Family holiday on French Coast

E

Emptypockets

Registered User
Messages
21
Hi guys,

Hoping to go for a weeks holiday from miserable, dreary and wet Ireland to sunny, dry and hot France via the ferry - need to take car to carry 4 kids about! Want to book a villa/cottage/house to accommodate 6/7 people and kids within close proximity to a beach. Don't know anything about the different coastal areas in France and could do with some advice - anyone found any decent websites, offers or experiences??

Thanks in anticipation!
 
A week's hols in France is very short, considering the ferry will take up 2 days and you'll spend at least 2 1/2 days driving to get to where you are staying.
 
AT the moment the weather in France is a bit variable, just like here! Check out the weather of where you want to go.
 

Just back from France, two weeks in the midlands. Weather was brutal - sunny for two days. The sailing over was apalling, 19hrs - very very rough seas, nearly everybody aboard was sick - then had to drive 8-10 hrs to get to where we were staying - a week is definitely not enough, we only settled into the holiday on the 5th day. Place we were staying was nice but in future I will only ever fly to France!
 
Yes have to agree with other replies. Just back from France. Ferry was 18 hours - bad news... We had terrible weather - Rained for the full week. Not worth it. Would not think of France again for a long time. Fly drive might be a better option and certainly to get any good weather you need to stay for longer than a week. On a better note I am off to Wales on Monday on the fast thing from Rosslaire to Fishgard. Hope that will be better...
 
The south east coast is your best bet. From St Raphael to St Tropez (flight to Nice) although around Beziers is probably cheaper and maybe easier to get to (Ryanair to Perpignan or Carcassone). If you take the ferry the Vendee (half way down on the west coast) has a fantastic network of cycle paths which give you a totally different type of holiday. You can rent bikes and kids bikes, kids seats, little trailers, everything....I hadn't cycled in 15 years and had the best time recently cycling around the vendee (sometimes in the rain and thunder) with a four year old on the back of my bike. www.holiday-rentals.co.uk is good for villa rentals and www.vendee-gites.com is okay for the vendee. Brittany Ferries is much more comfortable than Irish Ferries.
 
I'd agree that a week is rather short to take the ferry — you'll lose a day each way on the crossing, plus another day each way driving, if you go any distance southwards — which you'll have to do to be guaranteed hot weather. I'd give careful consideration to a fly/drive option; you may even find that ryanair flights and car rental for a week cost less than the ferry, in August. (2 adults + 4 kids = 2 cabins @ >€120?)

Have you checked out the key post on Camping in France?
 
We go over to France on average about twice a year. More often than not we take the ferry. Only once did we take the ferry and drive south- to Monaco/Menton. While the area was absolutely fantastic and the weather was wonderful I would not do that drive again. After the ferry you are basically spending the next day and night and following morning on a motorway ( assuming you stop at some motel type place on the way). If you want to go south then I would certainly be looking at a fly/drive.

If you want to stay north then the ferry is grand. We tend to holiday in Normandy, but Brittany is great too. If you google village vacances you will find lots of child friendly holiday villages which are fantastic for keeping the kids happy and active. These are all over France and are really good value.

We were over in June in Normandy and the weather was mainly great- we had about 3 days out of two weeks when it rained but the rest of the time it was in the low 20s, sun shining. Mind you while we were there there were flash floods in the South.

I think the first thing you should do is see how much of a priority the weather is for you- if its very important you really should head south, and if that's the case you should consider flying. Or even a package holiday to Menorca or the likes which might end up being cheaper.
 
We are returning this saturday to France and staying in the Carnac area - about a 3 hour drive. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac

for info.

The agency we rented of this year is

www.vacances-villas.com

They actually have some last minute deals on houses and apt.

Thanks to all those posters sharing the good news about the weather...looks like we'lll be packing wellies rather than trunks.
 
emul said:
.....We are returning this Saturday to France and staying in the Carnac area.....
Click to expand...
We're off to Carnac as well in two week's time. We rented a mobile home on the La Grande Metairie campsite on an accommodation-only basis from Kelair, who also do package holidays. Hope the wretched weather improves.....
 
Was in France for 3 weeks and returnd end of July.

Went to Southern Vendee - lovely weather about 23 degrees. 1 poor day.

You must go down about 5-6 hours from Roscoff to have the best chance of good weather without having to drive too far.

La Grande Metairie (3 hrs down) in Carnac is nice with a lovely big pool complex.

Enjoy your holidays.
 
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