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The school holidays for France all start on the same day this year, at the close of school on Thursday 5th July, most French families will start their annual holiday that weekend.
July 14th (Bastille Day) is THE National holiday and everyone is busy doing things on that day - there are numerous big events at the coast and firewor displays that evening in virtually every area (all free),
campsites will be VERY busy at that time and you may have to have pre-booked at the busy areas - coast, Med area or within 50k of the coast and popular inland areas with high tourist attraction - Poitiers, Puy Le Fou, Disney, Fontainebleau etc.....
Paris will be quiet as most residents migrate with everything including the fridges and cookers to the campsites (French MH do not have the same facilities that UK do), they tend to set up at the campsite for 4 - 5 weeks or longer.......
hope that gives you some clues - everything quietns down again after 16th August - most return to work then (except schools which is 3rd September)
Dave
Last edited by Penquin on Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
Having lived in France for 6 years, mid July to mid August is the worse time to travel. As this year, 2012, July 14th falls on the weekend, it will be the first "black Saturday" for traveling. Schools finish the week before so the build up starts here. Most years I took some of my holiday at home in Toulouse during this time as it was so quiet. We have been stuck on the Cannes to Nice road for 5 hours after ignoring our own advice, but on the other hand have enjoying free parking in a very quiet Paris on the last week of July / first week of August. This year may be different again due to the Olympics being so close. We noticed a huge difference in 1998 when the world cup was there.
My own gamble is hoping that the french will leave holidays until around the 21st to catch their teams going to the Olympics as I will be returning from Italy around then.
______________________________________________________________ researching to purchase a motorhome in 2010 if I can find the right one
As I am a teacher we are stuck with school holidays - usually last week in July and first 2 in August. We have never had a problem getting onto a site as long as we did not leave it too late in the day, except when we 'happened' to be in Annecy and tried to find a pitch the weekend of the lake festival which was the first weekend in August last year. We eventually found somewhere 30 miles away! Traffic around major cities can be bad at weekends we have found.[U]
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