Trish

We will be flying in and out of Nice, Sept 1 through Sept 19 next year. There will be 4 of us travelling, ages 30 through 35 we will be looking to keep our costs in the low range under 70 euro for hotels. I'm thinking renting an apartment or house may be the best idea for one week but I'm unsure which town or area to focus on. My original thought was to head towards Bordeaux, Birritz area because my husband and I like to surf and that is not generally an option in the med, but since it's pretty far from Nice I'm not sure it's the best use of our time. We all like active vacations, good food and wine and don't need a big club scene. Where would all you francophiles suggest?

ira

Hi Trish,

We visited Arcachon (on the ocean outside Bordeaux) in early Sept, 2005.

It was cold, windy and rainy.

StCirq

I don't know why you'd fly in and out of Nice for a vacation in the Bordeaux or Biarritz area. If surfing is your goal, fly into and out of Bordeaux and head south to Biarritz. It will be absolutely freezing in September, though, unless there's an unusual warm spell as there was this year.
There's no surfing to speak of on the Côte d'Azur, but there are plenty of beaches and beach life. Since you seem to be committed to flying in and out of Nice, it seems logical to plan your vacation in that area.

Trish

Ira, that's not the weather we would hope for although we would expect the water to be quite cold in that area. I guess what I'm really trying to figure out is if we would get more bang for a our buck and make the best use of our time on the east or west coast of France. Another question I have is about traffic, In September is traffice usually really bad, I've heard that in August it can be ugly.

Trish

St Cirq, it's a frequent flyer ticket for my husband I and that's why we are going in and out of Nice but I can change our depature and leave out of Bordeaux and connect out through Amsterdam if we want to focus on that area. I wasn't thinking of it being incredibly cold because my brother just got back from Birritz on Saturday and the weather was good and the surf was huge probably too big for me. Now he surfs off the east coast of Canada in the winter so his tolerence of cold and mine are likely to diffrent things.

StuDudley

We were in the Biarritz/Pays Basque area the first two weeks of Sept in '03. It was cold & rainy - no beach days at all.

Southern France has a zillion things to offer - I'm not sure I would center my vacation around surfing. Enjoy the warmth of the Cote d'Azur & Provence instead - and head my way near San Francisco, and surf Mavericks if you want a surfing adventure.

Rent a gite (house) in Provence for a week - you should be able to find one for $1,000 per week or less with a couple of bedrooms and a private pool.

Stu Dudley

StCirq

I agree with Stu. Unless you're bound and determined to make this a surfing vacation, which I wouldn't recommend, just fly in and out of Nice and enjoy the Côte d'Azur and Provence - you could spend a lifetime there and not run out of interesting things to do and see. Explore the Lubéron, the Camargue, the Alpilles..........rent a place or two and just explore.

Trish

Thanks Stu, you guys have me thinking that we will stay in the med area. We wouldn't have centered the trip around surfing anyway maybe three days at the most that's how much much time we spent surfing in Morocco and it worked well. But I'm sure we will have lots of other things to do in France. Any thoughts on nice villages to focus on for a rental.

StuDudley

>>Any thoughts on nice villages to focus on for a rental.<<

The villages are close together, so we stay outside the villages in the countryside. Our favorite areas are the Luberon (near Gordes), Dentelles (near Vaison & Mt Ventoux), and St Remy.

Stu Dudley