This year instead of me going on a SCUBA diving holiday, we all went France on a camping holiday. Quite a few of us went, including Treena’s sister Andrea and her other half Phil (or Pippy as he’s known to the kids), Treena’s brother Cliff and his wife Keren and daugher Cassie and Andrea’s friends Nick and Elisa. So in total there were eight adults and four kids in four cars with two caravans, one trailer tent and a regular tent. So quite a convoy.
We went to the Vendee region, which is in the west of France. Because of the distance getting there it was decided to stay in Sille le Phillipe just north of Le Mans for one night there and one night back. It was a beautiful place to stay, in the centre of it was a Chateaux which the owners bought 50 years ago. We could have stayed there the whole holiday, it was that nice. Most of the Chateaux and out buildings were being used for facilities such as a TV room, bar, etc… but at the back of the Chateaux was a round building which has since been converted to a phone box.
The main stay of our holiday was in La Tranche sur Mer on the west coast of France. It was a regular caravan site with lots of facilities including three heated swimming pools and a slide, of which one of the pools was indoors. The site was about a two minute drive to the beach.
The only issue of sorts we had was that due to being out of French holiday season, most of the shops, restaurants and bars were closed for most of the afternoon from about 2:30pm to 5:30pm. We realised this when we went for a boat trip in Damvix. We started the trip at about 1pm with the hope to get a late lunch nearby afterwards. But when the trip finished, all the local restaurants had finished serving, which meant we had to travel to get something to eat. It wasn’t really an issue as long as you know that’s what happens out of season. Saying that, if we’d gone in season, starting from 4th July, everything would be open all day. C’est la vie. We went to the La Aquarium in the local town of La Rochelle. This was a huge place with loads of different species to look at including Manta Ray, various Shark, Jelly Fish, etc… I highly recommend it if you’re in the area. Other than that, the holiday was mainly a chill out and relax affair.