laimeduck Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 We've been out for 2 months now a fair amount of that time in France (also Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland & Austria) and have tried Aires, France Passion, ACSI and Municipal. Very sorry, but generally from what we've seen & experienced, you can keep Aires! Useful maybe for a sleep stop en-route but not for a holiday. Can't honestly see the point when ACSI or Municipals can come in at €10 €12 or €14 with decent facilities, hot showers & often free WiFi. (Mind you there are also some dreadful ACSI sites!) France Passion is interesting - we've tried 2 so far, one bad, one good. Given the choice between an Aire & a France Passion where I can get a decent bottle of home grown plonk for €5 and a free stay, guess which wins? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 hi all, When my wige and I stayed at this Aire we thought it was not the prettiest or cheapest but accepted it as sort of a premium for being so close to a nice little town, in saying that, we only stayed as long as we needed to see the place. cheers derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 derek pringle - 2015-06-28 9:36 AM hi all, When my wige and I stayed at this Aire we thought it was not the prettiest or cheapest but accepted it as sort of a premium for being so close to a nice little town, in saying that, we only stayed as long as we needed to see the place. cheers derek WIFE--wottamistakatomaka Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike88 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 laimeduck - 2015-06-28 9:12 AM We've been out for 2 months now a fair amount of that time in France (also Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland & Austria) and have tried Aires, France Passion, ACSI and Municipal. Very sorry, but generally from what we've seen & experienced, you can keep Aires! Useful maybe for a sleep stop en-route but not for a holiday. Can't honestly see the point when ACSI or Municipals can come in at €10 €12 or €14 with decent facilities, hot showers & often free WiFi. (Mind you there are also some dreadful ACSI sites!) France Passion is interesting - we've tried 2 so far, one bad, one good. Given the choice between an Aire & a France Passion where I can get a decent bottle of home grown plonk for €5 and a free stay, guess which wins? Again people are missing the location point. France Passion sites are on farms often in the middle of nowhere and in return for a free nights stay you are expected to buy the farmers produce. Fair enough, but as many have said, Aires are generally located close to towns and beaches and are ideal for those who enjoy touring and prefer not use their motorhomes as caravans where you park up on a site and not move for weeks on end. Of course Aires are useful also for travelling to and from your eventual destination as are France Passion sites but the difference is when you arrive at France Passion sites (if you can find them) there is generally nothing to do other than talk to the farmer and consume his goods. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Mike88 - 2015-06-28 10:52 AM...................Again people are missing the location point. France Passion sites are on farms often in the middle of nowhere and in return for a free nights stay you are expected to buy the farmers produce. Fair enough, but as many have said, Aires are generally located close to towns and beaches and are ideal for those who enjoy touring and prefer not use their motorhomes as caravans where you park up on a site and not move for weeks on end. Of course Aires are useful also for travelling to and from your eventual destination as are France Passion sites but the difference is when you arrive at France Passion sites (if you can find them) there is generally nothing to do other than talk to the farmer and consume his goods. ;-) Mike, I don't want to provoke the usual, unhelpful, tit for tat aires vs sites vs W.H.Y. debate but, just in the interests of accuracy, I think you will find that your comment re France Passion carrying an expectation that you will buy is inaccurate. Most of the site owners are indeed small traders/producers, but the decision as to whether to buy is left wholly to the user, and no coercion should be applied by the owner. My understanding is that this is a condition of the scheme. If you fancy what they sell, you may buy it, but that is as far as it goes. I have no dispute with your comment that aires tend to be located near towns/villages (or, I guess, beaches): we often use them to visit such places, but then move off to a site for the night. So, staying on a relatively remote site is for us unimportant - though it almost invariably results in wonderful peace! Regarding touring, your comment seems based more on your imagining than on fact. We tour, seldom staying more than three days, sometimes one, sometimes longer if we like where we are, and the number of times we have overnighted on aires (or the equivalents outside France) could be counted on the fingers of one hand. We encounter others who do likewise, from all nationalities, so the practice is not that unusual. There is really nothing about campsites that mitigates against short stays, or in favour of long stays. Of course some do as you describe, and stay for extended periods, but that is their choice, and why