just back from south of france Forums

stavros998

just back from a great fortnight in france. Dover to calais (99 pounds return)
first night at chalons sur marne - nice clean site - carrefour only 5 mins walk.
Then on to Vernioz - south of Lyon. Arrived at port grimaud, gulf of saint tropez - camping des mures - on the beach - fantastic site, recommended by mandy and dave, although coast road a bit noisy but what the heck. Me and the wife slept on a mattress inside the Fiamma Awning room, kids inside. Bit exposed in the awning - has anyone ever used an awning tent in one?/ If so would like some recommendations/advice. Stayed there 7 nights, travelled back via Grenoble ( rain, rain , rain), chalons-sur marne again, then 2 nights in Brugge-
camping memling -recomend it - 30 minutes walk to city centre, 5 mins to carrefour. Then home again. Brilliant time. Bit of a learning curve with the new van, but no real problems - probably took too much stuff - what we wannted instead of what we needed. Only real problem was the heat in the back when travelling. We had a 240 volt fan for when camping at night, but not sure how to cope when travelling. Air con is expensive - though we might buy one of those coke can inverters and run the fan on 12 volt when travelling - any suggestions? Also is it safe to travel with roof-lights and or windows open. I suspect not.
Cheers everyone.

autostratus · Moderator

Hi

Great to hear you had a wonderful time and no real problems apart from the heat.

We had cab aircon fitted to our mh about a year after buying new. It definitely makes it better in the cab but it doesn't seem to make any difference in the habitation end. Our diner is behind the driver and fortunately it has a sliding window which we do allow our passenger to open when travelling in extremely hot weather. In that case we turn off the cab air-con.

If we had the usual upward opening windows I wouldn't think this would be possible.

stavros998

Thanks for that. By the way, how much was your cab air con approx? I know living area air con is very expensive.

BillD

Hi Stavros,

We do have air con but hardly ever use it.

We have 2, 2 speed fans either side of the front of the cab area, high up and if it gets hotter than the vehicle cooling can cope with put these on and they are very effective.
They are also very good in cold weather, when travelling I put on max. heater output and a fan and blow the hot air around the van (especially just before stopping).

During the recent hot weather we bought an oscillating domestic fan (240v) and found that it only uses 40 watts. We intend to take this with us it will work easily off an invertor.

We rarely use campsites but do carry a little 240v blower heater and can use this on 1Kw setting on hook-up.

Finally about roof vents, if they are the type that open at one end (rear up) we do run with them up at cruising speed (50 mph).

BillD

MandyandDave

Hi Stavros, glad you enjoyed your stay, I completly forgot about the traffic noise, not too noticeable once you've been there a few days, or if you can get the front line 'au bord de mer' Must have been hot if you resorted to sleeping in the awning! Very Happy

Regards M&D Smile

stavros998

thanks for info ref the fan, i think i shall pursue this idea, as a low wattage inverter costs next to nothing and can be used for other things.
Mandy and Dave - thanks for recommending camping des mures. Yes it was hot, but by sleeping outside things were less cramped - do need to look into an awning inner tent though. One thing i noticed at the campsite were the number of people with ( proper) inflatable boats, who used then to pop across and cruise around the bay - going to investigate - i'm sure i could fit an inflatable packed in a bag on the roof, and an electric outboard somewhere. Has anyone experience of this??