Camping holidays in Europe - The editor recalls previous camping holidays in Europe. If you have a site relating to this topic and would like to see it featured on this page then please email camp@campingmobilehomesholidays.co.uk

Many moons ago when I was 17 or 18 and had just passed my driving test we (three other lads and myself) used to drive down to Calais from where we lived in the Midlands in what was then the "bees knees" of small cars, the Hillman Imp, with it's boot at the front and an alloy 875 cc engine at the rear. Needless to say, there wasn't a deal of room left for luggage once 4 strapping 6 ft tall lads were installed, but this was solved by us taking very little with us apart from a change of clothes, some shorts and a couple of tents which we put on the roof rack. That was the start of my camping holidays here, there and everywhere in Europe, and these were the days when you had to have a Camping Carnet (usually bought from the AA in those days) to prove that you were who you said you were – wasn’t a passport enough proof of that? No, in a word, camp site owners wanted details from both documents because they had to prove to the police just who had stayed on their site and when.

Indeed, our first camping holiday was the same year as the Great Train Robbery, but we were blissfully unaware of that fact until we boarded the boat back to England and were grilled by the Brit police as to our whereabouts for the past few weeks. Quite why they didn’t believe us and quite why they grilled us about it several times I’ll never know but they stopped as soon as my mate Mick suddenly turned green and vomited all over two of them, which was no less than they deserved in my view!

Some of you reading this will remember the cross channel ferries of the 1960’s but if you aren’t of that vintage then please bear with me while I explain why Mick was ill. First of all the ferries then were really quite small because the vehicle traffic to France was minimal compared to today. Secondly, there were no stabilizers so instead of having a steady ship the blasted thing rocked from side to side with every wave and every breath of wind. Projectile vomiting was the norm in those ferries and that’s why they had bare steel washable floors without carpets. Pleasant jouney? Yuk!

As it took ages to get to Dover (there were no motorways then) and cross the channel we decided to stay the night in style in an hotel in Calais and make an early start the next day, so we did what most 18 year olds do, and made for the nearest bar where we got really bladdered and made a late start next day instead.

When we at last set off we were amazed to see literally hundreds and hundreds of cyclists, all of whom were going to work, the wealthy ones having tiny little scooters or flying hairdriers as we called them then, the more wealthy still having little citroens or small vans. France was not like it is nowadays. France was poor and still picking itself up after WW2. Just as we had no motorways in England then it follows that the french had no decent roads at all, in fact they didn't even have "cats eyes" until years later. But driving then was fun even though it took forever to get from Calais to the South of France. We saw things which we would never have seen at 70 mph on a dual carriageway, we saw the little towns and villages which all had cobbled streets, and we quickly became aware that we should slow down to approach a small town or village otherwise the cobbles would jar our back teeth out!

We unknowingly followed a route past lots of the first and second world war cemetries, and we could see from the car when passing St Omer, Bethune, Arras, Cambrai, St Quentin and others, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of sparkling white crosses in immaculate green grass. It was a sobering time for us lads who were lucky enough to have been born after the conflict and seeing those thousands of war graves brought it home to us in a big way.

I could ramble on but eventually we arrived at St Raphael which is only a hop, skip and a jump from Cannes. St Raphael 40 odd years ago bears no resemblance to St Raphael today mind you. It was a tiny little place with just a few shops, a couple of camp sites on the outskirts, and the Med, and glorious hot, hot sand. Further up the coast was Cannes which even then was quite large and busy. Juan les pins just around the bay was just a village with a camp site like St Raphael, and so on until you reached Nice which is where we broke down for the first time that holiday.

What can I say? We had a brilliant time and in subsequent years the four of us would get our kit together and take camping holidays in various parts of Europe, but like your first love, none were quite as special as that first one.