What a brilliant campsite with a great ethos.  What really makes them different from other campsites is that camping de l’Etang is part of a not-for-profit organisation. Their policy is to employ people with disabilities wherever possible. You’ll find all their staff are knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.

The site is nestled at the heart of the vineyards of Angers and the Loire Valley, and is set around the former farmhouse of the Château de Brissac. Camping de l’Etang benefits from a preserved natural environment that’s perfect for rest and recreation.

The campsite belongs to the Sites & Paysages chain which I can high recommend.  We have visited many on our recent travels and they operate a loyalty scheme where you get a stamp for every 4 nights you spend at a new campsite, and once you have 4 stamps you get 5 nights free. We have already had one 5 night stay for free and are well on way for the next one!

One of the things that I particularly liked about the site was the feeling of space.  The site is 20 acres and they only have 110 camping pitches and 40 rental properties.

Each pitch was a lot larger than many you find in France. There was plenty of room to swing a cat but we didn’t have one and we weren’t able to catch a local one so we didn’t bother!

From the campsite, a delightful pathway takes you right into the small town of Brissac-Quincé in about 10 minutes. Brissac Quincé is a quaint little market town, with lots of old stone buildings, a very laid-back atmosphere and plenty of shops.

Funnily enough the shop that most interested me was the boulangerie.  I visited there so often the lady behind the counter decided to give me a few lessons in French pronunciation, who knew that a baguette traditional was feminine whilst an ordinary run of the mill baguette was masculine? Well I do now!

Our pitch was very close to the fishing lake. It became quite noisy in the evening when the frogs came out to sing………..strangely enough they didn’t have a french accent!

But the best place of all was the swimming pools. You might have read that France was experiencing extreme weather in the form of a HEATWAVE.  Well we were right in the middle of it!  The only place to be when the mercury hit 40C was in the pool.

Even then when you got back to the caravan you had to improvise. It was so hot that we all decided that we should move up to Brittany 4 days earlier than planned where the temperatures were a chilly 15C cooler at 25C.

More from Brittany later.