If you haven’t yet booked your holiday to France, why not make your destination Burgundy, a mere 5 hour drive from the port of Calais. This British-owned self-catering studio near Dijon still has availability for 1 week starting 6 August for a family of up to 6 people in a double and two twin-bedded rooms. Young children are particularly welcome and well-catered for, with swings and slides available in the big garden. Adults will no doubt appreciate the Burgundy vineyards of the Côte d’Or that are on the doorstep. Remember to leave space in the car for a few cases of red, white or rosé! For full details and prices, please follow this link or click on the photo below

The accommodation still has good availability in September and October too. Autumn is a great time to visit the vineyard region of Burgundy as the grape harvests will be in full swing and there is a real buzz about the area. Temperatures will have calmed down a bit after the summer highs and, let’s face it, prices are lower too!

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Quality, local, fresh produce is increasingly hard to find in the UK. Sure, farmers’ markets are on the rise but prices are generally high and speciality products tend to dominate. So during your French holiday, be sure to make the most of the fantastic choice of local products that you will find there. Fresh, local, good value produce – every corner of France excels at it and each area has its specialities.

The local market
Every town and every village in France has a market at least once a week where you will find fresh, local produce and regional specialities. To find out where the nearest market is to where you will be staying, take a look at this wonderfully comprehensive website.

In this post, I’ll briefly cover just two areas of France for starters. Other areas will be covered in the coming days.

The South East of France
Olive oil - you will find THE most delicious, fruity olive oil in the Provence area which taste absolutely nothing like the bland oil that you find in UK supermarkets. Try just a smattering on a thin slice of baguette… mmmm! 

Fresh figs – 80% of the country’s figs are produced in the Var department of SE France just north of Toulon and the Mediterranean coast. If you have only ever eaten the dried variety then you MUST try the wonderfully onctuous fresh fig, either straight from the tree or baked with cinnamon and honey and served with fresh cream!

Mussels and oysters – the Mediterranean coast and the area around Sète are where some of the very best mussels and oysters in France are raised. I was never a big fan of these shellfish until I tasted them fresh from the sea – far more tender and full of flavour than anything I had ever tasted before. You must try them!

Also to look out for in the south east of France are lavender honey, the very moreish rosé wines of Provence .

- The south west of France
Kiwi fruit – surprised? Well, the Aquitaine region of the SW of France is one of the main producers of this fruit. These are not the bullet-hard, flavourless kiwis that you find in the UK supermarkets, but juicy, soft-skinned fruit that are very moreish. You’ll see them on the market stalls during the late autumn and winter.

Prunes – The Agen prune is known the world over for its fantastic flavour. Forget the syrupy jarred prunes and the dried out, flavourless specimens that you see elsewhere – the Agen prunes, grown in an area North of Toulouse, are soft, juicy and so full of flavour. I like to preserve them in Armagnac for 6+ months and then skewer them, wrap them with wafer thin slices of bayonne and then warm them through under the grill – delicious!

Cheese – there are several areas of the Pyrenees that produce the most delicious cheeses, my favourites being brebis (ewes milk cheese) and fromage de chèvre (goats cheese), although the fromage de vache (cows milk cheese) is also widely produced

Garlic - the pink garlic ‘ail de Lautrec’  has a far, far superior flavour to any other garlic that I have ever tasted and I challenge you to disagree! Produced between Albi and Puylaurens in the ‘Tarn’ department east of Toulouse, you will find tresses of this garlic at every market stall.  

Let’s not forget the wines of the SW of France. Gaillac, Fronton, Madiran, Jurançon are just some of the top producing areas of the region that you should look out for, all situated South and South east of the obvious  Bordeaux vineyards. Look out for the wine seller at the markets in the SW of France selling his bargain-priced wine from a big vat – he’ll fill your old water bottles up with truely delicious wine for less than €2.00 a litre – bargain!