Montalivet-les-Bains

Back to more familiar territory again for our next long stay. We booked a little ‘holiday’ for our final west coast leg to make sure that we returned home a little more rested, and this place never disappoints.

We stay in a big pine forest campsite with direct access to the beach. This part of the coast is lined with many large pine forest camp sites making the most of the beautiful long stretches of white sandy beaches, a fairly consistent surf, south westerly sunshine, and chilled out vibes.

We spend our days here between the beach, with games, surf, sandcastles and a small amount of sitting, and the lovely pools with lots to entertain the children and plenty of English friends to play with. Their confidence in the water grows more, they have been in a pool every day for a couple of months now. and they both duck and dive freely and beg to stay longer each day to play in the bubbles, slides, bridges, shallows, Amelia even makes some friends who take her on the big curly slide on her own.

Our pitch is just a couple of minutes from the beach so it’s easy to carry Amelia’s new surfboard down, and she gets her first proper ride managing to stand up straight away! There are some lovely waves that push in to the little pools that have formed on the beach, so Coen can splash about in the shallows too, and we find starfish too. Coen finds a fear of seaweed, which is very funny to watch as he suddenly comes to a halt as he’s wading through the water, as seaweed appears in his path. We also enjoy our ritual of covering ourselves in the mineral mud that appears at low tide under the sand, hoping that it does our sun-baked skin some good!!

There are lovely parks and lots of chance to cycle, scoot and run, the children are also pleased to see the bouncy castle park is open, not to mention a few extra trips to the ‘indoor pool’.

We want to make the most of the activities on offer here, as there is so much on site for adults and children. We take the children to the porcelain painting where they paint a plate and a plaque, I went along to a brilliant 90s style abs workout (thought it was Pilates but got the wrong day!), and we even both get to play a bit of beach volleyball whilst the children play happily next to the court!

One of things we enjoy most is that there are lots of English and Irish people here, some we’ve met on previous visits, and some we meet for the first time, but it’s lovely to have some comraderie, share aome stories and drinks in the evening,

Our other favourite ‘activity’ here is relaxing at the beach bar, with a lovely relaxed atmosphere and friendly staff. They have live music and a very popular happy hour between 5-8 where you can get pretty tipsy for not very much moeny. Their Mojitos are something else..and very strong. The children always make lots of friends, enjoy dancing or watching the bands, playing in the sand, and they do great food. They are making great strides to become a sustainable venue too - with pasta straws, no platic cups, and locally sourced and homemade food. The only downside is Amelias much loved favourite of calamari is now off the menu as it can’t be sourced locally.

We have a few evenings with new friends at the bar, visit our lovely friend from years ago who owns a mobile home pitch here and tteats is to a lovely supper, and we even get a few cheeky nights off when the children are in bed as there are so many lovely english speaking motorhomes next to ours.

We get an extra special treat on this leg of ou trip as our good friends from home are camping just at the next viallge along. We arrange to meet them for a day in the town, so we show them the huge local market (one of the biggest in France) where we always enjoy some amazing local cuisine. Nic introduces them to the local oyster and wine offerings and we cool the children off with ice cream. It is such a scorcher if a day that we head down to the beach for a swim. It’s great to share our travel stories and hear all about what they’ve been up to, and we hope to fit another meet up in before we both leave the area.

Nic enjoys being so close to the waves, when he wakes in the morning he can hear if there’s enough surf to jump up and grab a board while the rest of us sleep. Coen goes for a record lie in of the trip, waking after 10am on one of our final day. The weather has turned a little grey, with some rain and windy days, and there are some big messy waves to play in.

By the end of our stay, we are suitably chilled and ready to hit the road for the final leg of our trip, although we decide a 20 minute detour to visit Matt and Mollys camp is called for...Read more