Beach life on France’s Atlantic coast

06th September 2022 | John Rawlings

We don’t relax much when we’re on holiday. We like to make the most of our time away, and this trip to France was no exception. This was our first family holiday abroad since before the pandemic, so it felt quite a novelty being in France again. The croissants, cheese, baguettes and some very pleasant rosé wine tasted better than we’d remembered, and were a big part of our diet for the week.

Team Rawlings off to surf!

We don’t travel very light either, so the garage of the Adamo 75-4I was perfect for storing four surfboards, plus body boards, wetsuits, and all our kit. It was really useful having somewhere separate to store all this stuff, especially when things were sandy after going to the beach.

As we only had one week for this holiday, we needed to have everything booked in advance, so we booked all our ferry crossings, campsites and Red Pennant travel insurance through the Caravan and Motorhome Club travel service.

The Brittany Ferries crossing from Portsmouth to Caen arrived in France about 9.30pm, so we booked a night at the campsite at Château de Martragny, about 30 minutes away.

This campsite is part of the Les Castels chain (one of our favourites) which are all rated four or five stars. As its name suggests, we were pitched in the grounds of an elegant Château. We’d happily have stayed longer so will have to return and explore this region of Normandy another time.

The next day, we had nearly 500 miles to travel to our campsite, Le Vieux Port, just outside Messanges, about an hour north of Biarritz, in the Landes, Nouvelle-Acquitaine region on the Atlantic coast of south west France. The tourist information website for this area has lots of useful information: www.landesatlantiquesud.com.

With regular stops, including the luxury of a long power nap on the Adamo’s island bed, the journey went well. We really liked the Adamo’s smooth automatic transmission, and the Ford cab as it was comfortable, gave a great view of the road ahead and has convenient storage for bottles while travelling. With two teenagers on board, we also liked how the Adamo’s rear travel seats felt so sturdy and safe – and kept them apart from each other on each side of the motorhome, with a sturdy table in between them.

We could walk to the beach from our campsite Le Vieux Port

Our primary goal was to surf and the beach was only an 800m walk from our campsite. The beaches are beautiful in this part of France and seem to go on for miles and miles. We found a surf lesson really helped our skills and confidence. Even though the water wasn’t as cold as it usually is when we surf in Cornwall, most people still wore wetsuits for surfing (as they’re good for protecting your knees and body from rubbing on the board), but it was definitely warm enough to surf in a swim suit.

We decided to head 15 miles south to try the beach at Capbreton. We used a dedicated motorhome parking place (and Aire) and just had to follow a path over a sand dune straight onto the beach. Like ‘our’ beach at Messanges Sud, it had a café and surf lessons available.

Our other day out was to San Sebastian, about one and a half hours away across the border in Spain. It was easy to find a dedicated motorhome parking area in San Sebastian thanks to the tourist information website. It’s a popular place to park (and stay overnight), so we took the advice we’d read and made sure we arrived before 10am to get a space, although there seemed to be plenty of motorhomes parked on the surrounding roads.

All our surf gear fitted in the Adamo's garage

We walked into San Sebastian and followed the path along the beach to the old town. It didn’t take long to find a restaurant selling San Sebastian’s own type of tapas, called pintxos. These are small snacks on a piece of bread usually including meat or fish. We mostly chose fish or veggie ones and soon polished of a large plate of them as they tasted so good (and we were hungry after an early start!).

The quaint old town also had lots of cake and chocolate shops, so our visit wasn’t very good for our waistlines. We reckoned the place would be buzzing in the evenings once all the pavement cafes were open.

We spent most of the rest of our time on the beach and surfing. Those of us not so stable on a surfboard just enjoyed being on the beach watching the surfers!

We decided to break the journey back to Caen with a quick visit to the Vendee area of France, and stayed at another Les Castels campsite: La Garangeoire. This also had a château and was a beautiful and immaculate site with very friendly staff and some of the largest pitches we’ve ever seen, including some with their own private facilities (including shower, toilet and sink for washing-up). As it was our last night in France, we treated ourselves to dinner in the site’s restaurant, which was delicious.

The entrance and chateau at La Garangeoire

There was a bike hire shop on site, so we got up early for a 20 mile ride to a nearby lake and back, which was lovely, while the children played ping-pong and went in the pool. This is a campsite we’d definitely recommend.

On our last day, we had plenty of time before our overnight crossing from Caen back to Portsmouth, so we had time for our last surf. The beaches here were also massive. The waves were modest on the day we were there, but a good breeze attracted kite surfers, which were fun to watch.

The Adamo proved a great base for all our activities and sightseeing on our trip to France. We had a great holiday and really didn’t want to come home