To be honest this year might be our last driving holidays through Europe, France in particular is a complete nuisance, we are visiting the Luberon later in the year, it has taken us ages to book hotels in France.

Firstly, what are the hotel rooms like, if they are nice, is there a restaurant and if so what is the food like, some of the menus seem to be composed of road kill. Assuming you find a hotel that fits what you are looking for the next question is - is the restaurant open in the night you are staying, imagine you arrive at the hotel, you have done your research, the hotel is in the middle of nowhere the restaurant is closed, after driving for hours to get to the hotel the last thing you want to do is then have to drive mikes for food.

France has been terrible trying to book hotels, we will be driving to the Southern Tyrol later in the year, trying to again book hotels in France has been a nightmare, not much better in Switzerland as they don’t seem to want to take bookings more than 3 months in advance, Germany, for the return route is marginally better, at least the hotels are bootable well in advance with decent rooms and reasonable food, too much hassle much better to be able to book a house somewhere in the UK, be able to get there in a day, no hotels to be booked enroute, only issue is try to avoid travelling on a Friday.

Rant over, but EU will probably not be seeing us next year.