Soutth West France - thoughts?

[Colinfirth]

Is it nice?
Where would you go?
Any specific recommendations?
Any thoughts most gratefully received!

It's lovely, you will like

Carcassonne - try that. Find a nice villa and explore

South West, I meant. thank you Quattrocento. Will look at Carcassonne

Any thoughts on where by the sea is nice?

We stayed in a nice place in Perpignan once - not quite on the sea, but close. The "artist" town of collioure (sp?) is very pretty - you can get a cheap flight into Gerona and then drive up. I'd also recommend going to the safari park at Sigean. We've been twice now!

Sigean

Thanks legalalien, looks interesting. anyone got experience of St Jean-de-luz or Biarritz?

We go every year. We have a house in a tiny village not too far from Bergerac.

It's a lovely part of France. Quite a few Brits about but that means finding a villa to rent is easy.

There's a lovely medieval village not far from ours that has a fab, very busy market. It's called Issegeac.

Do you want in town or rural?

We're going to Argelliers in August. Heard it's really nice and there's a spectacular lake nearby. will find out name and let you know.

Stripey, we are staying in a gite just outside Bergerac this summer for the first time. Please tell me more about the area!

ooh, stripey, my parents live in St Avit Senieur, and we went to Issegeac last year - blummin gorgeous! It's such a lovely area isn't it? We're going in early June, flights with Ryanair [spit!] for £36! We're only taking hand luggage, but still. £6 for flights and £30 for the card transaction

And they own a gite, next to their house. Lovely gite, but better for older children IMO.

Hi apple, whereabouts are you staying?

It's very beautiful countryside, very French, what you'd expect really; lots of vineyards, lots of pretty villages, lots of red geraniums the French are so keen on.

Bergerac airport is very quaint, more a shack in a field but the customs men are still very grumpy.

Songbird, we're going last two weeks in august, DP doesn't like it too hot so we go later in season and have to fit in with school hols but managed to get flights with the hated Ryanair for 99p each way(bargain!) but then they do love to add on extras don't they? £30 card charge for me too

St Jean de Luz is lovely if you fancy being near the coast - great beach and lovely town.

Watch out for the waves on the beach though - friends went last year and said even the adults couldn't swim in the sea (too rough).

we are staying near a place called La Force. We have only been to the north of France before so looking forward to a change.

In your experience, would an outside pool be a tolerable temperature in July?

If you want somewhere in lovely scenery with everything on hand to keep the children entertained for 2 weeks then I'd recommend www.leshiboux.comin Poitou Charentes, the gites are great and have trampolines, games rooms, swings, bowls pitch, pool, football pitch, snooker, table tennis, darts etc etc

Not sure if this will be South West enough for you, but it's a lovely area with lots to see and do www.directalpinesun.com/Peemor/Peemor.htm

Thanks for all of these thoughst everyone, will sift through and ponder! Quite excited now...

Biarritz great too

We stayed here 2 yrs ago. Budget flights to La Rochelle and car hire from airport - it's about 35 mins drive south near Marennes. We had a baby and a 3 yr old at the time and it was very child friendly and fairly inexpensive. We went the first week of Sept (when it's even cheaper) and it was less than the equivalent 3/4 nts at Longleat CP at the time even with flights, car hire & gite hire!