not? Some folk with caravans tour. What people actually do is far more varied than you seem to imagine! :-) But ultimately, why should it matter to anyone else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike88 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Brian Kirby - 2015-06-28 12:35 PM Mike88 - 2015-06-28 10:52 AM...................Again people are missing the location point. France Passion sites are on farms often in the middle of nowhere and in return for a free nights stay you are expected to buy the farmers produce. Fair enough, but as many have said, Aires are generally located close to towns and beaches and are ideal for those who enjoy touring and prefer not use their motorhomes as caravans where you park up on a site and not move for weeks on end. Of course Aires are useful also for travelling to and from your eventual destination as are France Passion sites but the difference is when you arrive at France Passion sites (if you can find them) there is generally nothing to do other than talk to the farmer and consume his goods. ;-) Mike, I don't want to provoke the usual, unhelpful, tit for tat aires vs sites vs W.H.Y. debate but, just in the interests of accuracy, I think you will find that your comment re France Passion carrying an expectation that you will buy is inaccurate. Most of the site owners are indeed small traders/producers, but the decision as to whether to buy is left wholly to the user, and no coercion should be applied by the owner. My understanding is that this is a condition of the scheme. If you fancy what they sell, you may buy it, but that is as far as it goes. I have no dispute with your comment that aires tend to be located near towns/villages (or, I guess, beaches): we often use them to visit such places, but then move off to a site for the night. So, staying on a relatively remote site is for us unimportant - though it almost invariably results in wonderful peace! Regarding touring, your comment seems based more on your imagining than on fact. We tour, seldom staying more than three days, sometimes one, sometimes longer if we like where we are, and the number of times we have overnighted on aires (or the equivalents outside France) could be counted on the fingers of one hand. We encounter others who do likewise, from all nationalities, so the practice is not that unusual. There is really nothing about campsites that mitigates against short stays, or in favour of long stays. Of course some do as you describe, and stay for extended periods, but that is their choice, and why not? Some folk with caravans tour. What people actually do is far more varied than you seem to imagine! :-) But ultimately, why should it matter to anyone else? Brian. I do not know why you have jumped in here. When an earlier poster raise the issue of Aires v France Passion I was merely responding to the fact that a few previous contributors (including myself) had expressed a preference for location as they wanted to be near a town or somewhere walkable. That poster referred to the advantages of France Passion and I merely pointed out that there is a better chance of finding places to walk on Aires as they were usually located near to towns and beaches. However, in relation to my comments about France Passion I concede that I used the word "expected" in relation to the purchase of farming products when "obliged" would have been a better description. As I said offering goods for sale by a farmer is fair enough given that you are staying for free but I can say from personal experience that, on the three France Passion sites I have stayed on, I have been asked if I wanted to buy wine and/or fruit. Of course I did purchase a couple of things as I felt obliged to do so. Is that wrong? As for you not minding staying on a remote site then fair enough; that is a matter for individual choice but some others in this thread would prefer to be near a town or beach so I cannot understand why you have raised the point. If you want to drive your vehicle to a nearby town then that's fine as is staying on a campsite. But I repeat my point was that Aires are usually better than France Passion for those who want to walk into a town and presumably do not want to drive as mentioned by earlier contributors as of course is staying on a campsite. But in relation to Honfleur the Aire is very convenient for those who want to walk. Surely that is indisputable. In general I am unsure what you think I am "imagining" in relation to touring. All I was suggesting is that Aires are ideal for touring as they are for getting to and from an eventual destination. I suggested that those who want to visit somewhere (rather than drive) would be better off using Aires rather than using France Passion . It's everyone's individual choice as you have pointed out previously. Why in the context of your original remarks you have questioned my comments which were expressing my Individual views I do not know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Sorry Mike, it was just your post as I read it, and that "here we go again" feeling that the whole string would shortly degenerate back into the usual sites vs aires nonsense. I felt compelled, somewhat in haste, to try to head'em off at the pass - and probably overstated in consequence. Pax? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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