The west coast of France has a lot to offer Irish holidaymakers who enjoy basking in the summer sunshine on sandy beaches with the Atlantic surf to wash their worries away.
The pleasure is as intense as ever and the journey is no longer than last year, but recent changes among the ferry operators mean that planning travel in France requires a bit more concentration this year.
Anyone thinking of travelling this year has some great direct crossing options. Sailing out of Cork on Britanny Ferries' Pont Aven is a short holiday in itself. Brought into service last year, this floating palace carries 2,400 passengers and over 600 cars. It offers cruise ship facilities such as two cinemas, a shopping mall and a swimming pool. It also boasts more restaurants and cafeterias than you'll have time to eat hot dinners at, even if you eat early and often.
Regardless of meal arrangements, be sure to book sleeping accomodation, since you can avoid being seasick by sleeping. A Britanny Ferries luxury cruise ticket starts from just over €1,100 for a family of four. But Irish Ferries has a real trump card up its sleeve. Book a high season direct crossing to France from €1,048 (for a family of four, again) and they will give you a free return trip to Britain with fewer strings than a discount airline ticket.
After the uncertainties of the Irish Ferries pre-Christmas strike, it is a real bonus for anyone with family or friends to visit across the water and the offer runs from September into May 2006.
The west coast of France has been a popular destination with Irish holidaymakers for years, but it is still only feasible for those taking ferries and their own cars.
Flying with discount airlines such as Ryanair out of Irish airports, you can go to Paris Beauvais. This is closer to the northern French city of Amiens than Paris. Nor is it a tourist destination unless you collect cathedrals, in which case Beauvais cathedral has the highest (most elevated) choir in Europe. Ryanair's extensive services to French provincial west coast destinations fly out of Stansted, which means two flights and a change.
The airline land-bridge also involves paying full fare for any child old enough to occupy a seat, which pushes up the final bill pretty fast, too, before adding in the cost of car hire on arrival. The terrestrial land bridge involves driving at least an extra 200 miles each way, plus the extra French mileage on the other side of the Channel.
This erodes holiday time and adds at least another tankful of fuel to the cost. Both British and French prices for fuel are over a euro a litre at present, and could well be more by the summer. Then there will be the inevitable snacks, sweets and meals on the road, without counting the wear and tear on the family.
Since combined ticket packages start from around €1,100, there's no real saving on boat fares, either. Many people have good reasons for choosing this option, but the extra mileage is not usually one of them.
French roads are well engineered and generally a pleasure to drive on, once the strangeness wears off. Knowing some of the underlying ground rules speeds up the process. Most motorways are charged for at regular intervals. The free sections should be marked differently on your road maps, which will help to avoid both queues and surprises. The toll stations or péages (pronounced "pay-aje") are a regular bottleneck for holiday traffic, particularly when cars queueing on the exit roads back up on to the main motorway.
However, the worst of the queues are primarily at weekends, when millions of holidaymakers take to the roads. To avoid the motorway queues, you can take reasonably well-indicated holiday routes on D or "départmentale" roads. These are known as "bison futé" and are indicated with yellow squares at regular intervals.
Many of these are surprisingly direct and easy driving. These routes will have fewer heavy lorries, which tend to interrupt any driving rhythm you might have hoped to establish on a bigger "nationale", where you will also meet more speed cops. One restraint on a D road is the 50km/h (31mph) speed limit in built-up towns and villages, which will be resolutely ignored by the locals but rigorously enforced at radar traps.
If oncoming cars flash their headlights at you, slow down and start looking for a speed trap or a road accident. In past years, foreign drivers speeding on French roads did not always have their penalties enforced.
This is changing with the arrival of cross-border speeding tickets. Speed cameras on roadworks are a particularly barbed pitfall: these are usually signposted, but often set to zero tolerance on hazardous coned-off stretches.
High visibility clothing is not always worn by local police, either, who have a reputation for hiding their speed traps in sneaky places. All the locals know exactly where to expect them, because the local gendarmes are creatures of habit, unlike the national traffic police (You say "sir" to them).
Motorway speed limits are 130km/h (80mph) in good weather, but drop to 110km/h (68mph) in the rain. Your motorway ticket is time-stamped, so if you leave the motorway having averaged a faster speed than the limit allows, you will collect an on-the-spot fine, French or foreigner alike.
