French beaches/French holidays

[Poppy]

Want a nice seaside family holiday this year but hate package hols and really don't like the sound of the costas in Spain. We have 2 children under 3 so don't want an adventure this year- something easy and enjoyable for us and the babies. Where are the nicest beaches in France? What do you know about the beaches in Cote D'Azur/Langedouc/West coast etc etc. Is there an area which is supposed to be the nicest for this type of holiday?
Poppy x

[Playbill]

The Cote D'Azur beaches get very crowded in summer and you get charged to use some of them. I've only experienced the southern west coast beaches around Biarritz. They were good, but you have to remember that is on the Atlantic coast so it can get windy and seas rougher.
The Langedouc is probably the best for you. Here there are not only beaches on the Med but also on the many lagoons.
There are many camp sites along this coast where you can hire well equipped mobile homes. Some are right on the beach in the Camargue area.

[JK2]

Brittany always looks like a nice area for families.

[JK2]

P.S. What about some of the quieter resorts in Majorca like Puerto Pollensa - or maybe Minorca - that always looks like a quieter family island.

[Jules001]

With 2 children under 3 you are likely to want to take a lot of stuff for them, ( I could never travel light with children), If you travelled to France by air, you would not be able to take as much stuff and then you have the airport transfers to consider too. We found it much easier to do a night crossing on the ferry so that when we got off the next morning we had the day to travel to our destination. The Cote D'Azur is a long way and you may need to stop overnight again. The West Coast has some very good beaches, although the furthest we ventured down it was to the Vendee. We have also been to Brittany, although the weather there was more similar to the UK.

[Petal~flower]

Hi Poppy, have only been to France twice, both times when my children were young. The first time we went to the Langedouc region which was lovely. But we must of planned our journey badly, as we had a very long drive to get to our apt. And had to stay overnight at another on our way to our holiday home.

Second time we went to Brittany, and stayed in a gite. We arranged our travel plans better the second time, and slept overnight on the Ferry, making the journey next day very short.

I did love Brittany

[Poppy]

thanks everyone. I really fancy Brittany but we want to go early September as we're going somewhere else in June so wouldn't want to risk it with the weather. Also we live up North so a driving holiday would seem terribly long. (Even an hour drive with both of them seems like a week!)

I think we're going to try to travel light and go south- Langedouc or Cote D'Azur. Have found some lovely campsites in both areas with direct access to beaches.We can wash our clothes there and they provide cots/highchairs/baby baths etc. Any more advice/ideas very welcome. (I love planning holidays!)

Port Grimaud? Anybody been there? x

[Lil O'lady]

It's worth looking at fly / car hire, using flights to perpignan, montpellier, carcassonne or toulouse if you are heading for languedoc.
The traffic around the coast of languedoc and the main motorways in becomes gridlocked around the major french holidays.
My kids only ever found the beach interesting for short spells so having a campsite with a decent pool and some activities was always essential. By far our favourite was the Chateau de Boisson near Ales - nearest airport Avignon or Nimes.

[annie0000]

Hi, I am booked to go to the Domaines des naiades site in port grimaud in July - flying with easyjet into nice so you still get 20kilo luggage allowance! If you go to tripadvisor.com there are some good forums for finding out info about travel, beaches etc. I have never been before either, but it looks a good area for kids and according to feedback on trip advisor, the roads aren't so busy by Sept