Sites in France
Hi,we are making our first journey abroad to Spain in December, we are having trouble finding a campsite in France for a nights stopover!!
They seem to only be for 3 nights and just 1 dog,we want 1 night and 2 small dogs,can anybody help with suggestion please.
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Not sure where you are looking for sites for a stopover, while there are less sites open in winter there are still enough open to allow travellers a fair choice.
If you give a few more detsils like, which ferry you are taking, when you aim to cross and at what time. I'm sure you will get lots of suggestions.
Have you joined Acsi? This is a discount campsite scheme for off season travel and well worth the small membership fee. I would suggest you look at it. We would not travel without nowadays.
In the 'overseas' section there is a thread that gives lots of help and information on winter campsites in France.
If you are travelling from Calais there are sites at Tours, Poiters, Bordeaux and Urrugne.
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CathnDave, if you Google French Campsites Open All Year it will point you to CampingFrance.com - the authoritative list of 9031 campsites across the country. Helpfully they break that down for you to a list of 1379 campsites in France which are open all year.
Choose the ones you want, but e mail to check that the owners aren't on holiday in Martinique. Then just turn up as Another David has suggested.
Have a safe journey.
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as well as route, are ypu in a caravan or MH.
if a MH, there will be hundreds of places to pull in for a relaxing nights rest.
camperstop, park4night, all the aires will have plenty of info...
enjoy.
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We no longer make the trip in winter due to age (van and us) and medical limitations;however we had a route which worked for us. Here's what we wrote on an earlier thread on this topic.
"'Our' winter route from Calais down the Rhone has served us well, although scorned on earlier posts on this thread! The good news is that the municipal site at Soissons, a key overnight stop, has reverted to all-year opening as can be seen from their new website.
Here's the route, mostly Peage and Autopista.
from Calais:
1. Soissons - Camping Municipal du Mail -164 miles
2. Beaune - Camping les Bouleaux - 250 miles
3. Nimes - Camping Domaine de la Bastide - 272 miles
4. le Barcares - Camping Club Europa - 156 miles or Les Olivers at Le Boulou.
5.Hospitalet de L'infante ( south of Barcelona) - Camping Cala d'Oques - 200 miles. (not in ACSI, but they give a discount to card holders)
None of them bookable but open all year.
Head for St Quentin,Soissions, Reims,Troyes,Dijon, Lyon (Rocade Est to Marseille), then Nimes, Montpellier, Narbonne, Perpignan. Barcelona then Valencia. Needless to say, don't enter any of these cities, just use them as indications of which routes to follow."
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Just re-checked on Soissons
Overture: Du 1 Avril 2019 au 31 Octobre 2019
So scrub that stop from your plan! Beaune is a bit far from Calais for one day, for us.
Another stop in between ( all year, takes dogs, small and friendly is Camping Hortensias wher we've stopped in Winter for a night.
https://www.campinghortensias.com/
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Shame about the Soissons site as it had a series of all weather pitches next to reception making it ideal as a winter stop over.
David
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Sorry for not replying earlier to your kind replays,iv had no internet.
We are going via euro tunnel with car and caravan, early December.
Heading to Valencia Spain.
Thinking Calais to Lyon?
Lyon to Perpignan?
Perpignan to Valencia?
Just trying to make the daily milage not to demanding for first time,any advise is appreciated.
Thanks Cath n dave
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Hi Cath, Calais- Lyon is 470 motorway miles, though I would split it with 2 nights and one day in Paris (two sites open there) - but others would go via Troyes and stop over at Camping Rives du Lac just east of the town (that site too is open all year round). Further down the road from Lyon towards Spain I know of sites open in December at Avignon, Nimes and Narbonne too, but there may well be others
Take care.
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Asking for advice is always a good idea. Several years ago, on a cold frosty January morning, we were on the car deck waiting to disembarc when the driver of the only other motorhome on the ferry asked me if we were going to Spain. When I told hime that we were, he asked if they could follow us!
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Not sure that it would make life easier for them. I've always found that following another vehicle can be fairly stressful, particularly if negotiating junctions, roundabouts and traffic lights in heavy traffic.
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i love that story
....nothing like winging it.saw some posts on another forum a few days ago that showed plenty of snow on the A75 (clermont ferrand) route...
we came back that way two years ago (never used it before and wanted to try it and to visit Millau) and it is high, but it is non toll for a long way.
...the Western route is much lower lying, and generally 'warmer', all the way to Irun/Urrugne and the Pyrenees crossing at, say, Pamplona and on to Zaragosa seems much less likely to get really bad weather.
the Bordeaux-Irun section is toll.
we go this way most Januarys and, as WTG points out, Valencia can be reached with two stops....in fact, from Cherbourg its two and a half days driving.
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the aire is part of a car park where overnighting is allowed...detail below is from park4night and googlemaps.
parking is charged cheaply up till 19:30 (from memory) and then free till 9 next morning....24hrs is only €3.
its a popular spot (but overnight is enough) as it breaks up the route, youll have company but its generally pretty quiet and less crowded than the St Jean aire.
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We did the following route in January 2018:
Coquelles to Tours staying at Les Acasias
Tours to Gradignan staying at Camping Beausoleil
Gradignan to Zaragoza staying at Camping Zaragoza
Zaragoza to La Villajoyosa staying at Alicante Imperium.
About 300 miles a day mostly motorway.
Tolls about £110 with caravan.
Booked through Camping and Caravanning Club. Watch out for the £75 booking fee if you don't book return channel tunnel with them.
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We'd like to encourage Cath and Dave and give them any advice we can. The closure of Soissons makes our itinerary less practical. Our route allowed us to make use of supermarket shopping and fuel as we left the autoroute, probably more difficult with a caravan on the back!
It's important to remember that it gets dark late afternoon ( 5.15pm in Beaune this week) and that there's a 1 hour difference in UK/France time.
Calais to Beaune is 380 miles, but if you can crack off early morning it might be a achievable, presuming you stick to the autoroute. The site we suggested at Beaune caters for overnight stops and you wouldn't have to unhitch or reverse onto a pitch,
Bon Voyage
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Thank you all very much for your help and replys to my post,it is greatly appreciated and given us lots of options to look into.
Thanks again Cath n Dave.x
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Yes we liked the Imperium. Stayed 2 weeks in 2018 and a month this year. Reception very helpful, happy hour at the bar 5-6pm always busy. pitches are fine, Toilets/showers etc always clean. There is a market a 15 minutes walk away on Thursday and a Mercadona a further 5 minutes. You can walk down to the promenade and use the escalator to get back up. Tram stop close by for Alicante/Benidorm/Calpe and more. There's also an Ex Pats shop about a 5 minutes drive away towards Benidorm for all your British food. All in All we really enjoyed the site and area around it. If you are on the rally as we were there's plenty to get involved with if you want to. The only down side is the dogs outside the site barking at night however, it didn't stop us getting to sleep.
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Sorry I didn't mention the recycling centre adjacent to the site. Some pitches actually overlook it. There can be some noise from it through the day but to be honest it didn't bother us. We are down in Manilva early 2020 but would have no hesitation in returning to the Imperium in the future.
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