Forest View

Stunning peaceful setting, great for young families - and wonderful hosts

What an absolute gem of a find! A stunningly beautiful setting, with pitches either round the lake or in the orchard. When we were there we were lucky to have picked a quiet week - but even if it was busy the pitches are well spaced out and I don't think it would ever feel crowded. A wonderful spot for young kids - plenty of space to run around safely and enjoy the nature. The bathrooms were spotlessly clean and really nicely done. Excellent croissants and bread can be ordered for the morning. Some lovely spots for cycling close by. The hosts are as wonderful as the setting! Peter and Sarah welcomed us like family, and they really take time for all their guests. Peter helped us fix our trailer electrics, took our son tadpole fishing and even let him have a ride on his tractor (now forever a hero in our 3 year old's eyes!). If we didn't have an agenda we had to stick to I think we would still be there now! Hope to be back at some point - I can safely say that this is our favourite campsite anywhere! :)

A friendly, welcoming campsite

We stayed at Forest View on our first night travelling around France in early spring. Peter and Sarah were extremely accommodating and we managed to join them for the evening plat du jour. the food was delicious, heart warming and plentiful. The wine was very good too! If you stay here you must book in for the food. The facilities are good and kept clean. The site is stunning and very peaceful. We had problems with our Cali and Peter was extremely helpful. Will definitely go back, thoroughly recommended.

A gem of a campsite.

What a perfect week (May 2017) camping in this wonderful rural location. The site was excellent; set in a peaceful, beautiful location with good facilities…just perfect. Spent the week relaxing, walking in the adjacent forest and fields, visiting the local manor house and hiring bikes (from the campsite) to explore the nearby traffic free greenway cycle-path (disused railway) adjacent to the Huisne River. Local markets and quaint villages complimented our stay. The campsite owners (Peter & Sarah) are a wonderfully friendly couple, who were exemplary hosts throughout our stay. We arrived as strangers and left as friends and we were grateful for their kind hospitality. The plat du jour evening meal, to which everyone staying was invited and was held in their farmhouse, was a great evening of local culinery excellence (cooked by Sarah) and good banter as everyone got to know each other and shared stories. One week wasn’t long enough. We’ll be back...

Totally outstanding!!

From the moment we arrived Peter and Sarah ensured our stay was perfect in every way! Their welcome was second to none and absolutely nothing was too much trouble! The views are stunning, the pitches very large and beautifully maintained with dividing hedges and the new shower facilities immaculate. We had a fabulous evening in the restaurant with Peter, Sarah and their daughter and Sarah's wonderful Plat Du Jour is an experience not to be missed. Their hospitality is honestly first class and their enthusiasm to share their beautiful part of the world is what makes the place so special. To say they go the extra mile is an understatement and we will without doubt return to stay with them. We would have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending them as one of the most memorable and helpful places we have stayed either in the UK or across Europe!

Superb

We stayed here for just one night on our way back home, but we wished we could have stayed much longer. Peter and Sarah are superb hosts. The campsite is lovely and peaceful and I had the best nights sleep in over 3 weeks. As we were only overnighting and it was quiet we had the whole of the orchard to ourselves, bliss. Wifi is free, which is amazing and I am looking forward to returning to sample Sarah's cooking. The following morning, we were stuck on the pitch as it had rained for the first time after 3 months and the car wouldn't grip,Peter happily came and pulled us off with his tractor! We will definitely be back and have no hesitation in recommending this site.

Outstanding in every way.

This place is outstanding - this statement includes the hosts, the atmosphere, food and drink, pitches and rooms. Forest View sets a benchmark and example for the perfect stay. We are very familiar with this tranquil and outstanding place have stayed twice in the last 2 years; camping last year by the lake and this year using the Chambre d’Hote. Peter and Sarah are wonderful hosts and make all of their guests feel welcome from the first enquiry to beyond their departure. I can honestly say that people enter as guests and leave as friends. Peter and Sarah are genuinely interested in and caring of their guests, in fact, we felt that we were revisiting old friends when we returned this year. Sarah is an amazing cook - if you book a pitch or a room here, you will love her evening meals and Peter has some delicious local wines and ciders on offer. We enjoyed the atmosphere during the evening meals as the tables are set out to encourage people to mingle. Peter tells me that he loves nothing more than to listen to the laughter and conversations of people getting to know each other in his home - what great hosts the two of them are. Camping: We loved camping by the lake last year. The site is carefully laid out with a quiet area, which left us able to relax and enjoy the evenings by the waters edge. Despite it being mid-summer and particularly dry, the pitches were still covered in grass and well-tended to. The amenities are within easy reach, a short walk away from anywhere on the site. The showers and toilets are always clean, well maintained with ample hot water. Chambre d'Hote: This year we stayed in one of the rooms in the farmhouse. The thick stone walls of this lovely old house provided a cool and airy room which was very clean, comfortable and quiet - the skylight providing a view of the night sky and a cool breeze to send us off to sleep. We love this place and did not want to leave at the end of our holiday. We can't thank Peter and Sarah enough for making us feel so welcome on both occasions and we genuinely miss them and Forest View. We will return regularly.

