This Summer my family and I visited three well-established French naturist sites, Belezy (which is our second home), Serignan, and La Grande Cosse - the sort where there is no surprise. But we also spent a couple of nights in the newly established naturist site at Escaro, and we found this a delightful experience. Although Escaro was only a couple of days in this year's holidays for myself and my family, we now find that it is the part that comes most often to our minds when daydreaming - and I would like to share this discovery with URN readers.
Obviously this tiny, newly-established site cannot compete yet with older sites in the Eastern Pyrenees such as La Clapere, Le Clols or Le Ventous (which are South of Perpignan, very close to Spain, all of them off road D 115 around Amelie-les-Bains and Arles-sur-Tech). Escaro is the only naturist halt on the N 116 road that leads due West from Perpignan to Prades, Olette, Font-Romeu and finally Andorra. It is reached by climbing a narrow, winding, breathtaking road that branches to the South between Prades and Olette - only 5 miles or so, but it takes a good 20 minutes (OK for a car or a small van; although there are caravans and campers at the site, I for one would have felt uncomfortable driving a large caravan up that road).
Once in the tiny village of Escaro, a sign leads you to the left. When you get to the site, if the "Reception" is closed (it is, most of the time), just drive on right through the site (a series of hairpin bends) until you get to its very end, which is the naturist part; the owner walks round in the morning to greet the newcomers of the night before. The manager, Jean Galindo, a convinced naturist, has been running a textile camping site on that steep slope deep in the forest for years; a few years ago he marked off the furthest part of his site "naturist zone", and he proudly explains that a couple of times Dutch or German families availed themselves of that possibility to strip off in the sunshine. Then this year he decided to open a fully naturist part within his textile site, with its own toilet block. The site is regarded as too "primitive" by the Federation Francaise de Naturisme to be labelled yet, but the manager has been careful from the start to remain in touch with the FFN and to ask for their advice all along, and he hopes to be recognized one day. Because of the altitude (2,800 feet), nights (and even days!) can be chilly - but this is near Spain, and it can also be hot: we were there in late August this year, and days were hot and nights delightfully warm, we slept in the nude in our van with all windows and doors open, and only the mosquito-nets between ourselves and the mountains.
The site is called "Le Petit Bonheur", the address is "ESCARO, 66360 OLETTE", the phone/fax number is +33 (0)4 68 97 08 53, the email is campinglepetitbonheur@minitel.net. The opening season is 1 May to 30 September. The site is not listed in the French magazine Nat'Info (which only lists sites with the FFN label), but it is listed in the far more reliable La Vie Au Soleil.
Negative points:
the manager does all by himself, and there is a certain
impression of untidiness and "makeshift" solutions at times (when I
asked for mains electricity, he obligingly unrolled a cable through the
woods!) - although this will obviously become less frequent as the site
matures. There is no swimming pool or beach as such, but only a small
reservoir on the river, supposedly CO - but neither my wife nor myself
had the pluck to strip in front of the heavily textile families using it
(I know, we should have been more assertive...). There are mosquitoes in
the evening.
Positive points:
the individual plots are large, with lots of huge
trees, and some plots are bounded on one side by the sloping forest that
goes on for miles, so that you have an exhilarating feeling of unlimited
space, with no fence, and the children can play in the undergrowth and
you can walk off nude into the forest safely. The silence is tremendous,
and at night it is awe-inspiring. The enthusiasm of the manager is
refreshing after the impersonal welcome in the big commercial sites, and
he will do all he can to be of help to you. You may well find yourselves
in the nude exchanging ideas about the pros and cons of naturism with a
puzzled textile family.
If you want to start chatting with the manager, ask him why all his cars have registration plates with round numbers. My teenage sons spotted 4000, 7000 and 9000, and told me there was a one in a billion chance of this being just luck.
Jacques R.
See
full disclaimer and copyright.
This page © NUFF and/or authors, 1997-present.
Back to the NEFF |
Contents |
Search |
Maps |
Beaches |
Venues |
Beginners Please!