Travel: France: all you'll ever need to go: Frank Barrett provides useful pointers for your trip, whether you fly or drive, sail or rail your way across (CORRECTED)

CORRECTION (PUBLISHED 15 MAY 1993) INCORPORATED INTO THIS ARTICLE PLUS CORRECTION (PUBLISHED 29 MAY 1993) APPENDED TO THIS ARTICLE

Advice: The French Government Tourist Office, 178 Piccadilly, London W1V 0AL (071-491 7622; fax: 071-493 6594) publishes a good range of helpful guides, particularly The Traveller in France Reference Guide.

The Michelin Red Guide to France lists all the local tourist offices in France, with addresses and telephone numbers. Many tourist offices have an English speaker, so you could try telephoning. Or you could write.

Guidebooks and maps: The Michelin Red Guide to France (Michelin, pounds 12.50) has more than a list of hotels and restaurants. There are good town centre maps, brief guides to the main sights and much more.

The Michelin Green Tourist Guides ( pounds 7.25 each) are a model of conciseness. The areas covered by English language Green Guides are: Brittany, Burgundy, Chateaux of the Loire, Dordogne, French Riviera, Ile-de- France, Normandy Cotentin, Normandy Seine, Paris and Provence. There is also a Green Guide to all of France.

And The Michelin Motoring Atlas of France ( pounds 11.99) is excellent.

Other guides worth a look include The Rough Guide to France ( pounds 9.99) as well as the separate Rough Guides to Paris, Brittany and Normandy, and Provence and the Cote d'Azur.

The Blue Guide: France (A&C Black, pounds 14.95), has almost 1,000 densely printed pages focusing on history and architecture.

After the success of his French Leave series, Richard Binns has a new self-published book, French Leave Encore (Chiltern House, pounds 9.99). With 400 pages and dozens of maps, the book is excellent; Available from bookshops or from Chiltern House, Honeywood House, Avon Dassett, Leamington Spa CV33 0AH; pounds 9.99 including p&p.

Telephones: The French system has two areas: Paris and everywhere else. Paris numbers are shown with a '1' at the beginning; you do not need this when dialling within Paris. When dialling from Paris to the provinces or vice versa, preface the number with 16. Numbers are always written in groups of two.

To phone Britain, dial 19 for the international exchange; wait for a new dialling tone; dial 44 for Britain, then your STD code without the first 0, then the number.

From here, dial 010 33 (with a '1' prefix for a Paris number); then the eight-figure number.

Telephone boxes: Those that accept coins take Fr1, Fr5 and Fr10 coins; an increasing number will accept only Telecartes: these cost Fr40 and Fr96 and are available from post offices, SNCF counters, tobacconists and France Telecom offices.

Crossing the Channel

Choosing your route

It is worth the effort to choose the correct route. Take Mr and Mrs Smith from Manchester, who plan to travel to their gite near Bordeaux in their 4.5m- long, 30mpg car.

If they travel Dover-Calais, the peak time one-way fare will be pounds 145. Mileage to Dover from Manchester is 254 miles; Calais to Bordeaux 551: total mileage 805. Petrol costs will be around pounds 56. Autoroute costs will be around pounds 50. They will need at least one overnight stop; a reasonable hotel would cost around pounds 40. Total cost: pounds 291.

If they travel Portsmouth- Caen, the peak time one-way fare will be pounds 153. The mileage will be 587 miles. Petrol costs will be around pounds 40, autoroute around pounds 20. Instead of an overnight hotel, they could travel overnight on the ferry: a cabin for two with washbasin would cost pounds 32. Total cost: pounds 245. Not only does the Portsmouth crossing mean a saving of more than 200 miles driving one way, the total journey itself is cheaper.

The short sea crossings have advantages, especially frequency of service and speed of loading. Thanks to improvements to the M20, Dover and the other short sea-crossing ports are also much more accessible to other parts of the country.

One disadvantage used to be the boisterous armies of school parties and day-trippers. With the introduction of motorist- only rooms and 'Club' lounges, it is now possible to spend the journey in peace.

