YOU might think there are only two ways of getting to Paris: catch a cheap flight or hop on a Eurostar.

And then you stay in a city centre hotel. But there is, as a certain Prime Minister once argued, a third way, and I reckon it beats the other two options hands-down.

Drive for an hour from York to Hull, and you can embark on a P&O ferry and spend a night cruising across the North Sea before embarking at Zeebrugge for breakfast. Then a three-hour drives takes you to a campsite in the countryside outside the French capital, equipped with superb swimming and other recreational facilities.

From here, you can take day trips into the capital and also to Disneyland Paris, before driving north again to spend a couple of days on another site near Amsterdam.

This is how my family approached a holiday in France and Holland last summer, travelling courtesy of P&O Ferries and staying in mobile homes with Eurocamp.

The ferry voyage was a key part of the holiday, and my daughter said she far preferred it to flying. We stood on deck and watched the ship navigate out of the Humber Estuary, and enjoyed a meal in the café and wandered round the shops, before retiring to our four-berth cabin, and crashing out in our bunk beds to the soothing hum of the engines far below.

We were fortunate in experiencing only the gentlest of swell on both this crossing and the return journey.

The campsite, La Croix du Vieux Pont at Berny-Rivière, was of the highest standard, situated in the beautiful Aisne Valley with the caravan pitches separated by trees and bushes. There was an indoor pool with chutes and fast slides, a table tennis room, well-equipped play area, restaurant, bar and mini-supermarket.

We could, and probably should, have gone into Paris by train, but I decided instead to drive in by car. It wasn't too bad, at least until the unfortunate moment I found myself in the middle of a maelstrom of traffic circulating around the Arc De Triomphe (I somehow escaped with my car unscathed).

I hadn't been to Paris for a quarter of century, and I'd forgotten what a lovely city it is. In two busy days, our itinerary included a cruise down the River Seine and a visit to the Louvre, which was packed with tourists desperate to see the Mona Lisa in the wake of the film The De Vinci Code. We also ascended the Eiffel Tower, which meant an exhausting climb - I think it was 670 steps - to get to the second level.

Our visit to Disneyland Resort Paris, about 90 km from our site, was a counterbalance for my daughter to the art and culture feast of the capital, the fulfilment of a long-standing Mickey Mouse dream fuelled by umpteen TV adverts.

The theme park makes for a tremendous day out for children, with some good rides. The queues were very long on the day we visited, and we failed to take advantage of the queue-busting fast-pass system. My favourite ride was the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril rollercoaster, which my daughter plucked up the courage to ride, achieving her first 360-degree loop-the-loop.

The highlight of the day was the Disney parade, involving an endless stream of floats featuring scenes from some of the greatest children's films of the last century.

There was a much smaller theme park within yards of our caravan when we ended our holiday with a couple of days at another great site in Holland, before travelling back to England on a different P&O ferry from Rotterdam.

Stopping at Duinrell at Wassenaar on the coast, we could hear the screams from the rollercoasters from our caravan. Part of the deal in staying on this woodland site was free admission to the adjacent park and also an amazing water-park, featuring wave machines, whirlpools and the longest, most spectacular covered water slides in the world - 1,000 metres in all, some quite terrifying.

The campsite was an hour along the motorway from Amsterdam, giving us the chance to pay our first visit to this remarkable city. It's a place of contrasts, with picturesque canals and graceful buildings alongside a very in-your face red light district.

We were deeply moved by a visit to the house of Anne Frank, where Anne and her family hid for years from the Nazis before eventually being discovered and captured, and enjoyed a visit to the Rijksmuseum, featuring stunning works by Rembrandt.

Fact file

  • A week's camping with Eurocamp in France and Holland, for a family of five (two adults and three children), staying in a Verona mobile home, costs between £318 off-peak and £1,129 peak, inclusive of return Dover/Calais ferry crossings. For further information and to book, contact 0870 3667552 or visit www.eurocamp.co.uk
  • The typical mid-summer fare from Hull to either Zeebrugge or Rotterdam (or mixed outward and return journeys), for a car and four people, staying in a four-berth en-suite cabin, is £324 return (Eurocamp normally offers a cheaper rate.) To book a ferry crossing direct, call 08705 20 20 20 or visit www.POferries.com
  • A one-day hopper ticket to Disneyland Resort Paris costs £31 per adult and £25 for children. A hopper ticket allows you to exit and re-enter the park as many times as you wish during the same day. To book, call 08705 03 03 03 or visit: www.disneylandparis.com - allow ten days for delivery by post.