Self Drive to Brittany

For our family holiday this year, we booked a week in Brittany. I have never done a self-drive holiday as an adult and our girls were excited that we would be going by car and taking the ferry from Newhaven – Dieppe; something on our doorstep that we have never done. We left the UK on a hot summer’s afternoon and sailed to Dieppe where we stayed at the Dieppe Ibis Budget hotel overnight. This hotel is a mere 10-minute drive from the ferry port and easy to find. With free street parking outside of the hotel until 9am, we were soon tucked up in bed ready for our drive down to Brittany the next day.

After an early start and a good breakfast, we left Dieppe and travelled approximately 7 hours and arrived at Camping du Quinquis late afternoon. The sun was still high in the sky so whilst we settled ourselves in our caravan, our new home for the next week, all the children headed straight for the pool to cool off.

Quinquis is a small family campsite, approximately a 10-minute drive from Guidel, Le Pouldu beach and 5-minute drive to a Carre Four. Quinquis is not a large, commercialised site and is in a beautiful, unspoilt corner of Brittany. With 2 large pools, a pool bar, and a snack bar, this had all we needed for a quiet family holiday – much needed after the year we had had so far! You can purchase wrist bands that you can pre-load with euros and you can then use these to buy snacks and goodies from the snack bar, reception shop and pool bar. We bought these for our two younger girls, and they loved the independence of being able to go and buy their afternoon ice cream and crepes themselves. Don’t miss out on the fresh local pastries and bread that you can pre-order each evening and collect hot from the oven the next morning! A definite highlight of the trip was collecting these and enjoying for breakfast.

The accommodation on site varies between 2- and 3-bedroom static caravans. Fitted with all mod-cons, these do vary in age and with this you can see the difference in the standard. Our caravan was approximately 10-years old so felt slightly dated inside but it was clean and had all the facilities that we needed. We travelled with other family members and their caravan had a larger decking area than ours, so this soon became our social spot for al fresco dining and pre-dinner drinks!

The staff on site have daily activities set up in the afternoon for children and then evening entertainment. The family we travelled with stayed for a second week and advised us that all the activities and entertainment varied in their second week so if you did go for two weeks, it would not feel repetitive. One afternoon we saw all of our younger children sitting doing arts and crafts where they created a few things to bring home and, on another afternoon, there was a slide and splash competition held on the field. The evening entertainment whilst we were on-site included a pool and darts competition (which my sister and I thoroughly enjoyed!), a pool party and a silent disco. All these things were right up our street and a lot of fun!

Our first day was a Sunday so we headed straight for Guidel market where you can purchase hot meats, fresh food, clothes, and a small selection of souvenirs. The market was very busy and there was no-one monitoring how many people were wandering around. This surprised me given that we had not long been out of lockdown however everyone was wearing face masks and I did not feel unsafe. The market was full of lots of locals so this made us confident that all the food we were buying for our dinner would be good – it did not disappoint!

We only visited one beach during our stay, and this was Le Pouldu Beach. This is a wide, long beach with a few rock pools to explore. There are toilets and first aid located on the beach and over the road is a free car park, crazy golf and a creperie.

There are plenty of small, French towns to explore in the area. We spent a morning in Quimperlé, an old mill town, with a river running through it. We had a lovely couple of hours wandering through the streets and we finished off with a stop for a coffee and crepes on the riverside. We drove to Doelan one evening in the search for dinner however this small fishing village only has 2 restaurants and a creperie. On a hot summer’s evening, this was heaving with locals so we were unable to find anywhere that could accommodate us all – make sure you pre-book if you want to dine here! In the end we headed back to Quimperlé where we found a lovely restaurant in one of the squares which served great burgers and steaks!

This lovely, quiet area of Brittany was just what we needed for a week away from the stress of daily living in 2020 but all too quickly our week was coming to an end. There are still plenty of places that we have not yet discovered, and Brittany stole all our hearts for a much-needed family holiday. If a self-drive holiday is something that you would like to know more about, then please do get in touch. Now, where to next?!