How much nicer when, instead of that kind of welcome, a campsite owner stands in front of a green field, opens his arms out wide and says ‘Anywhere you like. Just don’t scare the donkeys.’
Thankfully that’s more the kind of welcome you’ll find at Domaine La Mathonière, a complex of buildings and a campsite set amid the forests and lakes in the heartland of the old Dukes of Bourbon. Behind the fine old rustic farmhouse there’s an expanse of green field, broken up here and there with the odd hedge and tree, but essentially an open area, where you can pick a pitch to suit your mood. There’s a large tree in the middle, which provides a heap of shade, and there’s a large (heated) swimming pool too.
Elsewhere, closer to the farmhouse, there’s a great little café-cum-bar with a sheltered seating area. Here you can enjoy a café au lait or something stronger, if you prefer, while the owners can cook a three course meal for you (also known as table d’hôtes). Once a week they also organise a ginormous barbecues for every camper on the campsite.
It’s a tried-and-trusted French formula, this. A few old farm buildings converted into a lovely owners’ home, some gîte accommodation, an open field for the camping and the cooking of communal barbecues, if you want. No worries if you’d rather do your own thing, but it’s good to meet the neighbours. There’s also another common feature of these kinds of places; large, luxury safari tents with an en-suite bathroom inside and views too die for. If you want something more basic, you can book a large bell tent instead. Closer in style to camping but still allowing you to travel light.
This may all make Mathonière sound a little formulaic, but honestly, it’s not. It’s a simple, wholesome, unpretentious site that’s a great place to bring the kids to, but with enough space to stretch out if you don’t want to be pestered.
Round and about, this region is dotted with forests and copses and has loads of interesting old towns and villages to explore. While it is possible to get to places on foot, by bike, or by donkey, the farther-flung destinations are really only accessible by car, there’s a sandy beach in the vicinity and loads of forest trails that are great either on foot or by bike. Just don’t get lost. Perhaps it’s best to lay a trail of breadcrumbs behind you and hope that you manage to find your way back before the birds eat them. Because you’ll want to find your way back to La Mathonière, and probably more than once. It may be based on a simple formula, but then all the best formulae are simple. Like E=mc2; and it doesn’t come much simpler than that. At least in theory it doesn’t. But then, when you think about it, in practice, making things look as effortless and simple as this is often the hardest trick in the book. And you really don’t need to be Einstein to figure that out.