Wednesday 12th June – Amneville, near Metz, France

 

While we were talking to Peter and Lynn last night, a group of four motorcyclists arrived and they were British – this is the most British vehicles that we have seen on a site during the whole trip. This morning I had a chat with them and found that they were on holiday for a week and touring before they went to a bikers’ meet in Belgium at the weekend. Yesterday they had spent seven hours on the road, which I thought was too long – so did they!
I walked into the village to get some bread at the bakers and was surprised to find that Peter and Lynn had already left. I was disappointed that I hadn’t given them our contact details but was delighted to find a plastic bag under the van windscreen wipers that contained a note from Lynn with their contact details.
We drove a short distance to a Netto supermarket where we bought essentials and a crate of the excellent Turmblaser German beer. After that is was another day of major roads but we were on a smaller road when we left Saarlouis on the D954 towards Metz. We drove down a pretty tree-lined road and suddenly found ourselves in France without any obvious border feature – no river or hill, just fields on both sides of the road. We were soon on a ridge providing extensive views over the land below, it is so much more interesting to travel on the smaller roads.
Camping Car Parks are an organisation that provides access to aires and small campsites that have automated entrance gates, water and dumping facilities as well as electricity at the pitches and free WiFi. We were heading for one of their sites at Amneville, just north of Metz, described as being in woodland close to a zoo. Both of those facts are true but we found that Amneville is a massive site complete with Europe’s largest indoor ski slope, spas, an aquarium, a casino and, of course, a zoo. The site is right on the edge of the complex in a quiet position and was very popular. There were plenty of pitches available when we arrived but many more vans arrived and it was full by late evening. Camping Car Parks are a good compromise between a campsite and an aire. They are secure sites with all the required facilities but are cheaper than a campsite. When you join as a member, you are issued with a card and you then load the card with euros. The card gives access through the barriers and you are charged when you leave using the credit on the card. This site cost just over €15 for 24 hours, which is fairly typical of their sites. It is also possible to just use the services at their sites at a reduced cost, normally about €5. The 24 hour access to their sites is attractive to people who are touring and the automation makes it very simple.
We went for a short walk around the site and we were surprised, given that it was a Wednesday afternoon, by the number of cars in the car parks. There were very few people walking around, I assume that they were all in the attractions scattered around the site.
There are over 30 restaurants over the site and, given that amount of choice, we decided to eat in the van!
Photos: The excellent but very messy bread from the local bakery; The Camping Car Park aire at Amneville; The Buffalo Grill – many other equally uninspiring restaurants, including McDonald’s, are available; Part of the Amneville site with lots of cars parked outside the casino; The rather impressive carrousel close to the indoor ski slope.