Bagatelle camping site near Avignon

I did not know how well off we were with the Caravan Club until we made a trip to France.     This is only a small part of my journal on our trip.

 

Saturday 27 April

Caravan sited at Camping Indigo site in Lyon.   And it's raining. 

 As Harris my yellow retriever was feeling unwell with an upset stomach we were all up early and had an early breakfast then decided to make tracks to outside Avignon as we would then be in an area that I had read all  about in the  Peter Mayle book "A Year in Provence". 

We travelled approx 160 miles and how the scenery changed, we were in hilly country with smaller fields and at long last, vineyards  and orchards.

Had to make a few stops for Harris but he never complains and seems happy enough when let out to exercise.          Me?       I'm still getting wet as it is still raining but that's life with a dog.       

Travelled approx 160 miles and stopped  outside the gates of L'lle des Papes,   Strange, note on reception door saying closed between 12.30 to 14.30.     And the barrier was down so I had to backup and pull into a car park outside the site.   Since there was no one about we decided to walk round and have a look at the site. It's still raining and there is a very cold wind with it.   Small section for tourers with no takers and the rest of the site taken over with holiday "sheds".     It did look clean and tidy even and would be a nice place to visit when in the main holiday season.    We did not like the thought of being the only ones on a site so decided to head to  Bagatelle site in Avignon for two nights.      An ideally located site for walking around Avignon or so we thought!  

 

Welcome to Bagatelle ...  

The access road is full of potholes which is not the best of welcomes to any site, this feeling of disrepair was added to by the sight of the allocated pitches that are made up of  rough long grass on a base of sand and gravel that was like mud slime due to the rain.    The girl in reception must have been having a bad day as the pitch we were allocated was on a slope with a post blocking the only direct entry for a caravan without a mover as mine is.   We picked another pitch and went back to tell her our new pitch number.   Don't think she was happy but neither was I as it was still raining.

The electric services cables are slung between trees and the outlets are a hit or miss on wheter there is a 6Amp or 10Amp output.    First one I tried tripped and a nice man suggested I move to the spare outlet on another board.    It worked fine and never tripped once.   So some outlets are suspect.

Other than the main toilet block I only found one other fresh water point on the site with no drain point.

The only waste water disposal point  was up near reception next to the very busy Motorhome waste outlet point.  

The toilet block, well it could be used as a set for a WW2 film, to be fair it was clean (ish) but everything looked old and well used.   Money is needed in every way to bring this ideal located  site into the 21st century.     We went off season and the site was full each day so there is plenty of money being made therefore no excuse for not investing in the site.  I was speaking  to a Dutchman  who said that it would get worse as we headed south.    He said that the French did not seem to invest the same as us when they made money.      Oh  God!