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The heart of Gascony the Gers département (32 Midi-Pyrenees) offers what I consider to be the real “France profonde” - quiet, peaceful, gently rolling countryside with a distant view of the Pyrenees. You are miles away from the turbulence of the city and its traffic and fumes. The only very ocassional reminder is a speeding jet of the French Air Force and the high vapour trails of planes crossing the continent.
Yet this does not have to be a rural scene without modern facilities, nor without careful design and style as you will discover at the B&B Chambres d’Hote Les Chenes Verts de Gascogne:

Our Bed and Breakfast is a large restored 17th century gascony stone farmhouse set in 3 hectares of garden with four ensuite bedrooms and swimming pool. Situated in beautiful countryside with outstanding views, surrounded by vines and ideally placed for visiting the many historical sites, tasting the wines and armagnac at the local domaines, shopping at the local markets, visiting the Thermal Spa, house hunting or just lazing by the pool in its tranquil setting.

Here Julie-Ann and her family have magnificently restored an old stone farmhouse into a comfortable and elegant place to stay, with four ensuite bedrooms - 3 with kingsize beds and 1 with twin double beds. Outside there is 12mx6m swimming pool, a garden with covered shaded terrace and wonderful views over the countryside (see photos)

Although somewhat isolated from hustle and bustle (situated north west of Auch at Bezolles) there is nevertheless plenty to do in the region - follow the traces of the Three Musketeers and d’Artagnan, explore the charming towns and their markets or go wine- or Armagnac-hunting!

The house is surrounded by the vines of Domaine Camp du Haut producers of Madiran and Armagnac and Julie-Ann can introduce you to the owners of the Domaine for a tasting - and at least you could walk back afterwards!

In addition they have a very good and elegant website which offers online booking - see www.leschenesvertsdegascogne.com

Les Chenes Verts De Gascogne, la Bourdette, Gers France 32310

T:00 33 562 28 90 50 F: 00 33 562 29 28 51

see our map and more info on the area

cforms contact form by delicious:days

For more info and photos click Read more on this…

The Telegraph(28 Mar 08) has been running a series on eating locally in the UK, both to be environmentally friendly and to discover quality food beyond the supermarket shelves. It’s not too much to extend the focus another 22 miles across the English Channel to Calais( 59 Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais) - train and ferry are both environmentally relatively benign, and into the bargain you benefit from the French obsession with quality produce.

There is a grand marché every Saturday morning in the Place Crève Coeur, where farmers bring freshly dug produce from their smallholdings. Look out for the lush, locally grown broad-leaved watercress and extra-long leeks.

Inside the covered market, buy ripe-flavoured, air-dried sausages - I loved the dark meat of the wild boar (sanglier), the pork with walnuts and the rich, buttery tarts filled with prunes and custard or savoury cheese, smoked pork belly and onion.

This is also the place to buy an athletically built poulet fermier (farmyard chicken), mussels, live langoustines and little fresh goat’s cheeses made 10km from Calais. If you want to avoid dull hotel breakfasts, note that the market cafés serve only coffee.

Instead, nip around the corner to the Café l’Impérial in Rue Lafayette for croissants and petit pains, but expect to share it with the café’s honoured canine guests.

But even in France, and especially in the larger towns, these traditions are being threatened by edge-of-town super/hypermarkets which inevitably threaten small producers and retailers. Calais has more than its fair share, especially with the Cité Europe Mall near the Channel Tunnel terminal. Tesco and Sainsburys are key players attracting many Brits who prefer the familiarity of known brands rather than the more risky adventure into foreign environments, French people who do not (or will not) speak English, and produce which is not uniform in shape or colour or nicely wrapped in plastic.

The escape route from the ferry terminal whisks you away onto the autoroute system via a chemical works and the usual untidy landscape of warehouses and freight yards, but it is worth exploring the town of Calais itself, which does retain the character of a fairly typical French town, with its impressive Town Hall (Hotel de Ville), markets and small shops.

And despite the disatrous exchange rate with the Euro there are still bargains to be had (especially on wine and spirits after the budget), ferry crossings are still cheap and the gallic atmosphere is free!

Fuel prices in France, now much the same as in the UK (except that Diesel remains cheaper) reflect the double impact of increasing oil costs and the poorer exchange rate:
Exchange rate £1.00 = € 1.2254 (as at 27 March 08)
Unleaded (sans plomb 95) € 1.345 = £1.10 per litre
Super unleaded (sans plomb 98) € 1.369 = £1.12 per litre
Diesel (gazole) € 1.2390 = £1.01 per litre.

