<BR>Having had a few days free of work over the Xmas New Year break, I have time to ponder my trip to Europe next year. Once I've saved enough holidays and $. I keep thinking of France Portugal and somewhere else (yet to be decided). Can anyone give me some great Web sites for France and Portugal please? I would like to do the villa thing again after enjoying the one in Tuscany so much. What part of France is a good place to look for villas? We would have a car for transport to do daily trips. If I recall, Bob the Nav, has been villa-ing in France. Another consideration is barge cruising? I've heard a week is plenty for this type of holiday. Do you get to see quite a bit of the country? Thanks, Denise

Bringing this up to the top again. D <BR>

Hi, Denise. <BR>If you are looking for a nice place to rent a house, why donīt you look at the Landes, the coastal region between Bordeaux and the french Basque Country? It has become quite popular lately among the people here in the north of Spain. There are many small houses to rent (I know, they are not like villas in Tuscany), and from there you can do a few day trips to the places near by, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Biarritz, Hendaye (great surfing there), San Sebastian and Bilbao. If you are interested in surfing, you should go to Mundaka and Sopelana. Nice places. <BR>If you are thinking of Portugal and France, why donīt you make it Portugal, go up to Galicia (yummy seafood, great people, spectacular landscapes) and the north coast of Spain, and finish up at the atlantic coast of France? <BR>Best regards, and congratulations for your Where are you thread.

Hi, Denise. I donīt know if the "phantom in the machine" has eaten my answer. Well, here it goes again, with a few addresses on top of it. <BR>If you are thinking Portugal and France, why donīt you go to the north of Portugal, Galicia (yummy seafood, nice people, beautiful landscape), north of Spain (not the flamenco one, this is the green Spain), the Basque Country, and stay somewhere in the Landes ( the coastal region between the french Basque Country and Bordeaux)? The Landes have become very popular lately here, in the Basque Country. There is a great offer of houses to rent, and many of us go for holidays or long weekends. Plenty of day trips and good food, too, on both sides of the frontier. <BR>And here the addresses: <BR> <BR>A list of hotels for some of the french regions, sorry they donīt have any info for Aquitaine. <BR>http://www.gaf.tm.fr/residenceshotelieres/france.htm <BR> <BR>This is the one for Aquitaine, Bearn and the Pays Basque. <BR>http://www.touradour.com/ <BR> <BR>The official web page for France. <BR>http://www.maison-de-la-france.fr:8000/ <BR> <BR>The official web-page for Portugal. <BR>http://www.portugal.org/ <BR> <BR>And now a couple of web-pages for the north of Spain. <BR>Galicia. <BR>http://www.turgalicia.es/ (the official one) <BR>http://www.galinor.es/galicia.html <BR>A bit of info about the Green Spain (I think that the phone numbers donīt have the prefix, ask me if you need any special one). <BR>http://www.spaintour.com/verde.htm#g...estuariesintro <BR>Something about Asturias (I havenīt checked it, but I think itīs only in Spanish) <BR>http://www.asturdata.es/ <BR>http://www.asturnet.es/ <BR>Cantabria <BR>http://turismo.cantabria.org/ <BR> <BR>I will try to look for more. <BR> <BR>As I told you before, congratulations for the Where are you thread. <BR> <BR> <BR>

Thank you <BR>

Thank you very much for all the information. I was particularly interested in your clue re homes on coast. And all that food in Portugal. One of my staff members is Spanish so she could translate, altho I wouldn't like to do it too often. Great......I'm about to investigate all these sites. Thank you Denise <BR>