Campsite Les Rives du Lac ***

We stayed on 21 ACSI Sites this trip (11 weeks) and this was by far the best!
Amazing setting, wonderfully helpful staff and owner. The best meal in France at the lakeside restaurant. The lake - wow. Water sports (obviously) beach and amenities all brilliant and reasonably priced. We loved every moment and will return in 2018!

We had done our research on the campsite before leaving home and it was to be one of our longer stays. I had emailed to ask various questions before travelling and had really good helpful replies in response. On arrival at the site (lunchtime) we were prepared to have to wait until reception reopened but there was a telephone number requesting you should ring on arrival as reception would not be manned that week. Within a minute of leaving a message on the answer service, Harve, a son of the family running the site appeared to welcome us. He spoke very good English and was very helpful. (when will I be allowed to try out my French with all this English speaking!) The site was very quiet, in fact about only eight units in total on the site. First impressions were good. Very clean and appeared to be a well maintained campsite. There was a good mixture of shade and sunlight on most pitches. We choose a pitch that would provide early sun and keep the sun the longest in the evening. It also had a small tree providing some shade though for our dog and car. The only downside to that pitch though was it was near to the access road to the site. It didn’t bother us much but maybe a lot busier in the high season. Only a few pitches are next to the road so lots of options for you to choose what you want.
The facilities are good but were limited at our time of stay. The sanitary block was good and clean. The swimming pools are small and covered over by a glass tunnel type design that allows the sides to slide up and over to open it up and allow a more open feel. Probably if you want to swim there is the very good lake and facilities next to the campsite. This is not owned by the campsite but ran by the local council. We were aware that our dog was not allowed in the lake before we arrived but we were very disappointed that dogs are not allowed anywhere near the lake or the facilities by the Lake, i.e. bar , restaurant area. It would have been nice to walk around the lake and stop for a drink sitting by the lake but it was not to be. The camp site do have a good seating and bar area behind reception that looks onto the lake but this was not open during our stay. There is a river a few hundred yards from the camp site but access to it requires a few more hundred years down a road to get close to it and allow your dog to cool down. It is a fast flowing river but a division in the river at one point allows it to be safe to enter. A final point, and this is to do with my stupidity in being taken in by the video on the camp sites own website. I was mistakenly taken in in thinking all that was portrayed in the video was close to the campsite. It is not. The children playing in the rock pools and natural rock slide formations for example are at the Gorges da Meouge, about 30 miles away. If this is important to you ask first before, I didn’t.
In conclusion, this is a very nice campsite. I suspect young families especially will love it when it is fully ready for the high season. We stayed for five nights before moving to find an area more suitable place for our dog walks. (That is not to say the campsite were not dog friendly because they were very welcoming of him).