Bel Campsite, La Tranche Sur Mer
Description Booking Your Holiday Getting There Things to do in the Area
Description of the Campsite
This is a nice site which is just a short walk from both the beach and a
supermarket !
It is a small
family run site of only 200 pitches, good
children's facilities and a marvellous beach two
streets away. 
It is a well kept, clean site with mostly shaded grassy pitches and with good facilities including a pool. The local town of La Tranche Sur Mer has many nice restaurants and shops. The centre of La Tranche is approximately a 1 mile walk from the campsite.
Facilities onsite include :
- Two pools. The first pools is 0.40m to 1.70m. The second pool is a children's pool with depth from 0.40m to 0.50m. This pool also has a small slide. Please note : men and boys should take swimming trunks or speedo style swimsuits rather than swim shorts as these are not allowed in the pool and similarly a number of pools in France will require that you don't wear swim shorts.
- there is a tennis court, a badminton court, two table tennis tables and a basketball hoop.
- three well designed play areas for children.
- evening entertainments including film shows at the childrens outdoor cinema, magic shows, a clown show
- an onsite kids club but in addition if you travel with a tour operator such as Keycamp then they will also run a childrens club.
- a Super U supermarket that is easily walkable
- there is no shop on site but from 24/05/2010 - 06/09/2010 there is a take-away and also a small bar with two large TV screens
- the bread man from the boulangerie cycles round the site in the mornings. You can listen out for his bell. Check with the onsite reception for details.
- a long sandy beach close by
- there is an onsite snack bar
- immaculately kept shower/toilet blocks
- there is a bike hire close to the campsite. There are lots of flat cycle paths through forests. Very bicycle friendly.
Booking Your Holiday at this Campsite
Book Your Holiday at Bel Campsite, La Tranche Sur Mer with Eurocamp
Book Your Holiday at Bel Campsite, La Tranche Sur Mer with Keycamp
These links will take you to the Keycamp and Eurocamp websites where you can find out more about the holiday, get a quotation and go ahead and book your ideal holiday !
Getting There
Hover your mouse over the map for some more information about the various ports and airports. This information is kept as up to date as possible but please only use it as a guide and check details of all flights and crossings with airlines, tour operators and ferry operators.
Ports
There are sailings by ferry with Brittany Ferries and other operators to some of the following ports. You can then drive south to la Tranche Sur Mer. Distance of travel is indicated. I would recommend that you use a map and a Sat Nav if possible as this makes the travelling easier. The Sat Nav works out the best route dependent on road speed as well as likely traffic if you have downloaded that option :
- St Malo: 315 km
- Roscoff: 450 km
- Caen: 425 km
- Cherbourg: 459 km
- Le Havre: 477 km
Airports
There are flights by a variety of airlines from the UK and Ireland to the following regional airports. Hover over the map to discover some airlines which fly to each airport (please note that this information was up to date at time of writing but you will need to check details of flights with your tour operator or airline) :
- Rennes airport : 230 kms
- Nantes airport: 134 km
- Poitiers Airport 173 kms
- Paris Charles De Gaulle: 485 kms
- Paris Orly: 450 kms
- La Rochelle : 67 kms
- Tours Airport : 273 kms
- Limoges Airport : 330 kms
- Angouleme Airport : 250 kms
- Bordeaux Airport : 254 kms
Public Transport
Local Railway and bus services:SNCF Railway line Paris - Nantes / Nantes - la Roche-sur-Yon – Les Sables d'Olonne.
SNCF Railway line Lyon - Nantes - La Roche-sur-Yon.
La Roche Sur Yon is 40 kms away from La Tranche Sur Mer but you can travel this route from La Roche-sur-Yon to La Tranche-sur-Mer by Bus using the bus company Cars Sovetours. www.sovetours.fr
There is also a railway line Bordeaux - La Rochelle - Luçon. You can then travel from Luçon to La Tranche-sur-Mer by Cars Sovetours.
Please check with campsite or tour operator for further information about public transport.
Things to Do in the Area
FUN BUS
There is a free (I think !) FUN BUS that will take you round the different areas of La Tranche Sur Mer. The word for free is "gratuit" (grat-oo-wee)
Restaurants
There are many restaurants in La Tranches and some which we have enjoyed include Restaurant Pizza Rico at 5, Rue Victor Hugo which has great pizzas and L'Etage Rotisserie and Grill at 10, rue Aristide Briand.
