Recommend good caravan sites Charente Maritime
Please could anyone recommend any caravan sites in the region of Royan, La Rochelle, Rochefort, and Arcachon to Bordeaux.
what is considered reasonable prices?
what laundry and bathroom facilities?
I will be travelling with my cat. I need somewhere safe for him and I.
I am travelling through Arras to Carcassone and I have been told to be careful of thieves and also pet thieving in the south of France area.
I know this was a problem around the Montpellier area. Does anyone have any advice?
thank you
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Some of the facilities in France don’t always come up to scratch, no tissue, no toilet seats, mixed facilities and some are not fully enclosed. Last year whilst in France I used the van facilities more than the sites. I find the facilities in Germany far superior
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I've found most toilet facilities "bog" standard.
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The campsite we store our caravan on has a heated shower block in low season! It's lovely and toasty warm in there on chilly mornings.
And in reply to the OP
Travelling with a cat is no problem. We have a house in the south of France - and have never heard about pet thieves. Pets in France are registered, microchipped and tattooed so it would be difficult for thieves to sell them on. Our cat comes caravanning with us, and we've had no issues at all.
I can't recommend sites in that particular area - because it's not an area we know well. However, in forty years of camping and caravanning in France there have only been a couple of sites where we've arrived and chosen not to stay because of problems. Shower blocks vary in standard, as do site facilities, but most sites these days are reviewed and you can read the experiences of others before deciding. In low season you can use an ACSI card - and there are 70 sites for just 12 euros, and 256 for 14 euros - this includes pitch for car and caravan (or motorhome, or tent, or whatever), awning, electricity and one dog.
In addition to other advice (above) you could also get Le Guide Officiel Camping Caravanning Edition 2020 which contains details of ALL campsites in France - around 9,500 - everything from five star luxury to one star sites.I'm intrigued that you say you're on a route between Arras and Carcassonne, and yet you're visiting La Rochelle which is a very long way west. Our house is near Carcassonne, and we go straight down the middle of France - so I could give you information about lots of good stopover campsites on that route!
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Indeed but s/he needs to be aware that, as in the UK on non-club sites, sanitary blocks in other countries, including France, vary. Some are excellent but others are nowhere near Club level.
Without wishing to cause controversy I would not agree with your comment that in most cases UK club sites could do well to learn from them. I think that is a gross generalisation and gives a somewhat false picture.
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For Carcassonne I don't recommend the site within easy walking distance of the Old City, called imaginatively, camping de la city. It's not ACSI and not particularly cheap, but having a MH was very convienient. The site in general is OK, pool etc and reasonable facilities. It's the pitches that let it down, blades of grass are at a premium, you are basically pitched on Mud. Very sticky and ultra slippery mud when it rains. So unless you can guarentee dry weather, one to be avoided. The Old city was great, well worth visiting.
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The Old city was great, well worth visiting.
+1 there Steve. I also was happy to see that even though it is a tourist trap the prices for meals was no where near at all exorbitant at all as you might expect in such a place where there is no where else to eat. I remember we got a tourist menu meal, two course which was really excellent which came to just under 10 euros each and that included wine.
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With reference to your first paragraph ...this covers a stretch of 120 miles so of course there are good sites with good facilities in that wide area.
Some are large holiday camp sites, but some others are small and select. Some are urban and some are rural. Some are open all year but others are seasonal with varying dates. Prices will vary from €16 to €50 per night at different times in the year.
I can suggest sites which we have used and liked but without some idea of where in that wide area you want to visit , and when you will be travelling any suggestion I offer may not be what you are looking for, but none of them have seemed at all dangerous to me.
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as the club has a 'standard'....this doesnt vary (much) from site to site, which means that (almost) every CC site we've experienced (and it is quite a few) have that silly fixed shower head that points almost directly to the ground meaning, to be in the spray, you have to stand almost touching the walls and the shower controls....
and dont get me started on those ridiculous large plastic 'stools' that take up room and i chuck out before having a shower...something to do with putting socks on, apparently...
there are certainly many things the club could learn from sites all over europe but thats not the done thing...the CC has a 'way' and that wont change...but its certainly not the case that Club sites are anywhere near the top of the tree when it comes to showers.
for instance, the showers here are just sooooo much better than any CC site we've used.....hot (and i mean hot), adjustable spray, powerful, large newly tiled cubicles and not a plastic stool or curtain in sight.