The operators

North Sea Ferries 0482 77177

Olau Line 0795 666666

Sally Line 0843-595522

Hoverspeed 0304 240241

Brittany Ferries 0705 827701

P&O European Ferries 0304 203388

Stena Sealink Line 0233 647047

Truckline 0202 666466

To Paris:

Calais 180

Dunkerque 190

Dieppe 124

Le Havre 125

Caen 152

To Bordeaux:

Calais 551

Le Havre 403

Caen 367

Cherbourg 384

St Malo 318

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What you will need to take

British driving licence

The vehicle's registration document (a letter of authorisation is advisable if the vehicle is not registered in your name)

Green card (available free of charge from your insurance company: if you do not tell the company you are taking your car abroad you may be automatically reduced to the minimum third party insurance abroad)

Passport (a British visitor's passport available from main post offices is sufficient)

GB sticker (ask for a free one from the ferry company)

Breakdown insurance

Personal and medical insurance (do not go without it)

Beam deflectors for your car's headlights to stop them blinding oncoming cars when dipped (you will be on the 'wrong' side of the road, lights dip in the wrong direction). Car accessory shops sell these kits; it is easier to use black insulating tape.

Decide how to take spending money. Access and Visa cards are widely accepted: if you know your PIN these can also be used to withdraw money (in local currency) from French bank cash machines (check the machines to see whether they have the Visa or Mastercard sign).

Flying to France

In the past five years a comprehensive network of services has grown up from London to provincial cities in France. There are now direct flights available to Brive, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lourdes, Montpellier, Narbonne, Nantes, Rouen, Brest, Caen, Clermont-Ferrand, Deauville, Lille, Metz, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Nice.

British Airways offers London to Paris from pounds 102 for a return booked 14 days in advance, with a Saturday night stay, travelling Monday to Thursday; a return involving travel on Friday to Sunday costs from pounds 113.

Bluebird Express (0444 235678) offers low-cost flights from Gatwick to Paris, Nice, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bergerac, Perpignan and Corsica, and flights to Nice and Paris from Heathrow and Stansted. Its return fares to Nice range from pounds 115- pounds 175 depending on season; to Paris, from pounds 89- pounds 105.

Nouvelles Frontieres (071-629 7772) has charter flight returns available from pounds 69.

Further information: Air France 081-742 6600; British Airways 0345 222111; British Midland 071-589 5599; Brymon Airways 0345 090000.

France by Rail

Air France Rail

Air France has teamed up with SNCF (French Railways) to offer a combined fare to any destination on the French rail network. A return ticket from London to Dijon in Burgundy, for example, costs pounds 139 including a flight to Paris and a high-speed train journey from Paris to Dijon (the child fare is pounds 89). For an additional payment you can fly to Paris from Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh/Glasgow, Manchester or Southampton.

The Air France Rail deal also allows travellers to combine a return flight to Paris with the SNCF Euro Domino unlimited rail pass: a flight from Bristol, for example, combined with a three-day pass (three days' rail travel in a one-month period) costs pounds 215 for those over 26, pounds 198 for 21- to 26-year-olds and pounds 131 for 2- to 11-year-olds.

Further information: Air France Rail reservations 081-571 1413; brochures 071-499 1075.

Euro Domino Rail Pass

Three days' unlimited rail travel for one month costs pounds 102; five days pounds 141; 10 days pounds 221. For those under 26 it costs pounds 84, pounds 124 and pounds 194 respectively. French Railways, French Railways House, 179 Piccadilly, London W1V 0BA (071-495 4433).

Further information: British Rail International, Victoria Station, London SW1W 1JY (071- 834 2345 inquiries; 071-828 0892 credit card bookings). Bookings and inquiries can also be made at selected British Rail stations and travel agents appointed by BR International.

Motorail

A return trip on a short sea ferry crossing from Calais to Brive for a family of four costs from around pounds 700 including the Channel crossing and couchette accommodation. It would be far cheaper to drive down. Even if you ate at good restaurants and stayed at an expensive hotel you would still pay less.

But that is not really the point. People do not use Motorail to save money. Many do it for reasons that have to do with children or infirm cars. And many do it because they like it.

Further information: French Railways has discount cross- Channel fares with Brittany Ferries, Hoverspeed, Stena Sealink and P&O European Ferries that offer substantial savings. Railsavers (0253 300080) offers discounts on Motorail for travel in the UK and on the Continent.

Motorbikes: These are carried on all routes in France.

Bicycles: These must be transported inside your vehicle.

Coaches to France

Eurolines (071-730 0202) has regular services to Paris and more than 30 other destinations in France, as well as Channel Hopper services to Le Havre, Calais, Cherbourg, St Malo, Roscoff and Caen. There is also a service from Bristol to Paris via Le Havre and Rouen. Return fares from London to Paris, cost from pounds 52; pounds 49 (under 25).

CORRECTION

Direct scheduled flights from the UK are no longer available to Brive, Narbonne, Brest, Deauville, Metz and Mulhouse (Independent Traveller, 8 May).

Comprehensive information on destinations served by direct flights from the UK to France - and fares - is listed in a new bi-monthly magazine, French Traveller, pounds 2, available from newsagents.

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