Keep down the cost of a French holiday
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 [...]
Rochefourchat, a quiet place to live
(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 [...]
Pull over please, your car is unroadworthy
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 [...]
In search of cheapest travel prices
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 [...]
But what is nearby?
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 [...]
La Rochelle Tourist Office
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 [...]
La Rochelle restaurants and shopping
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 [...]
Not getting away from it all
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 [...]
Where are you going on holiday?
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 [...]
Taking better holiday photos
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 [...]
To be or not to be a tourist village
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 [...]
Travelling around France
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 [...]
Living on the tourist trail
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 [...]
Some photos of France…
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 [...]
Arcachon – is it too close?
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 [...]
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