We had a brilliant Easter holiday in France and Spain with Budgie. We were away for 10 days and covered over 1750 miles (2850 km), making it all the way down to the Spanish Pyrenees.
As is usual for our road trips, we did a few long travelling days, but interspersed these with shorter days and one two-night stay in San Sebastian.
Ferry to France
We chose to take the DFDS ferry from Newhaven, in Sussex, to Dieppe, in Normandy. For us, Newhaven is only about an hour and a half away and this route was considerably cheaper than the alternative routes from either Portsmouth, Dover, or Plymouth.
The ferry takes around 4 hours. We travelled both ways on the Seven Sisters vessel, which was very comfortable and had great facilities onboard. The boys highly recommend the croque monsieur and the sausage rolls!
The return ferry departed Dieppe at 0630, so we decided to get a cabin for this leg. We booked a four berth outside cabin, which had two sets of bunks and an ensuite bathroom. We were heading straight up to Edinburgh when we disembarked, and after the early start we really wanted to make sure we got some sleep on the ferry. It was definitely worth the extra cost!
Top Tips for Driving in France and Spain
1. Check the Crit'Air Clean Air Zones
The first bit of travel to Ballon-St-Mars took us a bit longer than expected as we diverted around the Rouen clean air zone. Budgie is too old to register for the French crit'air system, so to avoid fines we just had to avoid the zones completely. It only costs around 5 Euros for a sticker or 'vignette' if your car is eligible for the scheme, so make sure you check this out before you travel. Ensure you use the official French government site, as there are a number of scam sites around.
2. Consider avoiding the Toll Roads
Google maps also took us on a couple of toll roads on the first day, which I think costs us around 30 Euros. The next day we selected 'Avoid Tolls' in the maps application, which made life much easier for route planning. Most of the toll roads have a maximum speed of 130 km/h (80 mph) which is pretty much out of reach for Budgie, so we were much more comfortable travelling on the slower roads. These routes also took us through some beautiful towns and villages, and made stopping at the delicious boulangeries easier!
3. Take the required equipment and documentation
There is additional equipment required for driving in Europe; some is obvious, like headlamp deflectors, but others are not so intuitive, such as reflective jackets for all passengers which must be carried in the cabin. The RAC has a handy driving in Europe checklist, so be sure to check this before you travel.
Finding Camp Sites in France and Spain
Unusually for us, we didn't really have much of a plan for the rest of the holiday, other than to hopefully catch some sun and a vague aim of getting to Northern Spain and maybe Portugal.
We ended up staying at a mix of campsites, off-grid park ups, and aires, which we felt gave us a nice balance of facilities and some stunning locations.
We had only booked one camp spot in advance, and that was for the first night, as we wanted somewhere to aim for within a fairly short drive after disembarking the ferry. We booked Ludovic's site in Ballon-St-Mars through PitchUp. It was a great small site with the added bonus of a small cabin with a hot shower and a sitting / dining area. The boys loved their first night in their newly built sleeping area:
For our second night, we had aimed to get across the border into Spain, but we were enjoying taking our time and exploring, so decided to have a shorter day and stop on the coast in France. We headed to the small town of Andernos-les-Bains, which sits on the beautiful bay of Bassin d'Arcachon, and our first 'Aire de Camping Car'.
Aires come in a variety of forms in France (the literal translation is just 'area'), from motorway services, or picnic areas, to camping zones with facilities. They are often free, or charge a small fee for overnight parking. We picked up a guide to camping aires at a local supermarket, but you can also find them in maps, and they are usually signposted from the main road or entry into a town.
The aire in Andernos-les-Bains was a simple area of ground alongside a quiet no through road on the edge of town. It is minutes walk from the beach and some great seafood restaurants. The payment machine was out of order, so we stayed for free! The following morning we woke up to find that the Easter Bunny had managed to track us down in France and had delivered some chocolate eggs for the boys to find:
Next we headed down to San Sebastian, in the Spanish Basque region, and spent a great couple of days exploring this beautiful coastal city. We stayed at WeCamp San Sebastian, which is in a great location on top of the cliffs at the edge of the city; with a regular local bus service into town. It's a very clean and tidy campsite, with a lovely cafe bar on site and an outdoor pool (sadly we were too early in the season for it to be open). It was nice to spend a couple of days relaxing at a site with facilities.
While in San Sebastian, we decided we weren't going to have time to make it over to Portugal without some very long drives on the way home, so instead we headed down to the Pyrenees. It was a beautiful drive down to the mountains, and we found an absolutely stunning off-grid park up on top of a hill through the park4night app:
After crossing the border back into France, we headed north to a great campsite we found on HipCamp. (Use the link for $/£10 off your first booking.) Camping D'Artagnan is run by a British couple and they also have a British style pub on site!
From here we headed up to La Rochelle. Our next camp was another site from park4night, there were no facilities, but it was right on the sea front and next to a brilliant seafood restaurant, La Cabane de Pampin.
Our last stop of the trip was another aire, this time right in the heart of Dieppe. We wanted a camp spot near to the ferry due to the early start, and this fit the bill; as well as being right next to the beach, it was a short stroll to the bars and restaurants of the quayside in Dieppe.
Let us know if you have any other sources for campsites, and if you'd like to see our full route, check us out on Polar Steps!
Read on for info about Budgie's camper conversion.