I've been offline for a while but have now picked up this thread. We have spent about 20 holidays driving in France and have been to many areas. We love Brittany and have been there many times - particularly the south Brittany coast.

We loved the Auvergne, the Ardeche and the Lot/Dordogne area although this can be terribly busy in July/August.

In 2 weeks we leave for France again. Now that we have just one daughter left at home we have decided to stay in hotels all the time - now I'm really looking forward to this! I enjoy staying in Gites but I get very fed up with cleaning the fridge out on the last morning!

Our itinerary is that we cross the Channel Portsmouth-Caen and spend the first night in Caen. Then its a 4 hour drive down to Poitiers where we are staying for 3 days. This means we can visit Futuroscope which is a cinema/science theme park, as well as the surrounding areas which we don't know but we hear are lovely.

Then from Poitiers we drive down to the Gorges du Tarn where we are staying at an hotel right alongside the Gorge. We love this area - food, fabulous views, pretty villages and not as packed as the Dordogne.

We are staying in this area for 13 days before an overnight in Blois on the Loire before back to England.

I'll write up our trip and this might give you some ideas.

Previously we have booked trips independently but this time we actually booked the whole trip through Brittany Ferries - it worked out cheaper - you could look at their website for ideas on areas and what they have to offer:

http://www.brittanyferries.com

Feel free to ask for any other information

Cheers Sally Somerset UK