
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. Happily the children don’t realise how close we are to Futuroscope France! The latest challenge came when someone, somehow, discovered that men’s jeans were on sale on the top floor of Galaries Lafayette. How [...]