France next year - lovely town, pool or beach, lots to do

[Effjay]

Hi there,
I'm looking for ideas for a French holiday next year. We're not really into camping, so ideally looking for a hotel with family rooms or apartment or villa with a nice swimming pool. We have 2 DCs, who will be 6 and 8 next year. I think I'd prefer Southern France to get the better weather. We'd like to be in a town or small city, maybe by the coast. We went to Biarritz this year and loved it, so something similar would be great. Any recommendations gratefully received!

Ile de Re, off the coast of La Rochelle
South gets incredibly hot in summer , if you have little ones.

Menton, squeezed in between Italy and Monte Carlo. V hot in June-Aug, better in Sept.

Oo, thanks both. We're not too bad in the heat as we tend to siesta on holiday and enjoyed Malta a couple of years back. Will look up both of those suggestions now

Sorry,missed that your dc are school age, so Sept is no good to you!

We stayed in a villa near St Paul de Vence this summer. It had its own pool, and we drove down, so we had the car. We got out and about a lot, using the train or the car. It's very traffic-y down there, so the train works really well.

We all loved it, and didn't want to come home.

In particular, if you do go to the South of France, have a look at the isles de Lerin. You can get to them from ferries leaving from Cannes. There are two. Isle de St Marguarite has a fort containing roman ruins, an old prison, where the Man in the Iron Mask was held, and a museum and (very) small aquarium. There is also a lagoon which is a bird sanctuary.

Isle de St Honorat has a medieval fortified monastery, which is absolutely Beautiful. It's the smaller of the two, and very lovely. The island is inhabited by monks, and they make wine there. We didn't intend to go there, but on the day we decided to go to St Marguerite, we got to the ferry to discover that the museum was shut, so we went there instead. An absolute highlight of the trip!

Fréjus and St Aygulf are both lovely, but I can't recommend any hotels. We usually hire a mobile home

Sanity Clause, that sounds great - we love those sort of days out trips. We probably won't have the car and I know there is a good train service down there, so I'll check out your recommendations too.

Oh, our villa had a shared pool, rather than its own. I think if we went to stay there again (which I hope we will) we would try to find something in Antibes.

I would go for Antibes/Juan les Pins. The train makes it really easy to get up and down the coast.