I’m going to be driving down from Cherbourg to stay with a friend in Perpignan in July.
I’ll be in the van with the family (wife and two kids, 4 & 3). It’ll be the first time we’ve taken the kids abroad in the van, so was wondering if anyone had any advice about places to stay or things to see! I really don’t know France well at all (apart from the alps!)

We like pretty basic campsites if possible rather than big resort type places. Water (lakes/rivers) always a plus. Not wanting to drive huge distances each day so thinking of taking a week or 10 days to do it. I’ll have a bike but that isn’t a priority (although some sneaky rides would be good!).

Thought I’d tap into the world of wisdom that is STW for this one!

Cheers,

Ian

Carcassonne.

Go see stratobiker off here (not seen him post for a while actually) in the area around Limoges. He’s a top fella and will show you some nice trails if you can sneak out. Particularly liked the area around Blond (Monts de Blond) which has a municipal campsite, as do a lot of the towns and villages – they tend to be more basic.

Take em via big viaduct

Carcasonne is impressive if very touristy. I liked Toulouse. Id def see the Pyrenees and one of the river areas, Loire, Dordogne etc.

You may need to book campsites in busy areas.

Quick google suggests Carcassone will go down very well with me and 5 year old. Looks amazing, thanks!

Another vote here for Carcassone and for the millau viaduct. The puy de dome if you’re passing, for its rather obvious volcanoes, Mt St Michel if you’re near.

all good suggestions – thanks. Heard a few nice things about the Limoges area, and it seems that we’re likely to pass through that area. I remember the Dordogne a bit from family holidays as a kid. Probably worth a revisit!

Le petit train jaune if you are near.

Get thee to the Cevennes if you are in any way able. Beautiful, especially near the Herault river. 8)

Another vote for tracking down stratobiker, top bloke, great trails.

Am also a cevennes fan. Do a search on here for a route guide thread I did last year. Going back again this year on way back from corsica.

If you’re heading to perpignan checkout vtt routes around quillan. Route map link in the cevennes thread for aude en pyrenees.

I asked a similar question last week. Got some good responses. I don’t know if we’ll get as far as the big bridge, may go in a different direction.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/camping-in-france-3

Le petit trein jaune up the valley is really good.We used to get on at the walled town of Villefranche.Just up the valley from Villefranche is Vernet les Bains which has a nice little site called L’eau Vive with a large river fed swimming pool.
A great site is Camping Ascou la Forge just outside Ax les Thermes.
The owner runs outdoor sports such as canoeing and canyoning and has a big room full of info for getting out and about.The TDF also passes some years.One of the best toilet blocks i’ve been to in France.

I liked Vernet les Baines too. There was a website by the Prades VTT club listing local routes, events and stuff. The ride up and down the Col de Mantet sticks in the mind still, best tarmac ride ever.

Pont du Gard pretty amazing
paddle down the gorge du tarn
Cevennes, lunch at Florac
Uzes is a lovely place to visit

As posted, Carcassone is worth a visit. You might like to stop off in the Dordogne (Rocamador ?) or somewhere in the Lot valley. Would recommend Montpellier too. Issue is all of these are tourist magnets, Lot is quieter than Dordogne, we had a very nice gite holiday near Cahors with the kids, surrounded by fields of sunflowers.

Normandy landing beaches, the US memorial centre is quite close to Cherbourg. If you don’t mind the diversion off of the ferry then make a stop at Mont St Michael. The beaches and sand flats nr La Baule are good. Divert over to La Rochelle or Ile de Rey on the coast if you are taking it easy ? That centre part of France is very rural and you should find lots of quiet places to stop a few miles from the motorway.

When a student we used to spend a month inland of Perpignan in the mountains, some great little villages in amongst the vines and old ruined hilltop forts. Happy days.

I really Like Les Landes. Its between Bordeaux and the sea. It just a 120km beach backed by about 30km of sand dunes covered in pine forest. It also contains 2 huge fresh water lakes which are great for kids paddling and swimming etc. The area has loads of traffic free cycling and bike hire etc.

I have used camping Le tedey a few times. It has a huge lake shore. But campsites like that will be full in July so try booking.

http://www.le-tedey.com/

Dordogne is great as well we used http://www.campinglecapeyrou.com/ but a mate told me it was full now. But he probably needed a week and you’ll only need a night or 2 so still worth trying

The Aquarium in Brest was brilliant. The best purpose built tourist attraction I have ever visited. My kids were around that age when we visited

+1 for municipals and booking in advance – we did a bit of a tour round Brittany a few years ago, finding campsites on spec and it was a bit of a nightmare, either way out of our price range or pretty minging. We stumbled on a municipal late one evening, thinking “council run, it’ll be horrible”, and it turned out to be by far the best of that stay, and the cheapest too, IIRC. So we booked municipals for our last couple of trips (Il de Re and Il d’Oleron), and both were top notch, we’ve got another one booked for this year’s trip, that’s down the way you’re going but I can’t remember exactly where off the top of my head, we’ll be there after you.

Lake Salagou. Swimming in the lake, cycling around it.

July probably won’t be too bad for campsites being full will it? August is the main tourist period in France innit?

I think you’re right, and we DID find campsites on the Brittany trip, in August. But I hated the stress of having to look for somewhere, and the (ultimately groundless) fear of finding ourselves stuck without a site for a night. We just book now – no variables, you know where you’re going and there’s a berth when you arrive. 🙂

If you’re down in the Pyrenees and fancy a night or two in a proper bed, this place is pretty informal and good with kids: http://www.masforge.com/ – walking distance to Vernet-les-Bains, too.

Lovely area, well worth visiting.

Thanks for all these great tips – I need a night on google doing some research. 130km of beach sounds incredible. The municipal campsites sound a good general tip too. Are they web bookable or does it vary from site to site? My French may not be up to a series of international calls…

In two minds about booking campsites – one of the joys of the van is that you can play it by ear, and I guess in the worst case scenario we can stop in an Aire, but having a couple of specified destinations is probably a good idea. We’re going July rather than August to avoid the French hols, but I’m sure it will still be busy.

Jambalaya – my mate has a house in a small village in the hills called Rasigueres – I’ve not been there for 20 years but remember it being fantastic, and it should make a great final destination after a few days in the van!

Think we web-booked ours. They seem to be very French, as opposed to say the more polished sites that the likes of Eurocamp and Canvas use, where most of the punters will be British or Dutch – almost all of the punters on the municipals we’ve been to were French. Might be down to going in August, but we like to think it’s just where the French prefer to go. 🙂

Totally get you on the booking thing – I just really hated the stress of having to look and hope to find something, but to be fair, even in August when we did the Brittany thing and toured around, we never didn’t find somewhere to pitch up, if I may term it so awkwardly. 🙂

go the east(ish) route, via clairmont-ferrand and the massive arc de milau, and do a minor detour out to the herault valley – go east to ganges, then head south along the herault – stop off at saint guilham-le-desert and le pont de diable, both stunning

drive south through a multitude of vineyards, head toward the etang de thau, meze is nice, so is marseillan, a lot of really good seafood places there.

montpellier is also nearby, fairly touristy but worth a visit

if you’re going through carcassone, there’s some great scenery just north in the cevennes around olargue and the orb valley

There are also the Cathar castles between Carcassonne and Perpignan, some of them are really impressive.

If you can be sure to be out side the French holidays then you’ll be fine without booking

If you’re going past Limoges and have kids Vallee Des Singes for the primate sanctuary. We visited there last year and thought it was great.
Carcassonne is great too but quite pricey.