Birdingbilly

+1 also out of season i.e not Late July and Early August many smaller/quieter sites may not have their bars/restuarants open, but really not a problem in France where you will never go short of somewhere to eat and drink.

It will foul the window, here is a pic of the Coal on our U4 Cabrera and as you can see if you knock 60cm off the width it would not clear the window.

Alko supply the product that Bailey specify - it's down to Bailey to specify the correct axle for the task, they don't presumably because of cost. The problem is then compounded (according to Alko) by then producing vans that weigh more than they are supposed to thus eating into payload and indirectly causing owners to unwittingly overloading their vans.

According to Alko - as told to me by Alko at the Carvan show. 1. Because Bailey are not specifying strong enough axles - Alko mearly supply what Bailey request 2. Bailey vans are overweight

South of France, Spanish costa, no........Kent

Well according to the french authorities that slapped me with a €45 fine on this road (driving at 89kph and where my car said the limit was 90kph ) it is not classified as segregated because there is no physical barrier between the carriageways - aside from this it now appears to be down to local decisions as to the extent to which the recent 80kph reduced limit is retained or the reversion to the previous 90kph has taken place - it does not make things easy for vistors or indeed locals.

Well apparently not - because this is not classified as a "divided" highway the limit is 80 in both directions - this is exactly my point - there is no posted limit.

This is the kind of thing you can be faced with in France - genuine question, what is the speed limit ?

And for those superior beings out there please tell me.. what is the current limit on a 2 lane highway in France is it 80 or 90 ? But before you do read this https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7090731/French-government-reverses-decision-cut-speed-limits-10kmh.html

Not rocket science but also at times far from obvious what the limit is and when you are towing a van, its busy, you don't know the road and there is alot to concentrate on it's easy to miss a sign or get confused. Of course there are superior beings that claim to never exceed the limit (BS).

+1 89 in an 80 limit (was 90 of course) - French speed limits are a lottery..... to me at least

Sites on Noirmoutier are so so IMO with Domaine Le Midi being about the best we have seen. Sites on Re are better, we liked Les Baleines at the north of the island but there are a number of good sites e.g La Tour des Prises which is popular. If you are going in August (unless late August) both will be heaving and you will need to book and may even be too late to do so. As an aside we much prefer Oleron to either Noirmoutier or Re much more French and so much better for it.

Not busy on the Atlantic Coast, was busier over the french bank holiday but still not busy - weather however is awful and has been for several weeks.

Bit late to this but is it a new V90 you are getting ? If so does it have BLIS and other rear facing safety systems ? If it does then frankly I wouldn't mess around with a non Volvo towbar just get the dealer to retrofit the "factory" electric towbar then you know everrything will work as it should.

We find that whilst some things in France are dearer it's usually because they are better than in the UK, take food for example, the locally produced food from a French market might be dearer than you would pay in a UK supermarket but the quality is in a different league as indeed is eating out. As for site fees there is just no comparison, we are off this weekend for 6 weeks the most we will pay is €20 a night and on our favourite site on Oleron we will pay just €14 and get 7 for 6 taking this down to €12 a night, at today's forex that's £10.50 and that's with a pool and free WIFI - so that's probably less than 40% of what we would pay on a CMC site. The big extra expense is the ferry/train but even that can be reduced in our case to 1/3rd of cost using Tesco vouchers. For a short 2 week trip its never going to be cheaper but if you can go for longer it doesn't need to cost anymore than a UK trip.