Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Hello organs.

Me and the Missus are starting to plan a holiday in France.

We'll be travelling in a car from Bilbao to Calais over a period of two weeks.

I'd like any recommendations for nice places to go, bed and breakfasts and campsites.

Thanking you kindly.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

stay at home, your that far south you may as well be french anyway

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

I forgot to mention;

If you're an Irishman called Dave who lives in Preston please DO NOT reply.

Thanks.

:smt098

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Up the coast via Il D'oleron. You can then have a peep at Fort Boyard, some beautiful sea food places, its the capital of Oyster beds there, if you like that sort of thing, gorgeous coast line
Wave at my best mate first though, and call in for a brew, she lives in Les Nouillers, which if you're using the A10 nest to St Jean D'angley( on the map, slap bang between Rochefort smelly cheese and .. Cognac brandy...:)

All in all, make you wish you were on the bike!

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Just a few thoughts.

Can't particularly recommend places to stay as it's a while since I was in south western France. Life seems very slow in that neck of the woods. St Jean de Luz, just across the French border, is a quaint old fishing port, very Basque, worth a stop. Bayonne is well worth a visit. As in St Jean, they speak Basque as a first language rather than French. I thought Biarritz was disappointing and wouldn't bother again.

Bordeaux is a lovely city, St Emilion (not far from Bordeaux) is also a worth a visit but don't buy anything at the overpriced wine shops. La Rochelle is the big daddy I think, stunning fortified harbour, and a fantastic old town. Worth spending a few days, there's a lot to see - include a boat trip round the harbour. We sat at a quayside resto (expensive though) and whiled away a hot lunchtime and afternoon getting slowly pickled. The English attacked the town in 1628, you can still see some of the damage to the towers at the harbour. You'd probabably then head inland, Tours is simply fantastic - really lovely town, one of the finest in France I think.

After that - depends which way you go...

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Thanks folks.

Keep 'em coming please!

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

If you go via Loches (which is a nice little town, I can't remember what hotel we were in as it was 1996, it may have been this one) you can go visit the famous Lascaux caves (cave paintings! more interesting than it sounds!)

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Carcassone is a great place to stop for a couple of days, one of the largest medieval cities in the world (I think) and not far from Millau (big bridge) and the Tarn Gorge (amazing roads)

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Cahors. It's a beautiful town almost enclosed in a bend of the river Lot, and has a fortified medieval bridge, the Pont Valentre to the west, lovely place.

Also Chenonceau, the Chateau there is beautiful, (also it's about 25 miles or so from the above metioned Loche).

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

if you need to stop over try Hotel Diderot in Chinon,

Chinon town centre was great at night

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

A big +1 to those suggestions!

Plus the French down that way seem to hate the English a bit less than those in the North of the county...

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

mont st micheal (prob spelt wrong) is defo worth a look if a little expensive

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

we, stayed here, it's a lovely quiet town, with small campsite, the fort would be worth a visit, Givet is a commune in the Ardennes department in northern France very close to the Belgian border. It lies on the river Meuse where Emperor Charles V built the fortress of Charlemont.
Later on, another building was added to the fort, the Caserne Rougé, the longest barracks of France at that time, named after Pierre François, Marquis de Rougé, general of the French armies k.a. 1761.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

In the foothills of the Pyrenees but a little way off your probable route is the town of Condom. Totally unrelated to the prophylactics of the same name, it's worth taking the time to investigate Condom, I mean rather than to press on regardless. I hear that it has a nice, safe feel about it. The Condom experience adds heightened pleasure to any trip.

Edit - PS, probably not wise to go in the height of summer as Condom can get very wet, and full to bursting.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

He he he. That's a good one. Maybe we'll take in Brest too!

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Good thinking. But don't go anywhere near Aas.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

WHAT! I'm there already...

The Missus has already made up a map with most of your suggestions on!

I've just thought of a place I heard of where you can sleep in little houses carved into caves. I'll have to look it up.

Thanks. Keep 'em coming though!

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Depends on your route, but if you are going up through that side of france ish, then I can heartily suggest you stop by Le Mans, and take a trip down the Mulsane straight and a few other bits of the circuit that is on the public road.

If you are into motorsport like I am, it really made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as we thumped along the Mulsanne Straight. It'll only take you 1/2 hr or so for that and if its kinda of on your way well it would be rude not to...

Again I dont know your route, but we found a quality campsite in Thiviers

http://www.camping-thiviers-perigord...d-contact.html

Decent site, food & a little bar on site with a pool. Probalby not a huge amount to do, but certainly a place to stop a night or two and recharge the batteries.

Dont know if that helps or not...

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

It's all helpful Fizz thanks. I very much like the idea of the Le Mans detour.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

I've spent many an idle hour perusing the campings on Cybevasion . Quite useful.

If you want a scenic route I'd definitely support the suggestions for the Millau viaduct and then the Tarn Gorge. I really like the Massif Centrale generally, you can find some pretty wild areas. They do tend to get fearsome electric storms in summer though.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Yeah, the Gorge du Tarn is amazing, we stayed in a really nice hotel there, I need to ask my parents what it was called as I'd love to go back.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

If you go to the Gorge Du Tarn take short detour to see Aven Armand.

You travel a 300 feet down into a vast cavern where there are hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites, many are millions of years old and truly enormous, breathtaking, you have to see it to believe it.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Ooh lovely. I like that sort of stuff.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

No-one has mentioned Arles yet, so I'll chuck that into the ring. Worth a visit just for the Roman amphitheatre, as seen in Ronin. Then you could drive through the camargue, with its white horses, black bulls and flamingoes, to Saintes Maries De La Mer. From there, head back to Nimes and take the D999 to Sauclieres, and then the D991 through the Gorges de Dourbie to Millau.

Funnily enough, we're doing that in June! :D

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Pont Du Gard. Three tiered Roman aqueduct, you can't climb over it like you used to be able to, but it's still well worth a look.

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Thanks for all of your suggestions folks.

We went to a little town near Tours for three days, went to a village near Cahors for another three, camped in a lovely place down the road from the Gorge Du Tarn for three days followed by another three days in a converted pigsty in the (pretty scary) Pyrenees with Florac as the nearest town.

All in we basically travelled all the way down through France from Caen and covered virtually 2000 miles coming home on an overnight ferry from Bilbao.

We done the Mulsane straight (thanks Fizz and Squid!) and as it was just after the 24 hour race there was lots of protection still out so even better. We also saw the Gorge Du Tarn, albeit from the road, the Millau bridge, Chenonceau and Aven Amand. We also managed to see about 4 or 5 of the 100 most beautiful (as voted by ??) villages in France. When we win the lottery we'll be buying a camper van and doing the other 95.

It was a lovely holiday and I even managed to pick up a fiancé on the way!

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

+1

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

+1 on the fiancée :D

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Re: Recommendations requested for places to stay in France please
 

Try here as well, near LeMans, english, excellent hospitality and there's nothing wrong with the wine ;) http://www.lalunelake.co.uk/Bed_%26_Breakfast.html if anyone thinking of going again.