A good surfing beach in France. If you know of any others (there are masses of them) please send comprehensive details in a mail to camp@campingmobilehomesholidays.co.uk  -  sadly we can't pay you for the copy but we will gladly put up your name in lights here if you wish.

Looking back it seems a long time ago now, indeed it was the Summer of 2001 when we booked a mobile home holiday at a site near Longeville sur Mer in the Vendee which I am sure you are aware is on the Western coast of France, and where the rollers come straight in from the Bay of Biscay. At the time of booking we knew nothing about the site at all apart from it was owned by a Brit/French couple called Sylvie and Phil Jones with whom we stayed with several times more and became firm friends. Sadly, they sold up last year and after making a fortune on the sale have now taken very early retirement. The site is still there and is as delightful as ever and if you wish to have a look then please click here. The new owners are French but I understand they have some spoken English.

When we first arrived late one night back in the June of 2001 we found that the site itself was quite small which was fine for us because that usually means less night time noise, so the next morning we had a look around it and we actually could hear the waves breaking on the shore! OK, we had read the blurrb in the brochure before booking but hadn't realised that for once that reality actually lived up to what was in it. We turned right out of the campsite gates and carried on for 400 metres where there is a massive car park and then a glorious Blue Flag beach of golden sand with excellent rollers coming in from the Bay of Biscay which the early surfers were making an early meal of. I immediately regretted not bringing my gear, but as we had a Ford Fiesta at the time a huge surfboard wouldn't have fitted inside or on top! Later though, we found a surf shack actually on the beach about 50 metres from the car park so all was well in the end.

Back at the camp that evening (a Friday) and all the next day we found that there were masses of young French people pitching their tents by the roadside if they coudn't get in a camp. There were Germans, Dutch and just a few bearded Brits as well and they had all travelled several hundred miles just to get to this nearest good surfing beach in the Vendee. I think I was a good twenty years older than most of them but they were a great crowd and nobody minded having an oldie surfing next to them.