Wednesday, December 01, 2010

School Vacations in France

If you live in France, you pretty much live by the calendar of school vacations -- vacances scolaires -- or ignore it at your peril.

But even as a some-time traveler to France, it's helpful to know when a given area will be on vacation.

Vacation times can affect everything from hotel/apartment rental prices to when you might be able to get together with friends who live in France. From experience, I can say that a majority are not at home when it is school vacation!

Divided into Zones A, B, and C, the school vacations are designed so that not all of France is on vacation at the same time.  Paris/Ile de France, for example, is Zone C (purple), with winter break February 12- 28.  Zone A (yellow), including Brittany and much of south-central France, will have its winter break February 26 - March 14. And so on.

So check the handy map and plan accordingly.

5 comments:

Pepe Le Pew said...

Pretty cool. The only way I know my son is on vacation is when I get to the school to drop him off and I'm the only car there. Then we do the whole thing over again every morning until other cars show up again.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRVenJPpBuk Hi Polly, I just thought you might enjoy this. Love your blog! Maria O. Russell

Anonymous said...

French kids do get a lot of holidays... I didn't realize it before I came to Canada! This zone system is complicated too. I think it's fairly new, I don't think it existed when I was in middle school years ago.

Polly-Vous Francais said...

Pepe, I think I was you in a previous life!

Maria, thanks for the wonderful Offenbach link. Is there anything more quintessentially French than Offenbach?

Zhu,
I am still somewhat baffled by the French system of school vacations, but was even more baffled before I saw this calendar!

Sunny said...

I love the school vacations. Thanks for your post. Regards from Hotel Charles de Gaulle

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