Our naturist road trip through France 2022 - Week 4

The afternoon that we arrived at campsite Devèze, we had almost immediately gone to the bar for a drink. We started talking to people, learned that a communal barbecue was coming up that evening and before we knew it, it got dark while we were still eating sausages and drinking wine. The next day was “film day”. The way we’re traveling this summer is by spending only 3 days at one place (more about that in a bit). The day when we arrive we try to get to know the campsite a bit, the next day we start making video. Sometimes the complete video is recorded in just that one day, often we also need a part of the next day to film some more. And the day after that is yet again a day of leaving/arriving/exploring.

So we ran a bit behind on schedule, we had no idea yet what the campsite looked like when we were already supposed to be filming. But after a quick tour, we realised that this would probably be one of the easiest campsites to make a video about. At the previous campsites that we had visited, there were always people everywhere. So we had to carefully time our shots around lunch or dinner time, when most guests are hanging around their pitch. Several times, it was just plainly impossible to find a time slot to film the popular areas of the campsite. But here, it almost seemed too easy.

The swimming pool opened at 8 am, we got there by 10 and still were the only ones in and around the water. This was the first time during this trip that we could actually film inside the swimming pool. Few people were found in other parts of the campsite either. Nobody was walking around, nobody was playing volleyball. We got down to the huge lake, and found just one other couple having a walk. Yesterday during the barbecue, we had seen several long tables full of people. Where had they all gone? Only when we launched the drone, we figured out where the party was really happening. Apparently, there was a petanque tournament going on and apparently, Devèze is the kind of campsite where petanque is taken very seriously. We walked by the petanque courts and people invited us to join the game. We kindly refused, because we realised that we could very much use this time to film the campsite.

Because of some miscommunication, we had been forced to change our itinerary quite last-minute. This week was the time when we were about to travel from the west of France to the east. Quite a journey, but we had reserved time for a stop along the way. But our plans had changed and now we had to do the whole trip at once. We left Devèze at a time when we normally just start sipping our first coffee and as we often do when driving on endless highways we started talking about the things we had seen during the last weeks. The heat wave had kept us mostly inside of the resorts, but the few times we did go out, we had wondered about how many picturesque French villages or rolling hill landscapes one can see before it all turns into a blurry mix. And we started to feel a bit the same about the campsites we had been visiting. A couple of days ago, one of our Patrons told us that “if you’ve seen one French naturist campsite, you’ve seen them all”. We wouldn’t totally agree, we still think that every campsite has its unique setting and atmosphere, but when we jumped into yet another swimming pool or walked through yet another row of pitches, we do regularly get the feeling that we’ve seen this before. Quite a lot.

By the late afternoon arrived at our next destination: Le Plage des Templiers. We parked the car and found a wooden shack with a friendly naked guy in it. He told us to unload the stuff we needed from the car and put it on a platform, then a cable lift would take it all the way down into the canyon of the Ardèche river. Just when we thought that we had seen it all… As we were only planning to stay for 3 nights, it felt like quite a hustle to unload everything we have from the car. If you’ve seen our “Tent Life Baby” video from a couple of weeks ago, you’ll realise why we decided to rent a tent, so we would only have to transport the basics. Once our stuff was on the platform, we were directed towards a hiking trail that would take us down in the canyon as well. About 15 minutes of steep downhill hiking later, we arrived at the actual campsite. Pretty much at the same time as our luggage, which probably had a much easier journey.

As soon as we got down, smiles appeared on our faces. This place was absolutely stunning! It felt like a secret village deep inside the canyon. Because the only way to access the campsite is by hiking down, there are no campers or caravans. The only way to camp there is by bringing your own tent or renting one. Most campsites we visited before are very much into nature, but this lack of motorised vehicles does add another level of being in nature to the whole experience. Also the atmosphere was quite different than at other campsites. There was some kind of hippy atmosphere, a bit alternative. This too has to do with the accessibility. It takes a certain type of people that’s willing to leave their vehicle behind and hike towards a campsite. It’s definitely not for the lazy ones.

We loved the place from the first minute and decided that we would not leave the campsite before the time had come to move on to the next place. The hike probably had something to do with this as well. Downhill had been fairly easy, but we realised that uphill would require a lot more energy. We did not plan to do the hike up unless completely necessary. Which happened to be about 10 minutes later when we walked into our rental tent and realised that there was no bedding. After all this time in France, you would think that we had learned to ask this up front, but apparently we have not.

A good half hour later we found ourselves back at the parking lot on the top of the canyon, we took sheets, pillows, and blankets out of the car and started the second descent in not much more than an hour. But it was all worth it, our rental tent an excellent view of the Ardèche river, which flows between the high canyon walls. Because the campsite is in a bent of the river, there’s quite a large beach to sunbathe and plenty of excellent spots to skinny dip.

The next day, we found out that the Ardèche river also seems to be extremely popular among kayakers. Between about 11 am and 3 pm, probably a hundred kayakers would pass by the campsite and our nude beach. They were funny to watch. Few of them had any idea that they were about to pass by a lot of naked people. We saw them coming around the bend, and watched their faces, waiting for the moment when they would realise what they saw. Quick chatter would happen, some would smile, some would laugh, some would quickly turn their heads and a single one would grab a cell phone to eternalise the image.

When we mentioned on social media that we were at Le Plage des Templiers, some previous visitors asked if the gawking kayakers were still a problem. But we don’t really see them as a problem. Of course, if a whole group passes by and they are all looking into your direction, it does make you feel a bit like a monkey in a zoo. But we have to realise that only a couple of minutes earlier, those people had no idea that they would probably see more naked people at once than they had in their whole lives before. And in the end, they get a glimpse of what naturists really look like: Just naked people chilling next to the river. So maybe we’re even changing their opinion about naturism and nudity. Maybe we’re even planting a seed.

As mentioned earlier, we calculated 3 days per campsite for our itinerary. Which is kinda strange, because last summer we did exactly the same and soon realised that 3 days was not enough to record a video, edit a video, write blog posts, answer emails, etc. We remember that last year we had said that we needed at least 4 or 5 days. Now we remember. Because when we were creating this itinerary we totally forgot about that. Anyway, our backlog was growing and we found ourselves working during hours when we would normally have a glass of wine and watch the sunset. We decided that we would not make a video at our next destination, but just take our time to do all the other stuff. Domaine du Petit Arlane was the perfect place for that, it’s a very relaxed campsite with pitches next to a large lake. And most of all, we remember from the last time we were here that the campsite has a really good 4G connection.

So here we are, sitting in the shade in front of our tent, looking over the lake with the many ducks, writing this weekly update and preparing our last destination on the French mainland.