Today, the Loire Valley in France lures tourists to explore the splendid French countryside with its historic chateaux and to enjoy some of the best food and wines in the world. You too can live like a king enjoying some of that lavish style by unwinding in a castle rented exclusively for a vacation with family and friends or for just a long weekend.



Easter and Summer holidays are just around the corner. This is the time of year for family holidays. Going on holiday with children can be a bit daunting and test your patience.

Here are some handy tips to help make your family vacation full of wonderful memories for you to cherish for a lifetime and an absolute pleasure.

Protect Your Family's Health

Very importantly take out Health Insurance and bring all of the paper work. Remember sunblock in summer and insect repellent. Pack all medicines that you and your family are on, all of them in their original containers. Take some child friendly low level pain killers like paracetemol, nurofen, or aspirin.

Arrive Early at the Airport

Today airport security takes forever and is a complete disaster. Arrive at the airport early at allow you and your family plenty of time to check in, and hopefully get a seat allocation together. Once you are through security let your kids run around a bit and let off some steam before they are couped up on the plane.

Select Seating Carefully

If you have a child under two, when booking ask for the bulkhead seats, being the first row in the economy class as you get a lot of leg room. In long haul the bulk head seats have flip down cots. If you have a young baby and you book online call up the airline immediately and ask for this particular seat allocation. Let you kids walk around the airplane as much as possible.

Keep Them Busy

If you are flying check with the airline if there are kiddies welcome packs and any inflight entertainment suitable for your children. If there is you can lighten your carry-on load for each of the children a little. A book each and a pack of cards is very useful. Your kid's favourite toy and some new toys help pass the time. Electronic games are an absolutely godsend when travelling with a family. Just remember to have replacement batteries, and the right cables for recharging for the duration of your vacation and for your return trip. Remember You may need an adaptor and even a transformer.

If you are driving, and you are not fortunate enough to have a Play Station Console (which also plays DVDs) in one of your head rests and multiple sets of ear phones, consider investing in a portable DVD player and bring along some of the kids favourite films and one or two new ones just for the journey. If you are driving from England make sure that you stretch your legs on the eurotunnel or ferry crossing.

Pack Properly

Children should help pack or pack some of their own things, depending upon how old they are of course. Make sure you check what your kids have packed if they have packed their own things. I have personally learnt this the hard way. I ignorantly thought I would empower my 9 year old by having her pack her own luggage for an Easter trip to Barcelona years ago. Things got a little hectic before we left and I did not check her little carry-on suitcase.

I asked her if she had packed warm clothes and she replied that she had. She had packed one t-shirt and a suitcase full of stuffed toys. No shoes, no trousers, no knickers, no skirts, no pyjamas. Only one t-shirt and a toothbrush. So much for having your kids appreciate cause and effect. Much to my chagrin and to her delight, we had no choice but to spend a day shopping for clothes for her.

So you need to be incredibly specificic about what type of clothes and how many you should tell your children to pack. Check the internet for expected weather conditions. Pack appropriate clothing for where you are going.

I pack a plastic bag for each person for separating dirty clothes to bring home for laundering. Tissues, a book, colouring-in pencils and a notepad,, sweeties for chewing when cabin pressure changes, at least one electronic toy with spare batteries and a surprise are worth packing in each child's carry on bag. If you have a baby if you use dummies do not forget to pack one and some spares of course