La Tranche sur Mer Waterpark
There is a waterpark in the town of La Tranche sur Mer which is great for a fun day of splashing and sliding around.
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a 63 km (1 hr 15 min) drive away. The ancient port of La Rochelle has narrow streets, a fortified harbour and a fabulous aquarium. There are four ports. The largest, Port des Minimes is home to the Grand Pavois International boat show every September. The Vieux Port has many lovely restaurants around it. The centre of La Rochelle is compact enough to explore on foot. However if you want to get around more quickly you might like to try the self-service Vélo Jaune (city-owned yellow bikes), found at 26 key points across the city. You can also hire the bikes directly from Quai Valin (May-Sept) and all year on Place de Verdun. The first two hours are free, and you pay 1 Euro for every hour after that. You could also use Le Passeur and Bus de Mer (www.rtcr.fr) electric boats to hop between the city's ports. The Tourist Information Office which is only 300m from the train station can provide details of all of the above.
In La Rochelle, you may also like to visit the
Musée des Automates, France's largest automated figure museum.
This museum is home to around 300 models and some wonderful
Victorian-era shop window displays. You may wish to walk around the
interesting neighbourhood of Saint Nicolas, a city within a city,
where everyone is said to know everyone else. It has cobbled
streets and you could visit one of the cool bars, the vintage book
shops or the antiques dealers or the Saturday Flea Market
"Marche au Puces St Nicolas".
For more information about visiting La Rochelle, click here to visit the tourist information website.
Interiles Boats
Interiles runs various day trip
and ferry services from La Tranche and La Rochelle,
including ferries and boat trips to Île de Ré, Île d'Aix et L'île
d'Oléron. For some more information please
click here to access their
internet site.
Île de Ré
Île de Ré is a low, narrow island about 30km long, with sandy
beaches to the southwest and salt marshes and oyster beds to the
northeast. T
he
interior is a mix of vine, asparagus and wheat cultivation. All the
buildings on Île de Ré are restricted to two storeys and are
required to incorporate the typical local features of whitewashed
walls, curly orange tiles and green-painted shutters, which give the
island villages a holiday atmosphere. The
island is reached by a road bridge with toll payable (off season
toll is 9E and high season mid June to mid Sept it is 16.50E. You
dont pay on return).
The capital is St-Martin (see photo), a north coast fishing port with beautiful whitewashed houses clustered around the stone quays of a well protected harbour.
Sables D'Olonne Zoo
This zoo is a 44km (52 mins) drive away and is
worth visiting
.
The Zoo is home to almost 200 animals belonging to
about forty species, including some endangered species.
You will see flamingoes (flamant rouge, rainbow lorikeets (Loriquet
de Swainson), snakes, gibbons, jaguars, lions, tigers (tigres),
giraffes, red pandas and meerkats (Suricates) as well as many other
animals, birds and reptiles.
Click here to see a photo album from the zoo of some of the
baby animals born at the zoo in recent years !
The Indian Forest At Moutiers Les Mauxfaits
The Indian Forest is an adventure park with high ropes courses as well as lower level children's courses. In addition there is a picnic area, a woodland, paintball, mini golf, climbing wall. For more information, click here to access their site.
Puy du Foy
This is an excellent theme park which has an historical theme with vikings, romans and gladiators all featuring as well as French history.
There is also an evening spectacle which includes over 100 horses. It is expensive so it is best to plan your visit in advance by visiting their website and it is possible to request a brochure to be sent out. Click here to visit the Puy du Foy website.
Disclaimer: The reviews published on the site are intended solely for the purpose of providing general information and comment and are purely our opinions. We cannot guarantee that reviews of descriptions on this site are accurate, up to date or free from error.
We have found that the campsites described are very good but we find that it is difficult to find a campsite which has 100% of what you are looking for. Also one person may love a busy campsite with lots of activities while someone else may love a quiet campsite with a small swimming pool. Actually we tend to be the latter ! So what we have done is highlight the good points of the sites and maybe point out a few of what we have found as slightly negative points. However we strongly recommend that you make full use of as many internet sources as possible before deciding about your holiday, including other review sites and Google maps etc.