South west of France - travel review

The magical second when I close my eyes, take a deep breath and shake off the madness of the other 50 weeks of the year.

And, after a few years of Channel hopping, I know when that wave of relief will hit – and it usually comes with the gentle roll of the boat as we make our now annual sojourn to France.

Now this is where I should hold up my hands and declare an interest. I cannot, in good conscience, even pretend to be a neutral when it comes to my French leave.

For the past decade we have been driving on to ferries in our trusty old motorhome to sample a couple of weeks of la belle vie in France.

The kids have grown up with the trusty old family friend known to us as 'the funbus' and it has seen thousands upon thousands of miles covered in search of happy holidays at home and abroad. And it has never yet failed us.

And when we roll on board our Brittany Ferries ship at Portsmouth, locked up and sat on deck in bright sunshine to set off for the French port of Caen, that is when I really real holiday starts.

That blast of the briny air, the gentle motion of the ship and the warm sun on your face as you slide into a deck chair to watch the English coast slip from view on a bright summer day's crossing.

At that precious moment, months of everyday strains and stresses seem to just wash away.

Yes, you could say I'm a fan. I've been on planes, trains and automobiles for my holidays, but this is the way I prefer to travel.

And yes, a boat can be slower but you can forget the hellish airport queues and book yourself a cabin and you can snooze away a good part of the journey to boot. I did...

Pick your holiday destination in France and you can be off the ferry and setting up camp within minutes.

Literally sometimes in some of the resorts which dot the Brittany and Normandy coastlines.

However, for us, this year we were heading further down the French Atlantic coast in search of slightly warmer climes in the Charente-Maritime region which surrounds the ancient port city of La Rochelle. It's an area well known to Brits, many drawn by the region's sunny warm summers without the soaring heat of some of the southernmost resorts on the Mediterranean.

After disembarking at Caen it was a long drive through some delightful countryside and despite the frequent tolls (or perhaps because of them) the French auturoutes were a dream to navigate.

Now the one great thing about the funbus is the ability to pull up and draw the curtains and bed down for the night pretty much anywhere you choose.

And in France a little 'wild camping' is a lot more frequent and accepted than it is on this side of the Channel.

We broke our journey with an overnight stop in a pretty market town of Marans and pulled next to a few other motorhomes in a back street next to a canal.

We awoke on a sunny Sunday morning to find a bric-a-brac market had set up nearby and armed with a few tasty croissants, we killed a couple of pleasant hours stocking up on the obligatory French sausages and olives before resuming our travels.

Soon afterwards, we were at our main destination for the next couple of weeks, the twin resorts of Le Palmyre/Les Mathes about an hour south of La Rochelle.

Here there are myriad campsites and mobile home parks to choose from, but we chose the Atlantique Parc site, in the main for its incredible pool complex.

In France, waterslides are pretty much obligatory at any self-respecting campsite and our kids, Emily and Jamie, aged 12 and 10 at the time, simply demand them.

But at Atlantique Parc, there is another huge aquatic draw – a huge man-made lagoon complete with a fine sand beach which surrounds it. It is simply fantastic. The lagoon covers some 5,000 square metres and even when we visited in the height of the August tourist season, was never overrun with swimmers.

The parc itself was superbly equipped with sports areas, bar, restaurant and even its own small petting zoo area filled with goats, chickens, guinea pigs ad rabbits. But, to be frank, here it was all about the lagoon. We lazed away many an afternoon here and had to tear ourselves away to strike out in the funbus to explore the region surrounding us.

La Palmyre's superb beach is just a couple of minutes away by bike or car but its major attraction is the excellent zoo which lures thousands every year. Here you can get up close with many of the exotic beasts on show; we stroked the nose of a curious giraffe from a five-metre high platform, we pattted a rhinoceros from the safety of a walled enclosure and watched orang-utans and chimpanzees swing from ropes on their own mini island.

Nearby boat trips from the harbour will whisk you off to view the nearby Fort Boyard or even over to the port city of La Rochelle.

It would be quite easy to while away your holiday on the beaches or next to the pool on this holiday but it would be such a shame not to visit La Rochelle.

Well known to many for its presence in many a dog-eared Tricolore textbook from school French lessons, it is an ancient seafaring city with walled fortifications and winding streets around its beautiful old harbour.

But it is also a forward-looking 21st century city which embraces street art and proudly displays huge graffiti murals around its once-busy old docks area which now house mini restaurants and artist's galleries. It's busy by day but we found the place really came alive by night.

We parked the funbus a ten-minute walk down the road near the city's university on another wild-camping hotspot with plenty of other overnighters. All for free!

We scoffed crepes as we sat on benches and people-watched before perusing the dozens of stalls set up on a balmy evening next to the old port. Bliss. The kids were sketched by a pavement artist (always a handy present for the grandparents) and bought odds and sods with their spending money. But most of all La Rochelle gave us things that money cannot buy – memories.

This trip may be the last to France in our trusty old funbus.

With our weekends now taken up ferrying the kids to football, cricket, golf, drama and everything else that kids do these days, it may be time for the dear old home on wheels to pass to another family who will hopefully cherish it as much as we have.

And if it our last trip across the Channel in the funbus, this holiday will have done it proud and it will be a very fond au revoir.

By Russell Youll