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Am new to family camping (ie lots of equipment) and have never bought a stove for more than one pan. We're going to France for first trip  - a fortnight - and there are 3 of us. Think we need 2 burners and grill, ideally. What's the best power source for France? Do we need those hefty cyclinders..? And if so, do we also need tubes and other stuff? Should we buy THOSE before we leave and get gas or whatever in France? Also, is there a stove that we can use normal sized pans with - or do we have to buy camping pans?

Any advice very gratefully received! 

thanks for your advice mattlad. Was looking at a campinggaz chef and a customer review on amazon said calor gas is much more economical (if one has the choice). If i DO go with the chef model, can anyone who owns one suggest what the best option, fuel-wise, is for France? Can you get calor gas there easily? Or is the advice from mattlad best, ie to use a 907 cyclinder of campinggaz, despite calor gas being (apparently) more economical... ?

Like I say, am a bit confused.

You can get CampingGaz refills almost anywhere in France but you won't get Calor. No brainer really! You will need a gas hose, two jubilee securing clips and a regulator for butane (for CampingGaz, if you do insist on Calor get a propane regulator.) You can buy the regulators and CampingGaz in bigger french supermarkets but not sure about the hose. You won't save much though so might as well get things sorted out before you go rather than frantically hunting around an hour before you need to cook dinner.

If you get a CampingGaz chef it will take up to medium 8"sized pans...leave the giant stock pot at home though! You can use your household pans but only if they have thin bases...thick based heavy pans use a lot of gas to get them hot. If you don't want to buy specialist camping pans then supermarket Value type pans work well too. I do take a good quality thicker based non-stick frying pan though...I hate cheap thin frying pans.

Take a look at...

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=6&TopicID=245766&PagePosition=1

this is from another post don't know if you have a go near you

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/redirect.asp?redir=http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/campingaz-package-p189178

thanks everyone for your advice and ideas. We're now borrowing a 2 burner kampa stove that runs on campingGaz to see how it goes for this trip. Will probably buy our own stove for next time.

cheers