French service stations

[charliegreensmum]

Has anyone recently travelled through France who could tell me if french service stations are well geared up for babies? Are any particularly good? We are travelling from Calais to the Loire Valley next week and I am just starting to think about how we will manage the journey with a 13 month old.

TIA

CGMum

We travelled down across France to the Ile De Re last summer when DS was 11 months and a few years ago we drove right down to the South of France with DD when she was 6 m.

All the service stations we stopped at seemed to have baby changing rooms -they were the larger ones on the motorway. To be honest we used to just stop for the toilets/ nappy change and then sit out on a blanket on the grass for DS to have a crawl and for us all to have a snack and stretch our legs.

Happy hols!

We found the same - to be honest they varied from ones with a huge buffet style restaurant to ones with just toilets and picnic space. We did the same as BS to be honest. Enjoy!

One recommendation CGMum, just make sure you have with you all medicines you know you could need. It is impossible to buy even paracatemol for adults on a motorway in France... for most medicine you need, you have to see a doctor (not like in the UK where you can buy all sorts anywhere!!!) Have a wonderful trip, I was born in the Vendee and know very well the Loire Valley, it is beautiful over there... You are so LUCKY

The big advantage they have over the UK is that there are so many more of them, so you never have to go far before you get to the next one. They generally have signs indicating what services are on offer (from a loo and petrol station to a restaurant). Even the smaller petrol stations tend to have decent loos and a good stock of sandwiches, fruit etc. Some of the larger ones have quite good restaurants (with plenty of salads, yogurt etc for children). Others offer mainly fried food, like in the UK. They get extremely crowded on Saturdays during the summer, as people head for their holidays in the south or back home in the north.

Our favourite last year, further south than the Loire, had a small exhibition on Andre Breton and Surrealism and a restaurant full of happy families eating Moroccan tagine made with preserved lemons. Not quite the M6....