First Trip in France

We decided to take the plunge and do the French trip that we always talked about, After a few days we decided to stay local to Calais as it was my first time towing on the other side of the road, We chose the CampingDomaine de Drancourt on the les castles site rated 5 star, it has a pool, tennis courts a bar, shop and looks good on paper and only 1hr15mins-1 hr30 mins drive from the port.

First thing I noticed is the roads seem much better then the UK equivalent, and there is the toll roads which are much quieter and I recommend using them if your towing, more caravan friendly, 8,80euro from Calais to the turn off for the site.

The area is very quite and mainly farm land, so expects to see a few cows.

The site its self was very quite and clean, friendly staff, pitches are of similar size and sometimes larger, with the option to put your caravan/MH any way you want to, which is good its on a Hill so remember the ramps and blocks, you will need them. The chateau is lovely but is currently only uses as a small bar and kids club that I never saw being used ( we were off season)

I feel the site was maybe just gearing up for the summer with manual staff working there, they seem to close down 1 of the services and then open another, when the café was open the bar was not and the take away would close then the restaurant would open. The pool area was great for the kids, small pool with pirate ship with slides on it for 1-6 year olds roughly and a normal pool for older kids, both were covered for winter with a green house style system that rolls back out the way for summer use, there is also a pool with 2 larger slides, closed when we were there but will be open in summer.

You can hire bikes, go-karts, pony rides, crazy putting( needs replacing)

Café has free wifi but very poor connection speed but Ok for getting the basic stuff done while having a beer or wine, there was phone signal there but very poor, maybe worth getting a pay as you go sim for while in France.

The site had 3 shower blocks that were kept clean and tidy, with the showers working on a push button system.

There was only 1 bin area on the site all the way at reception, so you had to drive the trash and empty bottles/ jars to the bin!!!!!, to far to carry a full bag of rubbish. Some people said there was 1 in the area we were in the year before but its now been removed?

The little shop on site had everything you needed for the basic snack/drink, with the bread and croissants requiring to be pre ordered the day before, so remember too… but it was lovely and fresh.

There are a lot of static vans on site for rental and owning so touring space is limited.

There are some towns near by called Rue, Abeville and Saint-valery-sur-somme, the later was the best, small port with some cafes and places to eat and drink with some old buildings, but nothing to shout about.

We drove further to Rouen, a City with shopping and restaurants and some historic buildings, and then also drove to Paris for the day, driving a 4x4 in Paris city center takes some getting used to………

As this was out first adventure we were not disappointed but now know that it’s a nice place to stop after a day driving in the UK and France to then head further south.

Something we did find out was nowhere is open on Sunday and also petrol stations are closed so fill in in advance.

We would go back as a stop off for 2 days but not any longer, I’m not putting the site down in any way I feel it needs a lick of paint and the actual chateau is crying out to be a proper building of use, currently only the kids club and small bar!!!!.  As the sits says 5 stars i think Maybe 3.