Majestic Wine & Beer World in Calais - Pre Order over £400 of wine and beer from Majestic and get a FREE ferry crossing or £30 off!

Waitrose (online and in its stores) launches its French Wine Showcase on 26 March 08 - running through to 27 April 2008 this will feature a total of 48 wines.

As well as our usual French favourites, the showcase will also see the launch of four new wines to the range, including the delightful Taittinger Rose NV and the excellent value Domaine des Eyssards Bergerac Rouge.

Unusually for a major supermarket (and greatly to be welcomed) Waitrose will be featuring 13 specially sourced small parcel wines from a wide range of less well-known appellations such as:

Quincy (crisp Sauvignon Blancs from the Loire), Provence and Lirac (Southern Rhone) and the wonderfully unusual Pierre Boniface Domaine des Rocailles Apremont de Savoie 2007 and La Bastide Blanche Bandol (rich Mourvedre red from east of Marseille).

Waitrose Wine Direct

Leucate (11 Aude, Langedoc) is a peninsula which juts out into the Mediterranean and encompasses an inland sea south of Narbonne and is the gateway to the Parc Naturel Régional de la Narbonnaise en Méditerranée. With 16km of Mediterranean coast on one side and ponds and lakes on the other, this is a rich marine environment.

It’s exposure to the sea makes it an ideal place for wind-sports such as wind- and kite-surfing and the world championships (Mondial du Vent) from the 12-20 April 2008.

The area is quite exposed to the winds off the sea and the Tramontane wind down from the Pyrenees - great for the surfers, but not so ideal if you want to explore the park or take advantage of the many cycle paths available.

Nearby you’ll find the vines of the coastal enclave of the wines of Fitou AC (excellent rich reds) and further south the wines of the Cotes du Roussillon AC, including some good Muscats from Rivesaltes.

For more info see www.mondial-du-vent.com and

for info on Leucate see www.leucate.net

There are many options for getting to France from the UK by plane - budget airlines in particular offering a wide range of departure points and destinations. And, as most flights are 2 hours or less the lack of legroom and inflight catering is seldom a problem. We have listed over 45 scheduled routes (excluding Paris) which shows the range of options now available.

The main problem is that the routes often change from season to season (e.g. some routes run more in the winter for skiing in the Alps or Pyrenees), and some routes are withdrawn if traffic levels are insufficient.

We shall try to make this information as comprehensive and reliable as we can, but you should always check schedules, dates etc with your travel agent or direct with the airline.The following is a list of direct flights, but remember you can also reach many more locations within France and Corsica by travelling via Paris and connecting with French domestic routes or through some of the Budget Airlines connections within Europe.

We have excluded Paris as most regional airports offer flights to Paris.

updated April 2008

Marseille features in the Independent (22 Mar 08) as being one of the top 10 travel terminals in the World for its new airport terminal, but a brickbat for the Marseille Ferry Port as one of the grimmest.

A new-look terminal, named MP2, opened at Marseille/Provence airport at Merignane especially for low-cost flying. Uniquely the terminal is designed to eliminate many services (and the associated costs) normally provided at airports. So passangers will take bags to the scanners themselves to reduce reliance on check-in staff and people will walk across the tarmac before boarding - no buses or walkways. All very much in the “no frills” mode, but at least the airport tax will be halved for domestic flights and reduced by up to 85% on European flights. The décor inside the terminal is also be “cheap and cheerful” with a combination of pink and green, purportedly symbolising a new dawn and a new way of travelling.

I suspect that if the terminal works efficiently and processes you and your baggage quickly and easily then who can bemoan the lack of other facilities. On the other hand it could be a little more trying if there are significant delays.

Terminal One remains and will continue to be more traditional, albeit hopefully less crowded than before for those travelling with the major airlines and paying more (usually).

At the other end of the scale, the Marseille Ferry Port is far from welcoming - delapidated industrial infrastructure which is reminiscent of Marseille’s rather dubious and dangerous reputation. But it is a gateway for reaching many other parts of the western Mediterranean including Corsica, Sardinia and north Africa.

