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Has anyone done a trip through France using mainly France Passion/Aires de Service?

We are landing in Spain, and over three weeks we would like to go through the Pyrannees, visit Carcassonne, Nimes and Avignon, put my toes in the Med, and goover the Millau bridge.We like to potter about and avoid auto routes.

We would visit the occasional campsite for a couple of days at a time.

We would love any advice about France Passion/Aires.

Thanks, Andrea.

We use France Passion a lot when travelling through France. They are a great way to meet the locals, and also  good to be able to taste the various wines, produce etc of the region you are in.  We would thoroughly recommend using France Passion, it is an adventure in itself following directions to these vineyards, farms etc. - they take us to places off the beaten track that we would never have visited.  We only stay on campsites occasionally to catch up with the laundry etc.  Use France Passion and enjoy your trip.

We have both the books. I was looking for any advice from other people who have used the systems.

A side note:-

It would be best to go under the bridge, this way you get to see the full architecture of it, if you go over it, you can not tell it from any other bridge, well worth it

Thanks for the tip!

I'd like to know about kids also.

We have five of the little blighters and they can get a little lively now and again, that said they're never any trouble.

Normally we prefer to stay in the aires, and France has them in abundance [thank heavens] but occasionally we do stay in campsites for the reasons as mentioned by earlier posters.

So some more news on kids in France Passions please

We spent 4 weeks in France last summer mainly cycling in the Loire Valley and moving on every night and we used both Aires and the wonderful France Passion scheme.

From the practical point of view, some of the facilities on the aires ie drinking water and waste disposal are a bit dubious but we didn't suffer from any dicky tummies or anything! Some locations are better than others too but as we only stayed for a short while on each it didn't matter to us.

The France Passion sites that we used were all excellent and although some were more remote than others, we had fun finding them but at the end of a day's cycling, all we wanted to do was eat and sleep when we arrived!

As far as children are concerned, I can't see that the FP sites would be very useful to you - they seem more suitable for stop-overs on route. BUT if money is an issue, the aires/FPs are just great. We only paid for 3 nights camping in a month in contrast to some of the fees we paid this year in England (3 weeks in Northumbria/Tyneside/Yorkshire).

Hope this helps but if you've any more specific questions, I'd be pleased to help if I can.