A warm welcome to France For Families’ 14th newsletter.  Here we are once again – Christmas is done and dusted for another year; we’ve enjoyed New Year celebrations and 2007 has begun – wet and windy! What better time to start making holiday plans for the year ahead - if you have’nt already started - and hopefully we can help make this whole process a bit easier. On the France For Families’ website all aspects of your holiday are covered, starting with the planning stages, and most importantly where to go and where to stay. Then, check out the France For Families pages for advice and/or booking of your travel to/from France.

Home swaps

If you have’nt tried Home Swapping before then maybe 2007 is the year to give it a try. We have a new page dedicated to the Home Swap concept following feedback from a France For Families ‘reader’ who cannot recommend it enough, especially because it saves so much money and enables you to experience real French living.  If this idea is new to you then check it out here. Who knows, it might revolutionize your holidays!

Vive La France
Another excellent place to get ideas on where to go and what to do on holiday is at the Vive La France exhibition at Olympia in London. Go to www.vivelafrance.co.uk for further details and prices, which this year start from as little as £8.50, including a booking fee. This year the exhibition runs from Friday 19th January to Sunday 21st January and we can highly recommend a trip for a first class day out. This year there are four shows combined under one roof:- The French Food and wine Show, The French Lifestyle and Culture Show, The French Travel and Tourism Show and The French Property Exhibition. With all that there is on offer there is sure to be something to suit everyone.

Book Reviews

Off on holiday?  Need some reading material?  Then look no further. Here at France For Families we thought we’d trial an occasional book review to help whet your appetite. The book market is flooded with books on just about every aspect of French life that you can think of. These range from auto-biographical accounts of life in France, to novels, literary works, histories of France, how to relocate to France, advice on buying a French property and much, much more. If any of them take your fancy then why not check out www.amazon.co.uk for some great deals! This issue we have chosen an autobiographical book, a history and a trilogy to review.

The Ripening Sun by Patricia Atkinson
This is the story of one woman’s endeavours to create her own vineyard in the heart of the Bergerac wine region. In fact, it is more than simply a narrative about the pitfalls and ups and downs of being a viticulturist. It is also the story of the community surrounding Clos d’Yvigne and the part the inhabitants played in her life. The book has quite a lot of technical detail about the actual processes involved in wine-making (fascinating for the uninitiated), but this is counterbalanced with light-hearted anecdotes about the people the author comes in daily contact with.

We saved reading this book until one summer when we were holidaying nearby ‘en famille’, as we felt we would appreciate the book all the more by actually being there. And so it turned out to be. Unfortunately an excursion to the wine estate turned out to be a disappointment as Patricia Atkinson had ‘shut up shop’ and gone to England for a holiday!! Tant pis!

A Traveller’s History of France by Robert Cole

If you would like an awareness of French history but don’t have 3 years to spend reading text books, then we recommend Robert Cole’s gem of a book. It takes you through the entire history of France in about 190 pages in an easy-going and entertaining style. It is part of a series of books giving potted histories of several European countries and is primarily aimed at the holiday-maker, rather than serious students of history. 

This is a good introduction to French history and has whet our appetite to read further into such subjects as Louis XIV (The Sun King), the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the de Gaulle era. The nitty-gritty is interspersed with anecdotes. Did you know, for example, that the son of the man who climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris following the Liberation of that great city in 1944, re-enacted his father’s feat 50 years later in 1994.

Firelight and Woodsmoke, Applewood, Scent of Herbs by Claude Michelet

Written from personal experience by French writer Claude Michelet this is a wonderful epic of one family – the Vialhe Family – set in rural France from the turn of the twentieth century up to the 1980s.  It follows the fortunes of the family as they live out their lives in the village of Saint Libéral in the southern Corrèze region, close to the Dordogne. As an example of a social history written in narrative style it is first class. The first book sees the family begin to fall apart as the younger generation rebel against the ‘old ways’ and the terror of WW1 takes its toll.

The second book continues from the 1930’s through to the early 70’s taking in the horrors and after-effects of WW2. The final book in the trilogy shows how the Vialhe family and the villagers have to move with the times if they are to survive in modern day France. This comes highly recommended.

French School Holiday Dates

Below you will find the new dates for the French School holidays in 2007 which may prove useful in the short term if you are planning skiing holidays or days away later in the year.

NB. Pentecost Monday is a holiday for all schools and colleges.  The above dates fixed by the national school system can be modified locally.

Focus on Normandy

Our tour round France in our special ‘Focus on……’ series takes us this time round to Normandy.  This is an ideal choice as a holiday destination for families who do not wish to spend too much time in the car or travel too far in terms of distance. Being from the London region ourselves, it is all too easy to forget that for many people a trip to France often involves a whole day of travelling even before you reach French soil! Links are good to Normandy from the UK with Caen, Dieppe, Cherbourg and St.Malo all easily accessible ports. Even a journey from the northern ports or using Eurotunnel is manageable with excellent roads from Calais to Caen. A suggested route is A16, A28 (at Abbeville), A29 and you are in Upper Normandy. Carry on over the Pont du Normandie and then via A13 for routes throughout Lower Normandy.

The Normandy section of the France For Families web-site has recently been comprehensively updated, so there is now even more to tempt you to the area. For the sporty minded why not check out the new cycling section. With bicycles now available to suit every member of the family there is no excuse to being a couch potato on holiday! Alternatively the very brave (or foolhardy) could go bungee jumping!  If history is something you enjoy search out the Bayeux Tapestry or visit any one of the many World War Two sites associated with D-Day in June 1944. We even have a Tour of the Battlefields that you can do that at least helps to take the planning phase out of a day’s excursion!

The coastline is superb, giving the Normandy region special appeal to families. Beaches here are some of the best in France. Worthy of special mention are those on the west side of the Cotentin Peninsula and along the Landing Sites east and west of Arromanches. The cliffs in Upper Normandy offer a different perspective on the coastline, especially around Etretat.  Inland doesn’t disappoint, with many pretty villages, for example Beuvron-en-Auge; some offering attractions which can be visited as well, like Villedieu-les-Poêles, as well as gardens and chateaux to visit. The most well-known of these being Giverny, former home of the painter Claude Monet.

Children are particularly well catered for in Normandy. Aside from the obvious beach attractions, there are zoos, a miniature railway, the butterfly centre at Honfleur and an Aquarium at Cherbourg to name but a few.

All in all we think Normandy has lots to offer the discerning holiday-maker and hope that you do too!

Skiing

If you are heading off to the ski slopes then you might find this new web-site useful for updated snow information.  Following an appalling start to the skiing season it looks like most resorts are now getting some snow in time for the half term holidays.  In addition don’t forget that the France For Families pages offer lots of advice on all aspects of organizing your skiing holiday.

All that remains for us to say is Bonne Année and happy holiday planning for 2007!