holiday to biscarrose

Ever since I can remember my family has gone on camping holidays across Europe. I know that a lot of people with automatically be like, “ew camping, how boring and gross”, but I personally think it’s really fun and I’m going to tell you about my experiences. Maybe reading this will give you an insight into what it’s really like. If you don't think your opinion will change, then I’m just going to go ahead and say you might as well stop reading now. See ya. 

beach day with the fam

For those of you who stuck around. Hey, hi, how are you. I'm going to tell you about my most recent trip to Biscarrosse, France. Possibly the worst part of the trip was actually getting there. We had to take a ferry from Dover to Calais and then drive for 9 hours to the south of France. I have had the worst experiences from previous camping trips where I've spent the entire ride from England to Spain, puking my guts out. Mmmm. So as you can imagine, I didn't have very high hopes for this trip. However, compared to an overnight ferry, this one was only and hour and a half, and as we were taking it at 1am, I managed to sleep the whole time and barely felt sick, phew. I slept for pretty much the whole car ride too, besides toilet breaks and the last two hours where I just couldn't bare to sleep any longer. 

A long, long time ago my dad bought a "camper van", which is basically half tent, half caravan. So when we arrived we had to spent about 2 hours putting it up it 30 degree heat, which was not fun but it had to be done. With the camper, awning, marquee and tent, it looks a lil something like this.

the Wretham mansion

It's actually very comfortable, it has 2 double beds, a kitchen, toilet and two sofas that can be made into another double bed. It's all very technical but somehow it works. The camper hooks up to electricity and water that's on the site, and you can buy access to the wifi which we did (even though it didn't work for shit). So I guess this is more "glamping" than camping, if you wanted to be picky. Although the campsite was sadly not within walking distance to the actual beach, it was on Biscarrosse Lac, which had a little man made beach which was perfect for little kiddies, as well as water sports a bit further down. Although we didn't come to the lake beach very often, we did play volleyball a few times as there were some beach volleyball nets provided. It was also the perfect location to watch the sunset as it was facing the exact direction.

sunset over Biscarrosse lake

The campsite is a completely different place at night. During the day, there are kids running or cycling down the road all the time. But in the night the roads are empty, half the campsite is asleep and the rest of the are in the "village" where all the restaurants are. From midnight-2am there's music for the teenagers and the cool kidz to mingle in, although I imagine that it's quite like an awkward school disco lol. The village was awesome to go to in the evenings when the Euros were on, because not only were France hosting them, they were through to the finals. The vibe when they scored and won was so cool, but oh my god it was so awkward when Portugal won. I can't even describe how quiet and sad it got. People were walking back to their pitches in silence, I felt so bad for them. (France totally deserved to win).

We spent most of our time at the campsite pool or the actual Biscarrosse beach, both of which were very relaxing. I'd have to say I preferred the pool more though. When we were younger, we used to take part in all of the kids activities that the campsites run, which are actually really good as it means that parents can have some alone time. My boyfriend actually went to the organised football which had kids, teenagers and adults playing. The only downside to it was the language barrier as he was one of the only non-French speaking players. 

pool side getting our tan on

We also went to Aqualand, a French-wide waterpark, that I've actually been to years ago in a different location. We went on two days (once each week) and got there at opening time on both occasions to get on as many rides as possible before the queues became ridiculous. We then went in the wave pool or chilled in the sun for the rest of the day. Although it's not as big as some of the American or Australian waterparks it was still really fun and made all the better by it being 30 degrees on both days - rides are the perfect way to cool down.

Even though we were camping, we still experienced the exact same holiday that you would have if you stayed in one of the cabins, or even a hotel. I would even argue that you have more fun camping because hotels don't always have all the activities that campsites offer. Having barely any internet made me spend more valuable time with my family, whereas I could have easily spent my entire holiday caught up on social media. It helped me forget all the stress and problems going on back home which is really what a holiday is for. There are loads of different types of camping. We saw people with just tents and people with caravans, it's really up to how far you want to go with it. Even though it was a bloody traumatic experience seeing a mouse curled up in my boyfriends hoody, it's pretty nice being in nature. Hey, I got so see a hedgehog and he was pretty damn cute.

This post has kind of gone off topic now but oh well, it's at least given an insight into some aspects of my holiday. Even if it's persuaded no one to give camping a go, I don't really care. It's what my family enjoy doing and will probably continue to do for a long time.

Till next time,

Nicole

xoxo