Camping Interlude, Ile de Re

[policywonk]

Has anyone been? Any tips? Specifically, we'll be flying in to La Rochelle and then relying on public transport, so if anyone knows a failsafe way to get to the camp by bus or taxi (are there taxis at the airport?) I'd love to hear them. Ta.

rofl at " camping interlude
"
i thought that was aposh way to say a holiday

arfarfarf

Ha, I just clicked on your thread

Are we the only ones here?

Actually you're right, it does sound like that.

PW everyone is on the cat thread in AIBU!

Cat, you say?

here It gets a bit heated though!

Je voudrai bumper c'est thread.

Pourquois est-ce que personne ne repond? Je connait que le tout de Mumsnet vont au Ile de Re tout le feurqing temps.

pw, haven't been, but Ile de Re is utterly lovely. My son still talks about the Cassis ice creams (he was only 2 when he went, he has a memory for treats..). DH and his sis took him whilst I had a bug . Hire some bikes and cycle round with the French elite. If you need some travel advice, try : www.seat61.com
He's fab - answered us about a Spanish overnight train absurd type question and gave amazingly detailed advice. It says train on his site, but I think he extends if you ask nicely. He's got a young child, so he's v. family friendly.

Bonjour
On aller en vacances en I'le D'Oleron. C'est tres belle. Je crois si vous regarder sur le site d'aeroport ou de la Rochelle vous pouvez trouver les horraires de bus etc. Je crois il y a une bus qui aller direct a I'le De Re. Bonne vacances! Claire.

Aussi l'aeroport et tres petite, a quel que fois il y a des taxi mais ca depend. On utiliser AAA Taxi (0033 -0)06 22 09 50 99.

J'espere que ca t'aider.

(Written french not fab- hope you can understand!!)

lol

Pourquoi tout le monde parle le mauvais frnacais?

rtf

rire tout fort

Arg well, I thought I'd give it a shot.

claire, the op isn't french, she is larking about. Don't worry anout your french

I'd be careful about arriving at La Rochelle airport and hoping for a taxi or bus to Ile de Re. We did this a few years back, and neither were available.

Hot summer afternoon, no shade in taxi queue, and about 20 groups waiting for taxis. We were there for well over an hour and maybe one or two arrived (who were dropping off passengers for the next flight out). Totally inexplicable really - they just didn't seem remotely interested in turning up for what would have been a pretty expensive fare. Single phone line to taxi company didn't work - never answered.

It was pretty awful - we had a baby and a toddler and quite a bit of luggage so no option to strike out on our own. In desparation, tried to rent a car from the car rental place but they only had enough for people who had pre-booked.

Eventually (and bizarrely luckily) we met a work colleague of dh who had come to pick up an extra hire car from the airport with his FIL, so had two almost empty cars and was heading back to the Ile de Re. So we hopped in and whooshed off very gratefully. Goodness knows how long everyone else was waiting. It may have changed since then, but definitely do some research as I wouldn't have believed an airport could be so poorly equipped for onward travel.

Enjoy Ile de Re though - it is a lovely place and we are going back this summer for the fourth time, via ferry to St Malo and driving down though! You don't really need a car when you are there - as smee says rent a bike and get around that way.

'the OP isn't French' - I'm so happy that I fooled someone! (And Claire, if you did that without Babelfish then I'm very impressed.)

Thank you VERY much to smee and Claire, very useful advice.

Will start using 'rtf'.

Oh, nellie, thanks for that. Will make sure we sort something out before we get there. Maybe see you there!

Ah phew! Thought I'd made big cock ups. TBH it should be ok. Nannied there for 15 months few years back but never very confident about written french.

Just spoken to a friend in France- If you were going to go by bus you'd need to catch a shuttle to the train station then there is a direct bus to island. If you are taking a taxi (depnding on where on the island you are) it'd be between ?45-50 euro. This is an email for owner of AAA Taxi's patrick.guilbot @ yahoo.fr. Imagine if you email and explain you are arriving by plane then they will keep an eye on flight arrival time. Airport so small should only take you 10mins to get through.

Hope some of this is useful.

If you want help with email or anything else then please shout, will happily give them a call for a quote if you don't feel confident enough to (I know talking over the phone is entirely different to in person). All my own translation - haven't resorted to online ones yet!

If I post again i'll try to condense it into one message- keep thinking of other bits and pieces after I've typed.

There's a nearby Island called I'le D'Aix that has no cars- just wildlife which you will be able to catch a boat from on Re. If you fancied that kind of thing.

Wow. I think I love you. It would be brilliant if you could tell me what to write in an email! My oral French is OK (face-to-face so that I can also mug and point at things) but written is vv bad.

So I'd want to email to say: Dear taxi person, I am writing from England to see whether I can make an advance booking for a taxi. We will be arriving at La Rochelle airport at xx on xx [don't want to post details here but will insert them obviously!], and need to get to the Camping Interlude site on Ile de Re. Our party will include two adults, two children and three or four suitcases. We would also like to book the return journey on xx at xx. I'd be grateful if you could let me know whether this would be possible, and if so what the cost would be. Yours, etc.

Do you know what happens in French taxis re. car seats? Are they compulsory, and if so do they provide them?

Thanks so much for this - let me know if you ever want me to weigh in on a thread in support or something like that

Bonjour,

Je voudrais demander si je peut reserve une taxi en advance. J'habite en Angleterre alors c'est une peu difficile pour arrange le transportation. On arriver a l'aeroport de La Rochelle a (date and time - 24 hour format eg 19hr05). On aller a le Camping "Interlude" sur I'le De Re. On a deux adultes, deux enfants at trois ou quatre baggage. Aussi on veux reserve le retour a (date and time)

Si vous pouvez repondre et explique si c'est possible pour reserve les deux voyages et aussi le prix? Comme ca je peut confirmer.

Merci beacoup

Name

MDR (Morte de rire - dying of laughter!) No problem - anytime. If you need help with his response just shout. My email is: clairemichelle23 @ hotmail.co.uk

Car seats- will have a look for you. We did use them all the time however kids were 5, 3 and 8 months so very young. Can I ask how old your children are?

Thanks
Claire

We went to Interlude last year and had an utterly blissful time. We flew and got a taxi from the airport without any problem. It was very expensive though. Luckily we made friends on the site and they took us back. (we paid the toll) We hired bikes for the two weeks and they made the holiday really. There is a lovely market in Le Bois, about a 15 minute ride away along cycle paths bursting with wild flowers. We went there every day. There is a small supermarket there and a big supermarket in the other direction a bit further away. (take a rucksack for extra shopping!)

We went to Soleil on our second camping holiday at Argeles la plage on the south coast this year and had a horrible time. I hadn't realised just how lovely Il de Re was!

That's really fantastic Claire, thanks. The kids are 6 and 4. Should we add a bit to the email asking whether they can provide car seats?

Thanks Berrie - I am really looking forward to it. Can you remember how much the bike hire was? We are going to do it, am just wondering how much to put aside. And do you bring your own helmets or are they reasonably cheap to hire? And do they do all types of bikes (DS2 can only ride with stabilisers - what he really loves is the tag-along).

French Car Seat Advise

Will put a piece together to add to the email. Give me two mins!