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Charente Maritime camping usually means Ile de Re or Ile d'Oleron.
However, if you don't want to visit the islands, we've stopped at Camping Le Cadoret at Fouras. It's a medium sized site with restaurant, shop, tennis, swimming pool and modern sanfacs.
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Steve, we used that site when first visiting the town and, as you say, a bit short on grass....however it was summer so not a problem and typical of many summer site conditions.
while not of use specifically to the OP, but possibly to MHers, on our next visit we used the aire, part of the main coach/car park at €6 from memory and right outside the front gates....
however the aire has moved and is adjacent to Camping de la Cité...i see it's barried but am not aware of the pricing now, but handy just the same.
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Trouble is we stopped in September and had very heavy thunderstorms.☹️ We considered the Aire, looks OK and at about 11€ half the price of the site. Although you can't use any site facilities. However, having spent the previous 3 nights on Aires, thought we would go to the site. Unusually for France they charged upfront, probably because if we had seen the pitches we would have turned round and used the Aire.😂 We will use it if we go again.😀
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David, an interesting (aside) point (for me as a MHer) that you did a 3hr/300km return trip to visit Carcassonne from Argeles....
i'd never even considered the two places to be 'close' but i guess 90mins each way isnt too bad in the car and its not a place you'd be camping at..
just shows different thinking i guess, as it wouldnt be on my radar to even think of doing that, probably because, for us, if we drove there it would become our 'next stop' and we wouldnt be turning round and heading back to the place we'd just left.
when we go home we may visit Argeles as we are heading up the east coast of spain, and may even visit Carcassonne again.....however, if that was the plan, we would include it/them on our route home, along with any other 'want to sees'....and as yet undiscovered towns.... probably a bit of zig-zagging involved...
just shows how we all operate slightly differently to include places when touring.
either way, we loved the Cité and the actual stopping place chosen is really secondary to the wonder of the place.
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I've been to Carcassonne a couple of times over the years. It's a bit like Venice. Somewhere you can be drawn back to.
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The site under discussion at Carcassonne is another we have used and, it appears from my notes, we liked the “spacious and private pitches and the excellent loo block”. But that was in 2012!
That has not changed at least on the pitch they gave us. Good size, hedged pitch. However, between the hedges was just dried mud (until it rained) with just the odd tuft of grass. I find it difficult to believe they will recover sufficiently In the closed season. Facilities were good, although got very muddy. If it had remained dry it wouldn't have been an issue. I suppose if we still had a caravan we would use it again, as long as the forcast was dry. However, with a MH we will certainly use the hardstanding Aire.
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Carcassonne? I have driven past several times. Should we have stopped?
I just thought it was a medieval castle built as recently as 1844 - an early version of a Disney fairy tale tourist trap - with lots of coach parties toiling up the hill and queuing for the toilets, and shops selling plastic swords and helmets and painted shields. Is it better than that?
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Pretty much summed up the place for us ET. Revisited in December one year, not with the caravan but on an fly drive. The only good thing for us was the lack of tourists. Can't say we were too impressed by the Cassoulet that we had for lunch, bought in the main town. Found the one we had at Castelnaudary the following day much better. They do have slightly different versions, so I'm led to believe.
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Bolero Boy,
I was a little surprised with your diatribe about stools!
Have you not thought that some people find it necessary, to sit down to dry their feet or put on their socks? Such people find the stools vey useful
If you don't need to do so you can put the stool outside the cubicle without a fuss. Hopefully you haven't broken any when you have "chucked" them out.
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Steve
I assume you mean this campsite?
http://www.davidklyne.co.uk/Camping_de_la_Cite.html
We have stayed there twice, first time in 1992 and the second time in 2015. The quality of the pitches I thought were pretty typical of that area of France where grass struggles to survive in the heat. We were lucky on both occasions that we did not have rain. It is very convenient for visiting both the old and new cities of Carcassonne. The little path from the site that takes you along the river into either.
One unusual thing about this site it was one of the few we have been to in France where you were expected to pay up front rather than the end of your stay! It does have an excellent motorhome service point.
David
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