Overnight stops
It has been quite a revelation to
find out how popular and accepted the motor home is in France. In England and Wales staying
overnight anywhere other than official campsites (at a cost of £15 to £30 a
night) is generally frowned upon. In
Scotland they are a little more welcoming and accept responsible ‘wild-camping’.
In France however there are in the
region of 2000 ‘Aires’ – places where mobile homes are welcome and a range of
facilities are provided. They can be found in village centres, on the outskirts
of towns, by rivers, on motorways – in fact virtually anywhere. To date we have
stayed in the following 4 official Aires – Arromanches, Les Fleur, Royere de
Vassiviere and St Flour. On the other 2 evenings we parked in well-lit free car
parks.
The best ‘Aires-de-Camping Cars’
provide water, waste water disposal, chemical toilet disposal and electric,
some charge a nominal fee of a few euros (normally for electric), but most are
free. It’s a brilliant system, you might need to pre-plan if you specifically
need to use a particular service as not all Aires provide all the facilities
but in general you don’t even need to stay the night, just pull in fill up/empty
out and drive on. There are books, maps
and web-sites that list them all but as we’ve just been going where the mood
takes without a plan we have just kept our eyes open for the blue signs and haven’t
struggled to find a suitable overnight spot yet.
As we are travelling through in
November there are very few other motor homes around – generally there have
been 3 or 4 vans including ours at each Aire we’ve stopped at. I’m quite sure
it’s a different picture in the height of the summer holidays but for now we
are enjoying this very affordable way of journeying through France.
