France is easy to travel around.
Restaurants and hotels proliferate, the
lower-budget ones being much cheaper
than is most other developed western
European countries. Train services are
admirably efficient, as is the road
network - especially the (toll-paying)
autoroutes - and cyclists are
much admired and encouraged. Information
is highly organized and available from
tourist offices across the country, as
well as from specialist organizations
for walkers, cyclists, campers and so on.
There are all kinds of pegs on which
to hang a holiday in France: a city, a
region, a river or a mountain range,
physical activities, cathedrals,
châteaux. And in many cases your choice
will determine the best time of years to
go. Unless you're a skier, for example,
you wouldn't choose the mountains
between November and May; nor at this
time would you head for the seaside -
except for the Mediterranean coast which
is at its most attractive in spring.
Climate, otherwise, need not be a major
consideration in planning when to go.
Northern France, like nearby Britain, is
wet and unpredictable. Paris perhaps has
a marginally better climate than New
York, rarely reaching the extremes of
heat and cold of that city, but only
south of the Loire does the weather
become significantly warmer. West coast
weather, even in the south, is tempered
by the proximity of the Atlantic,
subject to violent storms and close
thundery days even in summer. The centre
and east, as you leave the coasts behind,
have a more continental climate, with
colder winters and hotter summers. The
most reliable weather is along and
behind the Mediterranean coastline and
on Corsica, where winter is short and
summer long and hot.
The single most important factor in
deciding when to visit France is tourism
itself. As most French people take their
holidays in their own country, it's as
well to avoid the main French holiday
periods - mid-July to the end of August,
with August being particularly bad. You
can easily walk a kilometre and more in
Paris, for example, in search of an open
boulangerie, and the city seems deserted
by all except fellow tourists. Prices in
the resorts rise to take full advantage
and often you can't find a room for love
nor money, and not even a space in the
campsites on the Côte d'Azur. The
seaside is the worst, but the mountains
and popular regions like the Dordogne
are not far behind. Easter, too, is a
bad time for Paris; half Europe's
schoolchildren seem to descend on the
city. For the same reasons, ski buffs
should keep in mind the February school
ski break. And no one who values life,
limb, and sanity should ever be caught
on the roads the last weekend of July or
August, and least of all on the weekend
of August 15
