Welcome to France For Families' 10th newsletter!
Thoughts are turning to summer holidays - if you've not already
booked for this summer then move quickly, there may still be
availability in some gites. With the addition of a section on
Languedoc
gites you can now find gites in 9 different regions on France For
Families. Have a look at our
gites page
for more details.
Gite owners who are looking for last minute bookings could consider a
featured gite position on the website - for just £20 you can get a
feature including a photo of your gite, a short description and a link
direct to your own website.
France For Families
is receiving over 30,000 unique visitors per month and is very well
ranked on popular search engines such as
Google (see the end of this
newsletter) - ensuring you get the best possible return on your small
investment!
Focus on Provence
In the coming newsletters we are going to focus each time on a different
region of France. We've decided to start with
Provence as we've updated that section after a recent holiday there.
Although
Provence is traditionally thought of as the section of France to the
north of the
Côte
d'Azur and to the East of the A6 autoroute, we prefer to also
include the areas just to the west of the A6 also. Actually there are
some outstanding attractions there such as the
Pont du Gard and the
Haribo Museum (much beloved by our children!). The
Pont du Gard site has changed over the years into a well organised
visitor attraction and we would now recommend to approach it on a
canoe trip along the river Gardon.
If you are looking for nature then the areas around
Provence will not disappoint - from the rolling heights of the
Cevennes mountains in the west to the spectacular
Verdon gorge in the east, from the drama of
Mont Ventoux in the north to the beauty of the
Luberon hills - you will find every kind of natural attraction
(apart from beaches!). A recent addition to the
Provence section is a selection of
family walks in the area. And if you do want a visit to a beach,
the Camargue is within reach to the south.
Finally no visit to
Provence would be complete without a visit to a
local restaurant. And again we've updated this area of the site
with some
new hostelries that can be personally recommended.
New regional content
Since the last newsletter was published we've added a lot of new content
on the website. To help you find the latest updates, we're focusing our
"news" page on
recent updates...so just head there if you've visited us before and
don't want to spend hours browsing the hundreds of pages to find what
has changed.
Other new content recently added includes:
- Real time weather updates for
Brittany, the
Alps
and
Charente/Vendée (if successful we will extend this feature to all
the other regions).
- Enhancement of
Paris
and
Normandy regional content. New information on visiting
Eurodisney and the
Puy du Fou.
- Addition of a
restaurants section in the Charente/Vendée.
- Information on
low cost
airlines to/from France with map finder and
an exhaustive route list.
- New
Languedoc gites section goes live.
CD - Cha Cha Cha Comme ci Comme ça
We have great pleasure in introducing you to a recently released French
music CD and songbook, professionally produced by Cherry Pie Music and
marketed by Sing in French Ltd.
This CD, called Cha Cha Cha Comme ci Comme ça, is a new and fun way for
children (and perhaps their parents) to learn and improve their French
through songs. These songs (aimed at Key Stages 1 - 3, for those of you
who are educationally minded) cover a wide range of material, including
the French alphabet, numbers, colours, animals, the seasons and telling
the time. We have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to listen
to the CD and have been very impressed with not only the content, but
also the quality of the recording. The songs all have catchy tunes and
are easy to pick up - before you know it the whole family will be
singing along. In fact, an added bonus for all you budding karaoke stars
is the inclusion of a singalong CD which has had the lyrics removed! By
clicking through to the web-site you can 'try before you buy' by
listening to short samples of all the tracks.
Those of you with children will know that any length of time spent
travelling eventually leads to cries of 'We're bored' and 'Are we there
yet?' Why not take with you a copy of this CD and its songbook and maybe
by the time you reach your destination the children will have picked up
some key phrases and an understanding of some basic vocabulary. The
songbook also contains excellent sections on key grammar points, verbs
and other useful info for those interested in finding out a bit more!
Check out our
travelling section for more 'boredom buster' ideas.
Diary dates
59th Cannes Music Festival 17th-28th May. Probably most adults have
either read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code themselves or know someone else
who has. Well, the film version of the book, largely filmed in Paris,
will be premiered at the Cannes film festival this year.
20th International Kite Festival will take place from 8th-17th April at
Berck-sur-Mer just south of Le Touquet in northern France.
22nd June - 2nd July - The French Open, tennis championships.
93rd Tour de France which kicks off in Strasbourg runs from 1st - 23rd
July.
'Marionnettes en Jardin' - a puppet festival in Charleville-Mézières, in
the Champagne-Ardennes region of France from 19th-23rd July. This is
very much a family festival with a street carnival atmosphere and
something for all ages. This has become an annual pre-cursor to the
World Festival of Puppet Theatre which happens in September.
The epic Ben Hur is being staged in
La Stade de France
in Paris on 22nd, 23rd, 29th and 30th September 2006. Come and watch
this spectacular show in France's famous stadium. This promises to be a
major production with a cast of hundreds and extras as well, all taking
part in various tableaux including gladiatorial fighting, the Roman Army
on parade and chariot races. Full price tickets range from ?35-?90, with
concessions available. So, if you are planning a trip to
Paris
in September it might be worthwhile building this into your agenda or
even consider making a special weekend trip.
Other news
A new French
airline has started with its base in Reims in the Champagne region
of NE France. This service, which has been operating internal flights
between Reims and Bordeaux, Nice, Toulouse and Marseille has just
started flying daily between Luton and Reims. This would make a weekend
trip to the Champagne capital of the world a very interesting
proposition. Check out www.airturquoise.com
Well that's all from France
For Families for this newsletter. We do hope you have a lovely
spring/summer and enjoy your vacations in France. As always, please do
let us have your feedback on your experiences!
With best wishes from the team at France For Families
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Appendix - Site Traffic/Search Engine Rankings (as of 23rd March 2006):
Average of 34,000 unique site visitors per month.
Based on www.google.co.uk:
Brittany gites - ranked no 12.
Loire gites - ranked no 1.
Dordogne gites - ranked no 6.
Charente gites - ranked no 12.
Vendée gites - ranked no 7.
Normandy gites - ranked no 4.
Lot-et-garonne gites - ranked no 2.
Provence gites - ranked no 10.
France For Families - ranked no 1.
France Family Day Trip - ranked no 1.
France Family Holidays - ranked no 3.
France Kids Attractions - ranked no 3.
Best Family Beaches France - ranked no 1.
Nord Pas-de-Calais tourist attractions -
ranked no 1.
Langudeoc tourist attractions - ranked no 2.
Loire tourist attractions - ranked no 4.
Brittany tourist attractions - ranked no 1.
Nord Pas-de-Calais tourist attractions - ranked no 5.
Dordogne tourist attractions - ranked no 1.
Charente tourist attractions - ranked no 3.
Vendée tourist attractions - ranked no 1.
Normandy tourist attractions - ranked no 4.
Lot-et-Garonne tourist attractions - ranked no 2.
Provence tourist attractions - ranked no 2.
Alps tourist attractions - ranked no 10.
Cote d'Azur tourist attractions - ranked no 3.