How do aires de service work ? Forums

janeandandy

Good day - looking for some advice please before we go off on our inaugural european tour.

Have been looking at the popular ' I campingcar' website and have come across two maps of france on screen, one in blue and one in green. The blue shows aires de service which we know all about but the green map shows 'stationnements' which we do not.

My questions are - Are you allowed to stay overnight at these Stationnements ? If the answer is only on some - how do you find out which ones do allow you to stay.

Grateful for any advice as if the answer is positive it will drastically affect our holiday plans - we go to the south of france on thursday.

Warm regards

artona · Moderator

Hi

It was seven years ago that we stayed on them but yes you are allowed to stay overnight. Then they were free, I understand now there might be a small charge on some of them.

stew

Don Madge

Hi Stew,

From reading post on various motorhome forums it appears that some of the popular coastal aires are having a charge levied. It seems to vary from €3 to €10. The inland ones have seemed to have escaped so far.

The French motorhomers are not amused, Mad

not only are their aires crowded with "foreigners" but they have to pay for the privilege which has been mainly free for years. Mad

Whether this practise will carry on out of season is anybodys guess.

Anybody used the aires in France lately?

Don

tramp

hi all,
we have just returned from this years 3 mnth break in europe and yes most of the popilar aires now charge and it is enforcsed by the local police or council workers who appear at 7-8am to collect the money so unless like the germans you leave early you still have to pay.
some have even had barriers installes so you pay on entrance or exit still its very good value for money and the comoradery of fellow motorhomers, alas the french like nothing else but to complane about having to pay especially when they are caught leaving early Razz

but the councils have been losing money for years so one local maire exlplained.

check out my web site for Aires picture and details of our trips

tramp

homenaway

There isn't a black and white answer to the difference between aires de service and aires de stationnement.

Sometimes you can stay overnight on an aire although listed as an aire de service, some only have room for one or two camping-cars and we have found aires de stationnement where you can only stay during the day eg at Saumur chateau, others where there are water taps but no drains and vice versa.

This year we bought two French Camping car magazines and they both had free booklets of all 645 of the "Free" aires de services in France which we found very useful, together with printouts by department of the lists on Campincar-info website with users' comments (also available on cd) along with printouts from the MHF database.

The charges varied from free to 10€ sometimes paying for parking with free services, other times free parking and paying for services, elsewhere all free including electric hookups, and this applied in small inland villages as well as the popular coastal ones.

There are sometimes letters in the French magazines complaining about charges and too many "etrangers" (foreigners) taking up the spaces but I felt we were welcome at least in low season. They will often find free water taps nearby rather than paying to use a borne.

There is also a French Camping Federation scheme "Stop Accueil" (welcome) at 521 farms and campsites etc where you pay 8 to 13€ a night for a flat hardstanding and services, have to arrive between 6pm and normally 7 to 10pm, and leave before 10am. We didn't try staying at any of these.

I am completing a detailed list of the 30 aires (18 free) we stayed at and about 25 we passed by this year which should be on our website soon and will be added to the MHF database.

Enjoy your trip

Steve

peejay · Campsite DB Admin

As I understand it, the crucial difference between the two is...

An 'aire de service' has some form of motorhome servicing facility or service point.

An 'aire de Stationement' is usually just somewhere to park and without any official form of m/h service point.

Both usually allowing overnight parking but not always.

To elaborate on the 'Stop Accueil Camping-car' service that Steve mentions, there is more info

brisey

Hi janeandandy

We have just returned from a weekend at Le Touquet where we stayed overnight at the Aire de Service near the Nautical Centre. A fee of 6.50 euros for 24 hours was charged. The fee was collected by the attendants early evening, if you were not at your van a note was left on your windscreen and the attendants came back again an hour or so later. Vehicle registration numbers were recorded so that if you missed the second visit you were charged double the next day if still on site. This aire is very safe as the local police patrol the site day and night.

gaspode · Moderator

Sorry to go off-topic but have they still got that sand castle display on the beach at Le Touquet brisey? We went round on the first weekend it opened and were quite impressed. Worth a visit if you're going south and want an overnight stay not too far from Calais, nice aire too.

Sorry for the small diversion.