keycamp / canvas etc - sites you could survive without a car?

[elliott]

We fancy getting away from fly drive this year and are looking for a campsite where a car is not essential, probably in Brittany or Vendee (or at least not more than 4 or 5 hours on the train from Paris).
Ideal place would be small, french, uncommercialised, with lots of countryside to explore straight from the site, cafe/restaurants and shops within walking distance, a bus stop for day trips to nearby towns/villages, and bike hire (including small ones for the kids). Fishing would be a plus. Beach or coastal setting would be great but would consider lake/river too. Oh and would need to be within 10-20 miles or so of a town with a train station, but that shouldn't be too difficult.
Have two ds's 6 and 4 who love grubbing around exploring. ds2 would like the chance to make friends. I just want to imbibe some of le french atmosphere and food...
Any ideas please?

[SheherazadetheGoat]

make sure you get a good campsite with access to beach and decent size pool and site shop.

bike hire would be good too so you could cycle to local village. tbh i wouldn't even consider a campsite without a beach if i didn't have a car. we went to a lovely campsite in brittany last year with beach and it was so darn easy to just potter down to the beach esp. in the evening.

[mrsflowerpot]

Ile de Re? disclaimer is I have never been but it is one we have looked at and thought 'and we wouldn't need a car' - it's on the list for us once the kids are big enough to do all the cycling.

[elliott]

which campsite in brittany StG? I think you may be right about the beach, its just taht the beach sites often seem very resort-like while the countryside ones look more, well french...

[SheherazadetheGoat]

tbh i would just drive.

[SheherazadetheGoat]

the countryside ones are more french but a 6 and 4 year old really won't get that! now we have dd we go to campsites that previously made my teeth itch and she adores it!. the one we went to wasn't particularily accessible without a car.

[elliott]

yes, I KNOW most people would just drive, but we would like to try not to.... I would be interested to know which campsite you went to in Brittany!

[elliott]

xpost sorry...boys would be happy with any kind of place they can explore. Its me that wants it to be less holiday camp...

[SheherazadetheGoat]

this one

sorry, i have to know why you don't want to drive.

[elliott]

Ah, yes I'd seen that one and thought it looked good...can you do shopping and eating without a car from there?

why not drive? Well, we live in Newcastle so would not drive our own car (it would take us 2 days just to get out of the country!) Flying options are also not that great to france from Ncl - so would probably end up driving to east midlands or something, its a bit of a hassle tbh. And my least favourite bit of that kind of holiday is arriving at the airport and having to sort out the hire car...
And finally, now that the St Pancras terminal is open we quite fancy seeing what is possible re taking the train to Europe and making a bit of an adventure of it - so we would take one day to get to paris, stop over there, and then on to wherever the next day.
Will that do?

[SheherazadetheGoat]

i think the village is walkable (just!) and there was a bigish supermarket there and a bakery and charcuterie etc.

we are edinburgh and drove back from portsmouth in a day. we did stop over on the way down but only to visit some friends.

[elliott]

wow, how long did that take? We can't even get to Devon without it taking 2 days! Did you overnight on the ferry or something?

[SheherazadetheGoat]

yep we did overnight. got off the boat nice and early and off we went.

[elliott]

snyone else?

[Furball]

have a look at center parcs in europe - they are not as expensive as here - we flew to cp in holland last year and stayed in vip accomodation in august for £700!

[bigfatbump]

What about camping bel. I'm not sure how many km it is from La Rochelle but about 40mins in the car. It has a lovely beach over the road and the town is a short walk away. The supermarket is 5 mins away too. We hardly use the car when we're there. I'm not sure about buses elsewhere though, but there are definitely bus stops .

[GrapefruitMoon]

There are a few other campsites near Camping Bel too - though might be hard to find one that isn't holiday-camp-like! Camping du Jard is another one:

www.campingdujard.fr/gb.html

You can definitely get a bus into La Tranche and there is a smaller shopping area with restaurants within walking distance. Bicycle hire on site and on the main road. Not sure about exploring countryside straight from the site though... you would probably need to stay a bit further out from a town for that - and then there might be problems getting there in the first place and no local buses...

[Leslaki]

Would you consider Italy? It;s just that we're doing that this year camoign without a car after 7 camping holidays WITH car in france!! Reason why I ask is that the campsites were REALLY cheap and the public transport/ease of getting to campsites seems fab! We're going to [www.portofelice.it] in August thru camping Life. (£1000 for 4 of us for 2 weeks in Aug school hols) flying into Venice then there is a bus which goes from airport every 30 mins or so to a bus stop right outside the campsite!! hey!!! The campsite is a bit busier than we'd normally choose but will keep dcs happy!! You can walk into town, campsite is directly on a beach and it has tons of facilities on site. there are loads of other campsites on that coastline and I presume they'd all be easy to get to as public transport sounds very easy. A taxi will cost 70 euros from airport. campsite also runs day trips. Quit fancy the odd day in venice!