French Campsite recommendation anyone? - (west coast with pool)

[Mick Mac]

Can anyone recommend a campsite in France that is principally for tents but also has a pool. I had in mind an independently run site rather than a Eurocamp type - Eurocamp seem predominantly for mobile homes / chalets, I'd prefer a basic campsite predominantly for tents, but the kids need a pool.

Location we are looking at is somewhere on the west coast of France, from south Brittany down to Bordeaux area.

Any thoughts or experiences let me know - Thanks.

(btw - I'm posting this in the Lounge as it gets considerably more posts than any other section)

[daizie]

thats because a number of us are banned from posting elsewhere ;-)

[Alan Brady]

Right Mick Mac are you paying attention? Firstly scrap the holiday in France for Italy. Lake Garda in the Lombardy region and it has a campsite that is predominantly tents. You also have the added benefit of having Venice a short journey away, well, not as short as Brechia which has a coluseam where you can go and shout 'Are you entertained'! You'll also wont have to endure the French toilets that resemble starting blocks.

Have fun.

[Sherwick]

My mum lives in Fouras and tells me there're lots of campsites there in the summer. (It's a lovely place by the way, and just outside La Rochelle).

[Mick Mac]

Thanks for that Alan - but we like to take the car with us and maybe Itlay is a bit too far with 2 kids. But thanks.

Sherwick - I'll have a look at Fouras - we were near La Rochelle last year and would be happy to go back to that area.

I think in general the camping in France is either 1) municipal tent campsite that seem not to have pools or 2) Eurocamp types which are a bit too organised/formal for my liking. I'll keep looking.

[*Bob*]

We went to one at Pyla sur Mer, about an hour or so drive from Bordeaux, which I could happily recommend.

It's a mix of some chalets with with plenty of campsite pitches. Really nice wooded campsite, generous pitches with bbqs dotted around for anyone to chuck stuff on. Nice pool with decked area, bar with some games and play areas but not the ole! ole! hellhole of Eurocamp.

The local town (arcachon, I think) has a pretty big market where you can buy great food to chuck on said bbq. Pyla is also (apparently) the world's largest sand dune (good for rolling down 100m tall sand dunes if the leetle ones are game - though on the downside you do have to navigate over / through the world's tallest sand dune if you can be arsed to go to the beach).

We went slightly out of season when it was quiet, which was fine for us.. they said it got a bit more organised in-season (some kidz clubz and all that jazz).

http://www.camping-panorama.com/gb.html

[Mick Mac]

That one looks good Bob - will add it to the shortlist - thanks.

Sherwick - have also found this one in Fouras, which also fits the bill:

Fouras

[David Mc]

The Ile de R? is very lovely but it has that bridge, which is fine (if expensive) if you're travelling during quiet times and horrific if you're not!

And I've heard good things about the place called Arcachon (mentioned above). The sand dunes there inspired the pyramid outside the Louvre.

Saturday's Independent had a pull-out section on B?ziers and the Cap d'Agde but that's the wrong coast!

[Mick Mac]

Thanks David - did mini hol in Cape D'adge last year (in late May and it rained all week:() Nice part of the world though.

[Michael Palaeologus]

Try French Freedom - they are a smaller company and have less busy sites.

[Robyn0312]

canvas holidays has tents on nearly all of their sites and excellent kids facilites - went away with them for years and always had good experiences. There's currently loads of deals inluding 49% off until april 30th...

[candj]

There was a recommendation for babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk in the family room, a website with villas all over France.

We haven't tried it ourselves, but do plan on it next year.

Have a lovely time.

-C

[Mick Mac]

Not sure Canvas allow you to bring you own tents - we invested in all the gear last year and a top of the range tent, so we have everything we need and hope to make use of it.

[candj]

So sorry, you did say camping! Sorry, I'm half asleep. Good night!

PS- We do have friends who own a Gite in France, but they don't have a swimming pool.

[hislordship]

A lovely independent place in the Limousine - no pool, but so nice I thought I'd post details of it anyway. They also serve up truly outstanding food.

Campsite in Limousin

[zephyr]

We went to St Jean de Monts last year with Keycamp - it was great. Whilst there are ready set up tents and mobile homes, there are also camping pitches. The swimming pools was great and the kids went swimming even on the rainy days ( thats the Brits for you I guess)

There are a number of sites around the town be we went to Zagarella

[TillieTrotter]

We used keycamp for years, camping in both France and Italy when the kids were small. Always had a fab time.

[Ann]

Don't be put off if keycamp and Eurocamp are on site. Have holidayed in France many times and they have been present at most of them but that doesn't mean the campsite doesn't have plenty plots for proper campers. Also you say you only want the basics but an on site bar and Restaurant are usually a bonus. I have typed 'camping in france ' for a search before and you will get literally thousands but you can break it down to regions and star rating. At the end of the day you can't realy go wrong with children on that type of hoilday, but beware your children might need more to do when thay get older. Anyway good luck.

[Mick Mac]

Many thanks for all your suggestions - will check them out. Mick.

[bawdy-nan]

This is a lovely small campsite in Brittany. It does have Eurocamp tents but its mostley independent campers. There's a pool but it also has direct access to a lovely beach via a field - very nice. Brittany can be rainy however!

[reenie40]

We spent two holidays at Les Mouettes near Carantec in Brittany, although there was Eurocamp and Keycamp accomodation on site, we booked through a French company Yelloh and paid a fraction of the price. We stayed in a chalet but a friend came along with his own tent midway and said they were very flexible with dates etc for the self pitch sites. We didn't join in any of the organised activities on site, but there were three lovely pools that the kids spent all day in.

[Sherwick]

Fouras is a really lovely place. Unfortunately, if you go there, you probably won't want to come back here...

[zephyr]

Camping Du Letty in Bendodet is also excellent. Mostly camping pitches when we were there 3 years ago our pitch was right by the sea (sheltered). We could step out of the tent, walk across our pitch and step onto the sandy beach through a path in the hedge

Camping Du Letty

[Mick Mac]

Looks lovely - and yes this type of independent site is the type of thing we are looking for - thanks zephyr. My wife is a bit concerned about the Brittany weather but as we are going in early August I would hope it would be good at that time.

[malcomio]

we went to that panorama one near arcachon as well - it was lovely