In days gone by we used to take two centre holidays in France as a matter of course, in fact they often turned out to be 4 or 5 centre holidays because we liked to move about a bit and see different parts of the country. Probably one of the best of this type of holiday is to spend a week somewhere in Brittany, Quiberon for instance, and then move a little further down the coast to the Vendee for the second week. That way you could at least experience the difference in scenery, culture, food etc without having to travel too far, and if you have children then travelling does matter,  far more so than if you haven't because from experience they tend to get a tad bored and keep asking the age old question, "Are we nearly there yet Daddy?" Our youngest started with that when we were 8 miles from home one year! Grrr.

To be honest, I can't see the point of taking a 2 centre holiday if all you are doing is spending time on the beach, after all, a beach is a beach is a beach, innit?. They have sand and rocks and sea so why spend more money than necessary to exchange that scenario with more sand and rocks and sea? To clarify that question about cost; some tour operators charge more for two centre holidays and others make no charge at all.

Some time back we found a super little tour operator based here in the UK and they offered (and still do) two centre holidays anywhere from Brittany right down to the coast just past Bordeaux and all their resorts were on or near to beaches. We have stayed with this company on a single centre holiday and they were really good, but we felt that when they had an offer going, eg - 2 weeks for the price of one up to the middle of July that they wouldn't charge too much more for a two centre holiday - but they wanted a complete weeks payment for the second week at the second venue which I thought was rather steep. I expected to pay more than the offer price to cover things like cleaning the mobile home but to be asked for double? No way!

Well, the booking season for 2009 is well and truly upon us now (the time of writing is 18.02.2009) and we must see what happens this year in terms of whether people can afford to go to France at all in the present financial situation when the £ Pound Sterling and the Euro are worth pretty much the same. We shall be going as per usual but I predict that Brits in general will be looking for bargains this year and tour operators need to reflect that feeling in their prices, but so far I haven't noticed any substantial reductions at all, never mind in the costs of 2 centre holidays. Methinks we shall wait till May when they all begin to panic and the prices drop like a stone for June and July as they did last year.