Hmmm. That's why I included my email.

And here I thought that Fodorites SHARING with other Foderites was kind of the point of an online community . . .

Ian

There is sharing, and there is sharing, Ian. I will not share my wife with you, for example. My mother-in-law ---- maybe.

Stu is quite willing to share the very valuable resource for renting Gites, but it is too much to expect him to give you the gems he has mined with great effort and expense over the years. I will share the recent experiences I have had at a certain big restaurant in Paris, but it is unrealistic to expect me to direct you to the tiny six table treasure I stumbled across. It will be gone/spoiled for me in a flash if I blab to the whole world.

"<i>Hmmm. That's why I included my email.

And here I thought that Fodorites SHARING with other Foderites was kind of the point of an online community . . . </i>"

IMO folks shouldn't expect/request personal e-mails from posters (many of us have developed friendships and do e-mail each other, but not in general to strangers on here)

Stu provided a LOT of info to work w/ . . . .

<i>IMO folks shouldn't expect/request personal e-mails from posters (many of us have developed friendships and do e-mail each other, but not in general to strangers on here)</i>

Ironically, Stu is the one person on this board who regularly offers to send his multi-page itineraries to those interested, but apparently minus the gites.

I cannot even begin to imagine all the work that Stu has put in to organizing his various European holidays, and gite rentals over the many years he has been doing this.

I am just so grateful for the amount of effort he has also put in to this forum, and his graciousness in sending his long travelogue and recommendations on the Dordogne, that I happily allow him his privacy for the treasures he has found.

I also think that a lot of the fun in travel is finding gems for yourself. Of course I'm a little old for the "instant gratification" generation.

I second taconictraveler in that Stu's very detailed advice and instructions is contribution enough and the amount one shares or doesn't is a personal choice.

Stu was a lifesaver (& big dollarsaver) for us last year assisting us to find a fabulous gite in Burgundy which I found using his technique (and I lot of extensive research & effort myself).

Merci beaucoup Stu.

Oh horror of horrors. It is painfully obvious that I have stepped firmly onto the toes of one of the Forum’s resident ‘doyens’ which makes me appear as a mean spirited, ungrateful lout. J’accuse! But before you leap on me again, I do know the incredible value of our forum’s experts. Otherchelebi in Turkey, Maribel in Spain, Zeppole in Italy & on & on . . . are invaluable resources . . . as are the myriad of other travelers who always contribute.

No, I am merely a very long-time forum poster who made a reasonable request (eye-of-the-beholder albeit) & got an unexpected reply. This is the 1st time in my 10+ years on this forum (yes, I pre-date the ‘new’ registration), that I have ever had a poster refuse to respond because they feel that the knowledge is their very own hard-earned private information.

Thankfully, most others on this board do not share this attitude or we would all be a lot poorer for it.

Carry on . . .

Ian

Ian

There are other "selfish" reasons I don't want to post info about the gites we've stayed in.

I've sent out around 4,000 itineraries to people on Foders, aol, and rec.travel.europe. People request them, I send them copies, and often they e-mail me back asking for more info & advice. I don't mind this - except when I receive lots of "additional info" requests in a short period of time, or they do so in the summer when I spend less time at the PC. Many people have tried to "hire me" - but I'm retired & don't need the "work".

We've stayed in 33 different gites for 74 weeks, and we have 3 new ones rented for 2012. If I started to provide info about the specific ones we've stayed in, I suspect I would be inundated with requests for "more info", and I would end up spending a lot more time than I would want to spend to provide this info. Info like "how nice is the kitchen, does the owner speak English, I can't find it on the web site, is it close to the main sites, does it have AC, are the knives sharp," etc. Lots of the info on the Gites-de-France site is in French only, and I'm afraid that I would be the "go between" if I got involved too much.

We're retired - that means we don't want to "work". If I told one person about a specific gite, then I would feel obligated to provide info to hundreds of others. Attaching a copy of an itinerary to a reply e-mail is easy - answering a dozen questions about gites is much harder - that's why I posted a "do it yourself" write-up.

Stu Dudley

We are off to France in 2012 and have rented four gites through Gites de France. Stu's advice is on the process of booking. But this is our holiday and we like to decide where we want to stay, and we used his expertise and our plans to decide our gites.

There is always a risk in booking a rental that it will not meet expectations, but that is part of the fun. We have rented for seventeen weeks in France[ nowhere near Stu],with another nine weeks booked for 2012 and only a few times with GdF [but increasing because of the ease and availibility]. You just have to decide for yourself because there is not always going to be someone to 'vouch' for a place or a review to help you decide. For us, part of the fun of planning our trips is looking for places to stay. And we have never been disappointed by our choices.

So use Stu's information to help you to make your own choices.
This is your holiday. Where you want to go may not be where I want to spend my week, so we need to decide accordingly.

Happy travels.

Thanks Stu!

Please see the below link. When I click on the Dordogne department, there are no Gites that show up. I looked at the map of Southern France on their website and it looks like the only department that is blank and not showing Gites. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it.

http://en.gites-de-france.com/holida...init=o&xhtml=o

I'm guessing it's a temporary glitch in their system. I got the same response entering "Dordogne".

Try emailing the site.

Use the French language site. Michael (a contributor on Fodors) told me several years ago that the Dordogne Dept wasn't listed on the English version).

1 On the site you listed above, go the the upper right where the British flag is displayed, click the down arrow, and then select the French flag

2 Then enter "Dordogne" in the "ou souhaitez-vous..." box where Antiquane was on the English version. Unselect all but "location and gites" and then click "rechercer. You then should see all gites in the Dordogne.

3 Next click 3 epis & 4 epis and you should see 201 gites meeting your selection criteria. You can also specify other criteria - bedrooms etc.

4 On the right where it says "Classer par" click the down arrow and select "Prix" (price) and get the list ordered by least to most expensive. On a prior version of this site you could list most to least - but the site regressed in functionality.

What I would do is to put "Sarlat la Caneda" where you put "Dordogne" in step 1 & click "rechercer". Then above the list of gites, you will see a new box titled "Rayon". This can be used to select gites within X kilometers of Sarlat (or whatever city you put in). Select the kilometers and then follow steps 2-4.

The French do a pretty poor job of design & testing. This was the subject on an article in a newsletter that I subscribe to. If you use the SNCF site, you will get further examples of poor design & testing.

Stu Dudley

>>>Try emailing the site<,

Don't bother. I e-mailed them 2 years ago with the same problem. They never responded and never fixed the bug.

Stu Dudley

Incredible.

Stu to the rescue once again!

Thanks, Stu! I appreciate it.

Let me know if you got it to work.

Stu Dudley

Yes, it works now. And using the Google translation tool it's actually not bad navigating it. Thanks again!

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