One way of getting around this, particularly for friends planning to travel together around the Continent, is hiring a car and, in summer, staying at camp sites.

Europeans are fond of the outdoors and there are camp sites wherever people holiday. There are, perhaps, three types of camping: luxury, pretty snazzy and bring your own tent. Which you select is up to your budget and style. But note most carefully that if you are taking your own tent you MUST camp in a proper listed camp site. You cannot pull into a field and hope for the best. It is illegal and strongly discouraged.

The three classes

Luxury first: Eurocamp, http://www.eurocamp.com, a subsidiary of the Next group of clothing stores, has well over 100 sites in France, West Germany, Spain, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Austria. Many are away from the population centres in the Swiss Alps, the French Riviera, Tuscany, Innsbruck and the German Black Forest, but Eurocamp also has sites in Florence, Paris and Munich.

Eurocamp is primarily intended for motoring holidays and is particularly suited to a group travelling around Europe by car. Eurocamp provides a choice of six-berth tents or six-berth caravillas, which appear to be of a very high standard.

The caravillas - 9.5 m long by 2.5 m wide -- and tents -- 5.2 m by 4.9 m - come with cooking facilities, pots, pans, crockery and cutlery. The caravillas have showers and toilets. Both forms of accommodation include a double bed and four single beds.

The campsites come with a variety of amenities -- most have restaurants, bars and either a swimming pool, lake or beach. All campsites have running hot and cold water, modern washing facilities and fresh water taps close to the tents. For some this will be paradise. For others, perhaps, a form of hell.

Many of the sites are in France, in the Loire Valley, Dordogne, Riviera, Provence, Pyrenees, Brittany, Normandy and Picardy.