Only mad dogs and Englishmen take holidays in Provence during August - the French stay away!

Provence encompasses some of the biggest and most expensive names in European holidays: Cannes and Nice for starters, with Antibes, Agay and St Tropez their smaller cousins. Summers here are seriously hot and at the time when many Brit families can get there (summer holidays) is the time when the locals get out and take their own holidays somewhere cooler, but it is lovely area whether you opt for a beach holiday or one higher up in the Provencal hills.

Getting there is easy enough and we recommend that you take the short Dover/Calais ferry crossing or the Tunnel, but then you have a long drag, roughly 750/760 miles down to the Cannes on the south coast - you may not be taking your holidays in Cannes but that mileage gives you some sort of idea of how far you have to travel.

Yes, a long drive, but we, like many other like minded people prefer to self drive and take all our mod cons with us than to fly drive and end up with a small suitcase of bits and pieces, besides which, you need some form of transport when you get there anyway, so it boils down to fly and hire of self drive and enjoy the journey.

Depending on the type of holidays you intend to take in Provence, it need not be expensive. Hiring a cottage, gite, flat or other bricks and mortar property will be dear, but if you go camping or stay in a mobile home then the cost of your actual holiday there won't be any more than it is in Brittany, the Vendee or anywhere else in France. Where you may well find a difference though is in the cost of things in shops, at least in the resorts, though not so much Provencal villages.

Times to avoid? Well there aren't any really though it does become seriously hot in July and August, but it is a dry heat which doesn't drain you like the heat in the UK which is far heavier. So all in all, Provence holidays are great for sun worshippers, and if you get fed up with the sun you can always mooch around and dig up some Roman history.