Driving into a town, you will see a yellow diamond with a black bar across it, which indicates that your road no longer has an automatic right of way. Giving way to traffic coming from the right is still common in many French towns, including the capital, Paris. Most French drivers will make allowance for foreign drivers, but don't rely on this in Paris.
A frequent hazard which many French drivers also complain about are dim traffic lights. In bright sunlight, it is often difficult to see whether lights are at green or red and care is needed when approaching them. The smaller waist level traffic light sets are very handy, should you have pulled up a bit close to the overhead lights and the sun-roof is closed. Street parking is generally limited to one side of the road and will alternate every two weeks: follow the locals if in doubt or if you missed the small sign bolted underneath the town's name as you arrived.
A navigating standard worth noting is that signposts placed before a junction indicate that you will need to turn at the junction. On the far side of the junction, they indicate "straight on" regardless of whether they point left or right.
Although they are usually put up in pairs, the attrition rate for French street furniture is quite high. After a while, you will get used to driving on the right. This is the time you must take extra care when turning left, to ensure that you pick up the right hand lane upon leaving a junction.
By now you will have appreciated that driving in France can be a real pleasure, full of spectacular views and rolling scenery. Enjoy it all: you're on holiday.
Top 10 travel planning tips
1 Before setting out, the French authorities insist on a set of spare bulbs and a red hazard triangle as statutory requirements: you will also need beam benders or something to mask the dip beam of your car from oncoming traffic. All these items are on sale at ports, but will be more expensive.
2 For motorway mileage, allow an average speed of around 120 km/h (70mph), provided travel is not at weekend peak times. When buying maps, make sure they clearly distinguish free and toll motorways.
3 For travel on main roads (Routes nationales or RN) allow an average speed of around 70 km/h (45mph). The limit is 110kph on dual carriageway sections, 90kph elsewhere.
4 For daytime travel on D-road holiday routes (bisons futés), allow an average speed of just under 65 km/ h (40mph).
5 Reckon to have a half-hour break every two hours or so, especially when travelling with children. It is worth having a few small toys or other entertainments in a lucky dip bag for youngsters too. Something small every 20minutes or so is a real morale booster.
6 Roadside picnic sites are frequent in France and generally worth stopping for, even if you and the family only take a brief stretch and a breath of fresh air. Many offer proper toilet blocks, too.
7 If planning to have lunch at a roadside restaurant, stop between noon and 12.30 p.m. Leave it much later and you will get neither a table nor the day's menu, which will always sell out first. A formule, or set price meal, starts from around €10 to 12 for adults; reckon €15 a head if you like to eat well. A smattering of French goes a long way in these establishments.
8 Supermarkets do the best deals on fuel: sadly, Tesco Club Cards issued in Ireland cannot be used to earn points in the UK forecourts. In France Leclerc (pronounced "le-clair") is a byword for cheap fuel. French supermarket forecourts are usually signposted, within a 5 to 10 minute radius: directions may be given in minutes drive time (mn) or metre/kilometres, as appropriate (m or km). Despite the signs offering fuel 24/7, this only applies if the pump accepts your credit card, which needs to be a smart card recognised by French banks. If you're not sure, fill up before lunch, since many cashiers will be out to lunch between 12.30 p.m. at the very latest and 2.30 p.m. While some supermarkets work through lunchtime (heures continues), many will be closed on Mondays. Sunday opening is rare outside holiday resorts in peak season. Err on the side of caution if your picnic or fuel needs depend on it.
9 Plastic - be it debit or credit cards - is readily accepted, with or without a chip. UK retailers are rapidly migrating to the use of a PIN (Personal Identity Number) in place of signatures, now that they are liable for dud transactions. Where the issuing banks provide PINs for use with smart cards, a growing number of French retailers are taking PIN authorisation for foreign smart cards in place of signatures. (Some even like to have both.)
10 Roadside assistance is worth every cent, should you ever be unfortunate enough to need it. The cover is often available for older cars, too, and need not always stop at 10 years. Check the extent of your cover with your insurer and remember to have all the car documents with you when you go.