The best advice for  motorhomers is to move on from anywhere that doesn’t feel comfortable. The French Aires de Camping Car are completely different to rest Aires on the motorways. For a start they are generally much safer and the local community provides them to encourage people to come and visit. We’ve had a lot of very positive experiences on Aires, feeling welcome and safe in little towns we would never otherwise have visited.

This day was a little different. We left the campsite and set off into the Poitou region to a little town where the Aire de CC was described as a peaceful place to spend the night. When we got there it turned out to be the carpark for the junior football club where hundreds of little children were learning to play the game. The place for motorhomes to park was full of parents’ cars waiting for their little ones and it was beside a main road. So we moved on.

Next choice was a beautiful spot beside the river Charente. It was exquisite.

The closed campsite next door would have benefitted from someone to help with their translation. Or at least we hope it was a mistake…

We were delighted for a couple of hours until men in white vans kept driving up, staring at us and driving off again. It occurred to us that we were entirely alone and we started to feel a bit uncomfortable. True it was incredibly pretty but we didn’t want to be there on our own so, after dinner, we set off again to our next chosen spot 37 miles south.

It was dark when we got to St Dizant de Gua and the roads through the vineyards seemed very narrow. The satnav took us into the little town and announced we had reached our destination. Sitting in the dark with the engine running listening to Miss Molly (the satnav) insisting we had reached our destination we felt flummoxed. We were quickly reassured, and more than a little surprised, when a little man appeared out of a gateway and waved us through. A few yards later we were met with the most welcome sight of a large grassed area with six motorhomes parked on it. We drove in, turned off the engine, took the dogs out for a pee, wrestled a large insect that had come into visit and dropped into bed exhausted.

Just before slipping into a deep sleep it occurred to me that the day had turned out a bit like the story of Goldilocks. The first Aire was too noisy, the second was too quiet but the last one was just right.