Hello from Melbourne, Australia

[Scopher]

I joined this forum to learn as much as possible about travelling in Europe, France in particular. I am a big fan of the French culture, food and their historical buildings just to name a few.

I am hoping to spend 3 months travelling through the country next year and as a photographer, capture the beautiful scenery and architecture. I’ve visited Paris twice but would now like to spend time in the countryside, particularly Provence which appeals to me.

Looking forward to reading everyone’s travel stories and tips.

Merci et à bientôt

 

[phirhon]

It is great to see more Aussies joining. A lot of Australians travel to France and love it. We are from Toowoomba in Queensland and have been visiting France since 2006 , most recently earlier this year for ten weeks. We enjoy the slow travelling philosophy and I have several reports posted here.
Happy travelling.

 

[TomandKathy]

How wonderful for you! My husband and I have just returned (can it really be four weeks?) after a perfect 6 1/2 weeks away. I haven't had time to write up a report about it (or about the previous three trips since 2017) but would be delighted to make suggestions and offer advice about the areas we visited (this latest time Bourgogne, Lyon and south to Langedoc and Provence). We flew into Lyon and left from Nice. Highly recommend Pirhon's reports. She does a beautiful job of them, I read them over and over.

 

[Scopher]

It is great to see more Aussies joining. A lot of Australians travel to France and love it. We are from Toowoomba in Queensland and have been visiting France since 2006 , most recently earlier this year for ten weeks. We enjoy the slow travelling philosophy and I have several reports posted here.
Happy travelling.

Hello Phirhon, thank you for the warm welcome. I have read one of your posts and it's given me more incentive to get moving on my plans. I am curious to know what you do as far as booking your gites for the various places that you visit. Do you have a strict schedule (which I would prefer not to have) and book in advance? I would like the flexibility of staying longer in a place if I like it, hence the difficulty of booking in advance.

Do you have any recommendations? Thank you.

 

[Scopher]

How wonderful for you! My husband and I have just returned (can it really be four weeks?) after a perfect 6 1/2 weeks away. I haven't had time to write up a report about it (or about the previous three trips since 2017) but would be delighted to make suggestions and offer advice about the areas we visited (this latest time Bourgogne, Lyon and south to Langedoc and Provence). We flew into Lyon and left from Nice. Highly recommend Pirhon's reports. She does a beautiful job of them, I read them over and over.

Hello TomandKathy, thank you for your note. Just wondering what you did in terms of accommodation. Did you have a flexible schedule or was it all booked well in advance?

Any recommendations would be welcome. Thank you.

 

[phirhon]

Hi Scopher,
We plan our trips well in advance and we pre book all our gites. We do not have a huge budget and when we find a gite that we like within our budget in the area we want to visit, we book it. I suppose you could book as you go a few days ahead, but depending on time of year, your choices may be limited. Staying in gites is different from staying in hotels or chambre d'hotes. We were considering returning in September next year but have decided to wait until April 2025. But some gites we looked at in early Sept were already booked.

We stay at least a week in an area, sometimes two. This gives us enough flexibility if we have a day of inclement weather or if there is something we want to see or do that only happens once or twice in a week eg a market. So, for example, on our most recent trip of ten weeks, we had six bases. That was our eighth trip to France since 2006, so we know what we like. We book all our gites through Gites de France.

Location de vacances - Gîtes, Chambres d'hôtes | Gîtes de France®

Trouvez votre location de vacances, gîtes, chambres d’hôtes, camping, citybreak avec Gîtes de France®, la garantie d'un label de qualité.

www.gites-de-france.com

Good luck with your planning.

 

[Fletch]

Hello from Geelong. We used SlowTrav ( now Sloweurope) to plan our trips to France and Italy since before about 2009. The reviews of accommodation on the website helped us decide on villages and often accommodation in various parts Spain, France and Italy. Reading reviews gave us an idea of what is important to us in a gite or surrounds.
We had usually stayed in hotels until we realised that staying in one place for a few weeks suited us much more. We love food and wine and visiting markets so having our own kitchen was important.
In 2011 we visited Venice and joined a Food and Wine tour run by members of slowtrav.
It was wonderful and Shannon now has her own business Grapehops.com.
We had her to stay with us in Venice for a few days when we had 4 weeks in an apartment in 2018.
She takes tours to many places now and I know everyone has a wonderful time.
Unfortunately we aren’t travelling overseas these days due to health issues but are so glad we were able to travel in the past.
i think the research and planning are part of the fun of travel so we have always booked accommodation well in advance. Once we arrive we have a good idea of restaurants, markets, sightseeing we want to do but stay flexible and don’t worry too much if we don’t do everything planned.

If you have any questions I’m sure someone here will have some helpful answers for you.
Enjoy your future travels.