Charente Maritime is the sunniest region on France’s west coast… it really is, the French weather service says so. So combine the sunshine with massive sandy beaches screened by forests of pine trees, and fun seaside towns, and you have the perfect mix for a top family holiday.

Of course, it’s a bit too easy to spend your days soaking up the sun at one of the many beaches, or by the pools at Les Charmettes, La Pignade or Bonne Anse Plage. Drag yourself away and there is a huge amount to see. 

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I’m building up an on-going, ever evolving guide to the regions of France. Today’s blog is about the Loire Valley – a part of France I first visited on a camping trip during the middle of a 90 degree heatwave!

The Val de Loire was the play-place of French royalty before they lost their heads, which is why the region is still dominated by 160 stunning châteaux.

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We’ll be starting the New Year with a bang by exhibiting at the fantastic France Show from 9-11 January. The show has moved to Earls Court for 2009 as the organisers are expecting 30,000 visitors.

There are free tickets for anyone who wants to see us on stand L251 in the lifestyle section. Simply follow this link to the France Show website.

Last year’s event was lots of fun for Francophiles with a whole host of interesting French stands to visit. My favourites were the food stalls and I particularly liked the cooking seminars with Jean-Christophe Novelli. I’ll be booking myself into the wine seminars, which are running for the first time this year.

Of course, siblu will be at the show in a big way. Last year we bought a mobile home and our stand was packed throughout, so this year we’ll be presenting the top-of-the range ABI Focus mobile home. It’s a new 36 x 12ft two-bedroom model with a terrace, en-suite bathrooms and energy saving features.

If you visited the show in 2008, why not let us know what you thought and what we should look out for in 2009?

Siblu had the pleasure of hob-knobbing with the great and good of the travel industry last night at the Daily and Sunday Telegraph’s Travel Awards. Italy again picked up the prize for best European country and Eurostar was named favourite cross-channel operator, much to the horror of our ferry friends who pointed out that Eurostar goes under the channel!

Konnichi wa! Here’s a great idea if you want to learn basic French before your next siblu holidays. I first read about One Minute Language lessons on the excellent website This French Life.

One Minute Language lessons are basically short podcasts that you can download or listen to on your computer, that give you phrases and a few words to get you up and running abroad.

They start with ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and then move on to introductions and pleasant greetings. It’s really basic stuff and my first thought was that it’s a bit too easy, but by the time I’d moved on to One Minute Japanese and One Minute Romanian I realised that lots of people don’t know how to say “hello, how are you” in all sorts of languages.

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Le Bois Masson, one of our two siblu holiday parcs near to St-Jean-de-Monts in the Vendée, is opening its doors during the October school holidays for the first time, so visitors can soak up the atmosphere and preparations for the fantastic Vendée Globe event, where contestants sail single-handed around the world.

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I’m ashamed to say that despite being a Francophile, I’m the world’s worst wine buff. Waves of inadequacy flow over me if asked to choose a red, white or rosé when with friends. I live by the rule of house-rouge for meat, house-blanc with fish, and house-rosé for my wife.

So it was with mixed feelings I settled down to a Rhone Alpes sponsored lunch at a recent industry get together, when the host told us that there were three wines to try for the aperitif, three more with main course and another three for dessert.

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I rounded up my collection of cooking courses during a week’s stay at La Carabasse in the south of France. The course takes place just outside of Montpellier, in a beautiful town called Saint Clément de Rivière at a cooking school run by Alain and Elisabeth Moussy, who are two of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

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