Just a 15 minutes drive away from the Spanish border and facing out onto the tempestuous Bay of Biscay, the French town of Biarritz is something of an enigma. This small, seemingly innocuous seaside town gets a lot of press - it begs the question! Well, for what the picturesque Basque resort lacks in stature, it more than makes up for in terms of status.

The truth is that, for a whole host of reasons, Biarritz is known for attracting tourists of the highest social calibre. The fact that Biarritz acts as a holiday haven for the rich and famous is, however, by no means a recent phenomenon - Napoleon III was chiefly responsible for the transformation of this working whaling port into chic resort when he commissioned the building of a summer palace for his wife, the Spanish countess Eugénie de Montijo. The palace remains, but in the form of the splendid Hôtel du Palais. Nowadays, Biarritz caters for all tastes.

For many of us, France is a summer destination, and those of us who do venture across the Channel in the winter, go predominantly to ski. Nothing could be better, however, in the run up to Christmas than a few days in one of the many French towns which host a Christmas market.

Traditionally, French housewives spent the weeks before Christmas baking and cooking traditional dishes for the festive season, and this was the genesis of the Christmas market which stocked all the special ingredients they would need. The markets now are full of local produce, including organic poultry and regional specialities, such as honey and olive oil, many of which make ideal Christmas presents for gourmets! The French are expert in wrapping sweets and chocolates as though creating a work of art, so if you have someone with a sweet tooth to buy for, this is your chance to impress.

"It all became clear in a flash: there, right before me was the centre of the universe". So said the eccentric surrealist Salvador Dali, as he passed Perpignan's railway station in a taxi in 1963. This, in case you were wondering, is the reason for the benches in the shape of Mae West's lips in the road leading to the station and for the railway carriage suspended in mid-air in front of it. You will have to go to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne to see his work, The Railway Station at Perpignan, painted in 1965, but if you are a Dali fan, the trip from the Perpignan area to his home town of Figueres in Spain is an easy one. The coastal road (N114, becoming the N260 in Spain) is highly scenic, but not for the faint-hearted - twisting and turning like a corkscrew at times. Perhaps those prone to travel-sickness would be better off opting for the less attractive but straighter and far faster A9 (becoming the E15 IN Spain).

Sitting in the small French town of Ceret last week I could have been forgiven for thinking I was in Spain. The red and gold Catalan flags were fluttering, we were tucking into a delicious array of tapas washed down with a jug of sangria, and several small boys in Barca football shirts were kicking a ball around the square. Strange though it may seem, it was not a case of having had one glass too many, but rather that we were holidaying in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of Languedoc Roussillon.