Great Site

My sons and I thoroughly enjoyed or three nights under canvas on this lovely peaceful and friendly site. We had a lakeside pitch which was huge and our neighbour offered us a cup of tea as we pitched our tent. Throughout our stay we found the other campers very friendly which was an added bonus. Three nights was not long enough to spend on this site and explore the region.

This is a perfect site for anyone who likes to be on a rural site with the sounds of owls hooting in the night. My favourite time was the middle of the night and being able to see the stars. We all enjoyed the visits from the duck. 

We would definitely come and stay here again.

Perfectly pleasant, but .....

I picked Forest View from my recently purchased copy of Cool Camping for an overnight stop on the return leg of our holiday road trip based on the usual criteria .... location, description & published price (13 Euros).

All good, in this case.

Arrived very hot and slightly fractious, met by Sarah at the door with an effusive welcome and a handshake.  Booked in (car, 2 adults,tent, no electricity), chose lakeside pitch, supplied e-mail address etc and then the surprise ... "That'll be 25 Euros, please". 

Peter guided us to our allocated pitch at the far side of the lake and explained the various rules of the site in a very friendly manner and took our Boulangerie orders fot the following morning.

We did have a very relaxing evening sitting by the lakeside and, true to Peter's word, we weren't assaulted by stinging or biting insects .... a major achievment on his part considering the proximity of the lake and the time of year.

In the morning I engaged Peter in a frank but civilised discussion about the absurdity of charging 25 euros for the nights camping. His arguement was basicaly that they had invested heavily in the new wash-house, they didn't want to encourage short stay guests and if I didn't like the price I could go to the nearby Municipal in future "if it's open, that is"! He did stress that he'd made numerous efforts to get both the text of the review in the Cool Camping book updated (he's a different Peter Wilson to the one in the review .. that Peter Wilson was the previous Peter Wilson) and the published price changed.

So, if you want to stay for a few days, want on on-site cafe (which I have no reason whatsoever to think would be anything other than splendid but didn't actually try myself), don't mind quite a walk to the single toilet/wash house and really don't want to have to deal with any foreigners then this site will certainly fit the bill.

Not very "Cool", though.

Responce from the Campsite owner:

Hi Benedict

We are sorry you felt unhappy about our charges but have to wonder why, having been told the price on arrival, you paid it without complaint, only raising it following day as you left?

Surely, the time to mention any issue regarding the price must be at check-in NOT check-out.

We did point out that the edition of Cool Camping you had purchased was 9 years old. Investing in a more up to date edition would have made your price expectations more realistic.

Regarding our pricing policy “the Longer you stay the Less you Pay”. What was actually said to you was “we encourage longer stays with price incentives”.

In brief

1.  No pitch is more than a 2 minute walk to the new showers and toilets.

2.  It is unreasonable to arrive late evening, without reservation, in the peak season and expect to have a wide selection of pitches to choose from. I'm sorry you chose one you felt afterwards was a bit too far from the loo’s for you.

3.  We are blessed with a wide variety of nationalities staying with us. Stay longer next time and I’m sure you’ll meet many of them

Lastly, Sarah and I are sorry you don’t think this site is “cool”. We think cool is beautiful views, tranquil lakeside pitches, cool shady walks, wide open spaces, home cooked food, and wood smoked campfires…… Thankfully an increasing number of Cool Campers seem to agree.

Quiet, relaxing spot for a restful break

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Forest View. The campground is spacious, the area invites exploration, and the owners are enthusiastic. We stayed in the Family Orchard for a week and had plenty of space. The kids (3 & 5) had a blast meeting and playing with fellow campers. We alternated camp days with a walk in the woods, a visit to Chartres, and a visit to the Maison du Parc. The area has a lot to offer if you're willing to explore.

The bathhouse is new and nicely done. It could have used more frequent cleaning while we were there. Debris tracked in on the bottom of shoes collected on the floors and in the showers during our visit and was only cleaned the day we departed.

Our pitch (25 in the Orchard) had a minor slug problem that seemed to be confined to our location. Slugs crawled all over our tent at night and left lovely souvenirs for us. It didn't cause any real problems but it was a bit icky and did mean we had to give the exterior of the tent a thorough cleaning upon our return home. We'd book a different pitch next time.

