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.

I have a vegetarian friend who refuses to set foot in France on the basis that there would be nothing for her to eat. Her meat-eating husband asked me last Christmas to do a bit of menu-gazing to see whether her prejudices were ill-founded.

Vegetarians and vegans are certainly a tiny minority in France and generally not well catered for. When I was in Paris in April our hotel pointed me in the direction of a specialist vegetarian restaurant but to be honest it was more of a café with a hippy-feel and whilst OK for lunch would not be suitable for a special night out.

"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).

The arrival of children can throw a spanner in the holiday works of the most seasoned traveller. Packing for a holiday with young children is so gargantuan that flying seems out of the question, and yet with the vagaries of the British climate, a holiday in the UK can seem a bit of a gamble.

Where better to go therefore than France? Everything can be thrown in the car and you don't need to drive hundreds of miles to find a good holiday spot. If the weather's poor then at least the food and wine should provide some compensation.