France planning well ahead for rugby
After several unsuccessful attempts, I’ve finally got tickets for several games at the rugby World Cup in France 2023. Well, I did say ‘planning well ahead’. But although I don’t need to book accommodation just yet, I do want to start to understand options. After all, when the time gets nearer, I suspect all sorts of accommodation will be in demand with fans travelling from all over the world.
I have tickets for 6 games at 2 venues - Marseille (4) and Lille (2). The matches are spread over 5 weeks, although our trip could be split into two trips.
Lille allows options of quick visits by Eurostar, without the caravan. Or ferry and stay with caravan.
Marseille is a little trickier for 2 reasons: firstly, the matches there are days/weeks apart so we will need to stay in the south of France for longer; secondly, we wouldn’t want to stay in an urban area, but would prefer to be somewhere picturesque near the coast, maybe an hour or so away, and catch a local train in to the city.
Although we’ve done France with caravan a few times, we haven’t been in these areas. Anybody have any suggestions or recommendations for sites, preferably with good facilities rather than CL type.
thanks
Ian
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Ian
I would have thought there would be loads of places along the coast or inland which has a station within easy reach of Marseille. Years ago when we went to the Grand Prix at Monaco we used the train from Biot near Antibes. Google Earth should give you a few ideas?
David
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I don’t think you will want to drive into Marseille for the matches, so suggest your first step should be to look at a map of railway lines in and out of Marseille and identify places along those lines.
Then look at the times of matches and start looking at train timetables to match. But if they are evening games which finish late that will dash your plans of a local train along the coast to campsites at Carro, Carry le Rouet, and Sausset les Pins after the match. Those local coastal trains don’t run late into the evening and at that time of night your only choice may be a main line train to a city.
Train timetables are on line. Good luck.
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Lots of good advice above. I'd start doing the research and then contact sites directly as you should be able to make 2023 bookings.
Only problem is it looks like the dates are 8 September – 28 October 2023, so you may have problems getting sites late Oct. Good news is join the ACSI scheme and you will be getting sites for about £15/17 a night.
Yesterday we contacted our favourite site in The Loire and the desirable riverside pitches for Sept 2022 are mostly gone, as are a lot for 2023. Good sites take bookings years in advance so strike quickly and then relax knowing you are set up.
Colin
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Hi Ian,
I also have tickets for the quarter final matches in Marseille. Have you managed to find a site? We are looking to book from the Thursday to Monday but finding sites are stating ‘no availability’ or don’t take booking that far in advance.
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No, not really tried to book yet, as most won’t have 2023 availability posted yet, I suspect.
Its a tricky balancing act, as on previous out-of-peak-season trips to France, we haven’t booked in advance, and I can only recall one occasion where a site (Med coast) was full. Whether there’ll be enough camping rugby fans to make much difference who knows?
I suspect we will book ahead to be sure, but I doubt whether that will be feasible until early next year.
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Hi
If it's an evening match then I assume Marseilles will open up Park and Rides or at least parking near the ground. Why not take the car in from nearby and either have a full day exploring this interesting city or just go in for the match and return in your car to the campsite?
We were in the south of France when the football World Cup was played in 1998 and found campsites without the need to book. We weren't there for the football but remember being at Maussane-les-Alpilles, near St.Remy and Scotland had their training base nearby so the site was full of well behaved Scots footie fans in tents. I know, hard to believe but true!😂😂 (tongue in cheek folks). There was no need to book then. You might be fine until the end of September without the need to book as there are lots of sites accessible near Marseilles. After that then it becomes more problematical.
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Hi
I have tickets for Marseilles, Lille and Paris.
Paris has lots of Hotels and theTunnel offers plenty of travel options.I tried to find campsites in lille there are none. Hotels are proving to be very expensive.
Marseilles seems to be the hardest to find accommodation, Hotels are expensive or not available. I have contacted a few campsites who all seem to be open but cannot offer any transport solutions. The England games are late in the evening so the local trains don’t seem to be an option.Has anyone here had better luck than me.
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Is it worth taking your motorhome all the way to Marseille just for one game ? If I were going there it would be a budget airline flight from UK, plus an Ibis hotel or similar at Marseille airport- then a taxi to and from the game.
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Hi,
We are also looking and the following options may be worth exploring:
1. The metro runs late into the night so can be used even after the late games. It worked well for us for the Heineken Cup Final. May be worth seeing what is available in terms of overnight parking in and around metro stops which are further out of town.
2. I am hoping that the local authorities may organise pop up RV stopover sites in the area if there is enough demand, but cannot be sure. Maybe worth emailing the RwC directly and the local city authorities to ask if there are any such plans.
3. If we can get together with others to share plans and book a campsite along the coast, we could then organise and preorder a minibus taxi which might help with sharing and reducing cost.1 -
Hi we are going to matches in both Lille and Marseille strugging finding camp sites with transport links as evening matches, if anyone has come up with solution would be great to hear, so far think only option would be to stop further out and hire car. Unless during matches they put later trains on ? or have pop up campsite with easy access to stadiums
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I doubt if you will want to leave your motorhome in an unsupervised car park late at night in any of those three cities - so it’s campsites.
Paris is easy enough - you book in advance for one of the Paris campsites, and even after an evening game the Metro and the RER will still be running to get you back there late at night.
Lille and Marseille do not have campsites in the city. They are well out of town and their public transport will not get you back to an out of town campsite after a match ending at 2300. Others have already explained it. You need a hire car to get you into the city and back again, or an expensive late night cab, or you stay overnight in a city hotel and go back to your motorhome by public transport the next morning.
Or you leave the motorhome here in Uk and travel to and from matches by plane or train.
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