One thing you notice when you go camping in France is the number and quality of children’s play areas and play parks they have. Although UK towns, cities and villages generally have a number of play parks, they tend to be either small or filled with old, rusty or inadequate equipment. Our local play park is of a reasonable size but has not had any new equipment for many years.
This year we decided to take the night ferry to France and we had booked to sail from Plymouth to Roscoff with Brittany Ferries as we only live half an hour from Plymouth. Our chosen campsite for two weeks was Le Clarys Plage in the Vendee and we decided to travel at night as we hoped that sleeping during the crossing would mean that no-one would feel seasick.
There are several major differences between driving in France and driving in the UK. Driving on the right’ is the most common difference but one that is often forgotten is the need to pay a toll on certain roads and autoroutes (or motorways) in France. Tolls are avoidable in Brittany but sadly unavoidable in many other regions of France.
One thing that never crosses your mind until it’s too late is Gadget Insurance. It’s now very common for people to own more than one gadget but do we ever think about getting them insured? We’ve heard various stories over the past year involving families travelling to France on holiday who’ve taken their gadgets with them…keeping the children entertained in the car.
One of the things we love most about our family camping holidays is going to the French supermarkets to do our shopping. I know this may sound odd and you may be asking yourselves, with all the things to do whilst on holiday why do we like the supermarkets so much. It’s got a lot to do with the quality of the food and the wine but most of all it’s about the relaxing atmosphere.
Some people like children’s clubs and others don’t and the decision whether to put your children into a club is a personal one. Some people believe that a family camping holiday in France should be exactly that, a family holiday, where the whole family spend the entire holiday together, enjoying each others company and doing all the things they can’t do together in a normal working week.
