I like to start my vacations in France. For me, flying into Paris is easy, and I can often find non-stop flights from San Francisco. Plus, Paris is central to most destinations in Europe, and the countryside I'll drive or rail through is always diverse and interesting. Then there is that special deal on French "rental" cars, the buyback lease, where I can pick up a brand new car fully insured, drive it for at least 17 days, and return it--all for pretty much the same price of a beat-up old rental car.
France as a Tourist Destination
France stretches from the chilly waters of the English channel to the warm shores of the Mediterranean. The climatic and geological diversity contributes to interesting regional variations in language, cuisine, wine, and art. You can spend a lifetime exploring the variations of these themes.
How to plan a trip through France? When I don't have a particular destination in mind, I head off to a web site that I consider one of the best for vacation planning and lodging combined into one - Logis de France.
Logis de France are independently owned hotel/restaurants specially selected to offer good value. The establishments are selected for their reflection of local taste and cuisine. The well-organized web site integrates the local attractions with your search for lodging quite well. Often, I'll just plan a route through France based on general direction I want to go, then see which hotel stop is near an interesting attraction. Often I plan a drive of no more than 200 km each day, stopping at an area I can take the rest of the day to explore. Then I'll go back to the hotel and eat dinner, since that's the other side of Logis de France: each hotel has a restaurant devoted to serving fresh local specialties.
French regional cuisine is as varied as the landscape. In the north you'll find butter and cow cheeses, while in the south food is cooked in olive oil, and cheeses come mostly from sheep and goat milk.
France has a wonderful cheese tradition. After your meal, ignore those sugary treats and try some local cheeses instead; it may be the last chance you'll have of tasting them. New EU regulations will most certainly doom the more flavorful raw milk cheeses to a corporate/political death.
A note about board and half board
In France (and Italy as well) there is a tradition of boarding (no, it's not that hockey thing where you bang a guy into the boards so hard that his teeth rattle around in his skull). When you see the price of a hotel room at a hotel/restaurant, you'll probably notice the price of the room for one or two people followed by the price of "full board" and "half-board." Be aware that the price of the "board" and "half-board" is a per-person price. That's why it seems so outragiously reasonable.
Half board gives you the choice of lunch or dinner and breakfast, while full board includes all three meals. There are often additional limitations on the menu (you'll be charged extra if you order the lobster in champagne sauce with foie gras instead of the steak hache (hamburger steak) for example.
In any case, the price of these package deals can save a few Euros in most cases. If you find yourself at dinner thinking "I should have asked for half board" ask your waiter, it still may be possible to get it if you order eligible menu items.
Gites - Self Catering Vacation Rentals
I know that after a week or two of staying in a rural hotel each night, I'm going to want to bed down somewhere for a protracted time to get my bearings, and to wash out some clothes. That's where the gite comes in.
A Gite is the French term for a vacation house. You can rent them by the week from web sites like Gite de France. It's pretty much the same deal as Logis de France--a good site with lots of tourism information for all regions of France, as well as some categories offering suggestions for people with small children and camping on the farm.
Airport hotels in France
The other web site I may have to use in planning my vacation is the Accor web site. You know these people; they bought motel 6 in the US and upgraded the rooms so now you won't worry what you might encounter when they leave the lights on for you.
You're likely to find Accor's servicable Ibis hotels in city centers (called "centre ville" in France). You'll also find them at airports. These are plain but air conditioned corporate boxes, but offer fine, modern accomodations and decent beds at a reasonable cost.
On the road you might look for another Accor hotel: the Formule1 chain. Costing quite a bit less than Ibis, they're mostly for tourists looking for cheap lodging. Most are just outside towns. They're mostly modern and servicable, with do-it-yourself breakfasts.
France Lodging Resources
You'll find the web sites mentioned in this article, plus a couple of other good ones, in our France Lodging Directory.
Click next for French Transportation Tips.