Peter and Sarah are kind folks. Peter went into full problem fixing mode when we managed to get a soccer ball caught rather high in an apple tree. After listening to the full, annotated story from our littles, he appeared the next day with his patented Ball Removal System and took care of it for us. The kids were still talking about it a day later and wanted to say a second thank you to bask in the attention!

Overall, a very nice place to stay and we had a great time!

A beautiful and relaxing place

We were only able to stay two nights because we had to get south for a wedding, but we wished we could have stayed longer. Forest View is a perfect place to stay - relaxed, pretty, well-serviced and run by truly lovely people. We also benefited from Sarah's excellent cooking! Shower block is immaculate; pitches nice and private (and there aren't too many either) and some nice added touches like loo roll and washing up liquid that make all the difference to budget campers like us! Would definitely recommend this wonderful, peaceful place. 

Forest View

Many thanks to Peter and Sarah for a warm welcome to their brilliant camp site. We had a lovely stay, relaxing and peaceful. Great facilities and a many nice walking trails through the beautiful forest, which Peter will gladly advise you about. Don't miss the sunset from the brand new shower block! We're very happy to have stopped by and it was really amazing to see someone so happy and passionate about their job. 

Why rush through, stay a while and appreciate some peace.

We've just got back from a wonderful relaxing week with Peter and Sarah .

From the plat du jour on our arrival day , to ice creams at regular intervals, pain au chocolate orders each morning , everything worked wonderfully. Nothing was too much hassle for our hosts. My daughter and fiancee both had a great time winding down after a busy few months. 

So many other guests who were stopping just a night or two expressed that they should have stayed longer rather than rushing south or north. I think it is a relatively undiscovered gem of a site. The new showers and washing block is lovely and clean and new, with plenty of space, we never waited for anything.

It was also the first time I'd managed to get out and do some fishing for the first time in about 6 years and I really appreciated it. While the lake is quite small there is plenty of room for a number of anglers. It's not an easy water though ! It took a number of days to find out where they were feeding and a change of bait to get the first one out. After that I had 3 doubles and 4 over 20lb in 3 days, just doing a few hours in the morning and evening before it got too hot.  There is a tackle shop in Nogent le Rotrou if you need any items apparently.

We'll be back soon. 

Forest view

Awesome welcome from Peter, we instantly relaxed and fell In love with Forest View. Bread and croissants delivered fresh in the morning and a great chilled vibe started our holiday off to a great start . We would love to return with our fishing rods next year. Xx

What a difference a couple of months makes.

I stopped at this site in March of this year although officially closed the owner Peter and Sarah Wilson made me feel welcome and part of the family the shower block was closed and due to be demolished (to be honest I would not have kept chickens in it) and they were having a brand new septic tank installed. I stayed a few days and promised to return later in the year.

Well I am now back at Forest view in July and what a difference 4 months makes the old shower block gone and a modern clean building in its place although clean and modern being a wooden construction it fits in well the the organic nature of the site. I didn't think the owner would remember me but it was like being welcomed by old friends. The site now looks fresh and gone is the old drainage and the problem brought about by it.

I would warmly recommend this site to young old and families alike the hospitality of the owners is second to none the facilities clean and modern and I can't praise Sarah's cooking highly enough after a long drive from Calais her Plat de jour was a culinary delight with the added bonus of me not having to bother cooking.

After my March stop I would have rated the site 4 out of 10 but with the improvements 10 out of 10 only just does it justice.

Beautiful site & lovely owners

We had a great stay at Forest View - in large part due to new owners, Sarah & Peter. They are warm, welcoming and made sure we were well fed and watered. The family-style dinner was a lovely touch. The site itself is top notch - beautiful location, great grounds and facilities. Highly recommended!

Forest View

We stayed here in June 2012. Its a very handy place to stop on the way south from the channel ports and we will certainly stay here again next time we are passing through. A couple of handy hints though - there are a few ants nests around near the long grass at the bottom end of the site so have a good look before you pitch, and the signing to the site itself is misleading. The entrance to the site is off the main road, don't go down the lane the sign appears to point you down! 

Stunning peaceful campsite

Fantastic site based around a small lake. Large pitches, loads of space, lovely place to walk around. Owners are very helpful - lots of little extras like soap and towels in loos, washing up liquid ... and yes loo paper (its seems the more you pay at a campsite the less likely they’ll provide loo paper!). Fantastic value, better than sites that cost you twice as much. Great cider and lovely gite garden to sit and drink it in! Facilities very good - space to swing your arms in the shower. Large modern supermarket about 5km away before Remalard. Railway station at Bretoncelles for trains to Paris (2 hours ish) and Chartres (40 mins ish) - we took train train to Chartres to watch Bradley Wiggins win time trial and hence Tour de France.