Land of the grape!

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My eyes scan the big red pin board marked ‘Le Activities’

“Oh my God! Chris! Cancel the pedal boating, the tennis and the mini golf! It’s nearly 8:30. The barrel rolling demonstration is about to begin!”

How exactly did we get here? Surrounded by children, ice creams and camp staff in red uniforms? Are we in… a French version of Hi-De-Hi… or… worse…. Centre Parcs?!

After our drive out of the Dordogne Valley, we headed for Bordeaux hoping for some sophisticated wine tasting and a few romantic bike rides through the vines. We wanted to stay near St Emilion and of course we hadn’t pre booked any campgrounds as we haven’t had any problems so far.

I can’t believe we didn’t consider that the land around St Emilion is dedicated to vine yards. Who would build a campground here? Unless of course you build a super ‘all inclusive’ campground. Complete with two swimming pools, a waterslide, a lake, pedal boats, fitness trails, tennis courts, playgrounds, bike tracks, food outlets… and of course, Activities Instructors.

We were mortified as we have always vowed to avoid these places like the plague but the temperature was well up into the thirties, there wasn’t another campsite for miles and that swimming pool was starting to look quite inviting…

Well the rest is history really. We spent the evening lying by the pool and later found our spot with the rest of the camera-welding campers to watch the barrel rolling demonstration.

The next day we got up early and rode our bikes for about 25 kilometres through the vineyards and visited St Emilion before taking a last soak in the pool. By 12 noon we dried ourselves off, checked out and wondered what had come over us for the past 24 hours. See the scary thing was… I think we were beginning to like it…

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