Camping Les Jardins De La Mer

We spent three nights here in August. The pool area is a highlight, with plenty of sunbeds and a small slide. There’s also a bar with a pool table and ping pong, plus a snack bar, though there’s no shop on site. The nearest one is just a five-minute drive away, and reception can take orders for bread. Most of the site is for static homes, with a separate area for tents and motorhomes. Check-in was helpful and the place felt secure. The toilets and showers stayed clean and quiet. Staff were friendly and helpful, though the lifeguard did shout at the kids for spending too long in the pool showers.

The pool is heated and uncovered, and has a decent slide for kids. You can order fresh bread and croissants to be delivered the next day, and it’s an easy drive to the Opal coast for sandy beaches and free parking. The pitches are a good size, around 7-8m by 7-8m, with room for a large tent or a caravan and awning. It’s a nice campsite and only a couple of hours from Calais. The sand is the main drawback, since ordinary pegs don’t hold well. Bring hard-ground pegs, oddly enough, as those work in the sandy ground.

We’d booked two pitches together but were initially assigned spots at opposite ends of the site. We were moved to two smaller pitches instead, which we managed with. The biggest annoyance was the no-BBQ rule. We hadn’t been told about it, it was strictly enforced for us, then apparently ignored for others the following night. The facilities are really nice, but the high-season crowd seems to dominate, and things like the bar were being closed as the season ended. The toilets also weren’t always kept usable by other campers.

Most of the campsite seems popular, and the facilities are nice, with level access to nearly all areas and very clean, good showers. Our stay was less comfortable because we ended up on what turned into a football pitch in the evening. There was also some sort of machine running noisily all night.