French Life-expat France

Ok I’m looking for help and suggestions today. Now I can assume that most people reading this have been to France, I guess? And probably plan to come again? Doubtless you had favourite places, and took photos and remember them fondly.

So what I am looking for is - what were (or are) your favourite places? Much as I like travelling about, it is a bit of a mind-boggling challenge to visit everywhere in France - especially when:

a) I prefer cycling than driving, and

b) I have got two speeding tickets in the last three weeks and now have to drive at snail pace to avoid a ban

To give you a bit of background, over in francethisway I have a ‘region by region’ guide to France - well, it would hardly be Israel, or Australia, would it. I’ve just converted it to work with googlemaps and though I say so myself it is pretty darn sexy.

You can zoom in to a place with little controls, change the background to be a satellite photo, move the background around, and most importantly see which other interesting places are nearby. How exciting is that. See an example: click on one of the regions at places to visit in France, then in your chosen region zoom in on the map and see what is where and which other places it is next to. Pretty groovy, unless you have an old browser and can’t see google maps, in which case you won’t know what I’m going on about (it’s all still there in words as well, just to be on the safe side).

Anyway, point is, I have added lots of lovely places that I know about or people have told me about or recommended. But when I zoom in on some areas they look a bit, well, empty. Most regions actually have something special to offer, and it is these that I want to know about.

I’m not so much interested in big cities as the smaller places that people discover and love - that’s why many of the ‘most beautiful villages’ are included, and the castles and heritage sites. A lovely town, a perfect beach, a ruined castle at the end of a woodland walk - these are the things that most visitors love about France, and these are the things I want to know about.

So my plea is - if you can recommend somewhere, click on that little tab up there that says ‘email’ and let us know. And if you can attach a photo, ‘tant mieux’ as we like to say in France. Don’t worry about your writing style - it is much better if a place description is in poor English, but written by someone who knows the place. And if your writing is very poor I can always tweak it a little bit…

And if that sounds like too much work and too little reward, still let us know - you are welcome to drive a hard bargain. We will be happy to include an advert for your property over at gite holidays France in exchange for a few pages of useful information, or a link to your website if you prefer.

The only thing I can’t offer is cash - apparently feeding the children has to take priority, so Mrs B tells me. So if you want to see your name in lights (or at least small writing at the bottom of the page) - ‘page kindly contributed by Samuel Pepys’ or similar PLEASE PLEASE HELP!

Dig out that photo you took in Limousin last year, or in the Pyrenees the year before, send it along, and hopefully together we can build the ‘ultimate online guide to France’. What a warm cuddly feeling we will all have then.