September - summer sunshine without the crowds

If you're not tied to school holidays, September’s the perfect month to visit France.

Daytime temperatures hover in the upper twenties in the south, about five degrees less in the north. Evenings are pleasantly cool, offering relief from the heat of the day but it’s still warm enough to eat outside.

Many French employers oblige their people to take holidays in specific weeks in August, leading to autoroute hell each saturday during the month. September is another story, though. The summer sun’s still there but the open road is yours.

Photo: The open road is all yours in September

Sea temperatures are at their highest, making this the perfect month to take to the beaches, which you’ll find largely empty, with many seaside cafés and restaurants still open.

Photo: Sea, sand and daytime temperatures in the upper twenties

This is vendange time when grape picking will be in full swing. The countryside will be at its busiest as narrow vineyard tractors ferry trailer-loads of fruit to the local cave. These days much of the harvesting is done by machines, strange wheeled insects which straddle the vines.

Grapes are still picked by hand for some more expensive wines or where the vines are difficult to access by machine. The châteaux and the village cooperatives will be delighted to see you in their caves.

Photo: Everyone comes to help harvest the grapes during the vendange

That traditional symbol of French life, the village market, continues all year. This is the month when locally-grown fruit vegetables start to replace the Spanish and Moroccan versions.

Shady wooded areas like the Dordogne and the Pyrenees come under attack from mushroom pickers. It's not essential to have a béret but many experienced collectors wear one. Along with a wooden-handled Opinel penknife, it's how they recognise each other.

As some species give you more than you bargained for, mushroom displays appear in pharmacy windows. Pharmacists have become the de facto official experts on separating the dangerous from the tasty.

Restaurants still have their sun terraces with a parasol for each table. Many locals work outside during the heat of the day and yearn for the shade at lunchtime.

Photo: Restaurants and cafés - the terrace beckons

Visitors from northern Europe crave the sun. Intent on returning home with a tan, they head for the table that doesn't have an umbrella over it. Within seconds they'll be enveloped in shade, the waiter apologetic that he's left them exposed for so long.

It's a local spectator sport, parasol wars, watching a waiter chase his clients around the terrace. He's a man with a mission, determined to protect them from the very sun which brought them here. Covered in Factor 20, they're desperate to escape him, but they've underestimated the power of the midday solar furnace.

In the end it's a brutal choice - shade or starve.

Using hunger as a weapon, the waiter wins. His humbled charges are safely corralled under the awning where they'll enjoy their lunch all the more. Just like Nanny, Waiter always knows best.

It’s still festival time with a select range of events throughout the country. Summer ones are for all the family. Outside the school holidays, events are a little more selective; each one has its own audience.

Photo: September is still festival time

September is an ideal time to take a holiday rental with Pure France with even more choice. Many of our homes offer lower rates outside the peak season.