The other alternative connection for Marseille is of course with the train, with Eurostar from another of the featured top 10 terminals i.e. the new St Pancras Internation station in London. The TGV line down through France to Marseille is very fast and goes through some glorious scenery as it tracks the Rhone Valley into Provence.

Your destination is then the Gare St Charles (see picture above) with its spectacular staircase (escalier) outside - a very traditional and ornate 19th Century railway terminus in the centre of the city. In the summer you can get from London to Marseille with a change of platforms in Lille, rather than a change of stations in Paris (Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon).

You can book train tickets direct from the UK to any destination in France (via Eurostar, TGV and SNCF) through RailEurope

Book Ferry tickets from Marseille with aferry.to to destinations including Corsica, Sardinia, Ajaccio, Algiers, Bastia, Calvi, Oran, Tangier and Tunis

Commission Free Euros
from the Post Office Exchange Rate as at 22 march 2008: €1.2349 = £1.00

The port of Brest (20 Finistere, Bretagne) hosts its Maritime Festival from 11-17 July 2008. This major Atlantic port has a long and proud maritime history most recently as a departure point for Atlantic liner crossings.

It is not a static collection of boats on display but rather lively fleets and crews in action… offering genuine scenes and the authentic ambiance of a port in full operation.
From morning till night, hundreds of sailboats, all different, cast off, sail and race, then they return to the harbour, with thousands of sailors onboard. Nautical activities, spontaneous or organised, follow one after the other within the harbour shelter, to the great delight of visitors on the quays…

A few days earlier the Tour de France cycle race starts its 3 week ride in Brest with the accompanying celebrations.

For more on the Mariticme Festival see www.brest2008.fr
For more on the Tour de France see www.letour.fr

The organic vineyard of Chateau Haut Garrigue in the village of Saussignac (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) near Bergerac has it all - a wonderful situation overlooking the Dordogne valley; a self-contained gite “The Grape Escape”, friendly English-speaking (well, Irish) hosts and a real opportunity to see and learn more about wine and wine-making (if that’s what you want!).

Allez Vins! used to import wines from this domaine when it was run by its previous owners, but now it is being run organically under the title “Wild Earth Vineyards” by the enthusiastic and innovative new owners, Sean and Caroline Feely.

The Grape Escape, our well-equipped 4-person gite (self-catering holiday house) is surrounded by organic vineyards and offers fabulous views across the Dordogne valley. It is semi-detached from the main farmhouse facing onto the courtyard on one side and onto the vines on the two sides built out over the vineyard.

As our guests, you are very welcome to spend time with us to learn about our wine and winemaking, taste our wines and perhaps even take part in vineyard or winery activity depending on the time of year and your energy!

No chance for me to taste their wine yet - they produce red, rosé and white Bergerac AC wines and semi-sweet and botytised dessert Saussignac AC wines. (If you want to try them they will be showing their wines at the Real Food Festival at Earls Court, London from 24-27 April 2008).

For more info on the gite, wines and other offerings contact Chateau Haut Garrigue

See map and more info on the area 

Its “Portes Ouvertes” in the Medoc on 12-13 April 2008. In this famous and celebrated wine region numerous chateaux will be holding open house in the prime appellations of Medoc, Haut-Medoc, St Estephe, Pauillac, Moulis-en-Medoc, Listrac-Medoc and Margaux.
This prized area which stretches north from Bordeaux up to the Pointe de Grave between the Atlantic and the mouth of the Gironde is home to some of the best wines in the world, so any opportunity to visit and taste is a great opportunity.
However, you are unlikely to be offered a sip of the finest old vintages, but samples of the latest 2007 vintage will be available in its very young and rather green and tannic state.
Many of the Chateaux are also hosting other events alongside the tastings - music, art or photography exhibitions and food in various forms. Just visiting these chateaux should be an experience, and tastings should be interesting!

For more info see www.pauillac-medoc.com

If you are visiting the southern Rhone, one site you must not miss is the fantastic Roman aqueduct - a three-level bridge across the Gard river carrying both road and water. Recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is one of France’s top five visitor attractions,
It is a truly impressive site - but you probably need to get there early to enjoy the place without too many crowds.
Nearby you could stay at Brigitte’s B&B at Les Alouettes near Uzes (30 Gard) -
See map
For more info on the Pont du Gard see www.pontdugard.fr
For more on Brigitte’s B&B at Les Allouettes………… Read more on this…