From windmills to watchtowers, Brittany Ferries offers holiday homes with a real difference

Holidaymakers looking for a summer break with a real difference should check out Brittany Ferries' French Collection brochure – holiday homes on offer include several watermills, a converted château watchtower, a massive manor house and a choice of dovecotes!

The French Collection includes more than 600 cottages, 70 villas with pools, scores of apartments, holiday villages and chalets, hotels and even river cruisers.

However, it is the selection of nearly 1,200 gîtes that makes Brittany Ferries the number one choice for distinctly different holiday accommodation.

Spanning the entire country from Brittany, Normandy and Picardy in the north to Languedoc Roussillon and the Côte d'Azur in the south, and from the Atlantic coast to the Alps in the east, the gîtes are ideally suited for families – most sleep four to six people.

For those looking for something rather larger, however, the French Collection includes the charming 19th Century La Combe (¹) manor house in Brittany.  At the summer peak, the property costs more than £1,800 a week to rent – but then it does have fourteen bedrooms and sleep twenty-six people!  That’s less than £10 per person per night!

In the Western Loire, the French Collection features a converted windmill, Le Moulin de Villate (²), close to the market town of Nozay.  Accommodation, which has two bedrooms and sleeps four people, is on three levels. The living room, kitchenette and bathroom are on the ground floor and bedrooms – with fantastic views – on each of the upper storeys. Maximum peak season price is £343 a week – little over £85 per person, with the out-of-season price under £200 a week.

Le Grand Pressigny (³), close to the ancient Loire Valley port town of Châtellerault – home of the philosopher René Descartes – is a converted château watchtower, on three levels, with stone spiral stairs. This property also has two bedrooms, sleeping four people. Prices range from £263 a week off-season to a summer peak of £430 a week – little more than £15 per person per day.

There are no fewer than ten converted watermills available – the largest, Le Vieux Moulin (*) in Authou, Normandy, has four bedrooms and sleeps up to ten people. Prices range from £363 a week to a summer peak of just £557 a week – less than £8 per person per day!

And the French Collection also offers three converted dovecotes – in Aquitaine, Burgundy and Midi-Pyrérées. The smallest, Le Bourg (**), in Burgundy, has one bedroom, can sleep two people and comes complete with a boules pitch as well as two bicycles for exploring Burgundy’s exquisite Saône valley. Prices range from £171 a week to a peak-season high of £269.

For further information or to make a reservation call 08705 360 360.

For further information contact Stephen Tuckwell at the Brittany Ferries Press Office.
Telephone: 0870 901 0215
Fax: 08709 000 289
Email: pressoffice@brittanyferries.com

Released 21 July 2004