Huttopia – camping in comfort close to Paris
Barely 30 minutes from Paris there’s a unique and secluded camping experience. Tomas Mowlam gets the best of both worlds in Huttopia.
I love camping. Me and the outdoors get on well and I can put up with the minor inconveniences that sleeping under the stars brings. Not everyone shares my viewpoint however, so it’s always good to find a compromise between my love of nature with being able to sleep in a bed.
Huttopia is a company with several campsites across France and Canada, but one of the most intriguing is just outside Versailles, with it’s amazing sites like the Palace of Versailles (above). There are 180 pitches through four hectares of French forest, it’s quiet, leafy, secluded and comfortable.
So if you’re not camping or caravanning it Huttopia offers three different types of rented accommodation; cabanes (cabins), Roulottes (gypsy style caravans) and Canadiennes (ridge tents).
The cabins are made from Douglas fir, sustainably grown in France and will sleep up to six people. Each has shower and toilets facilities, a kitchen stove and fridge, though with good weather there’s no reason not to hit the BBQ, and sit out on the terraces with a glass of vino afterwards.
The words holiday caravans can bring up some bad notions; cramped, cold aluminium and plastic boxes in a field in some windblown British seaside town. The roulottes however are as far from that nightmare as it’s possible to get. They’re modelled on traditional wooden gypsy caravans and built from local materials. They sleep up to four people, come with a bathroom, kitchen with microwave and stove.
The Canadienne ridge tent sleeps up to five people in a spacious canvas tent that allows you to “sleep under canvas (on a comfortable mattress)”. Comes with beds and cooking facilities.
There’s the saffe d’eau, the spacious and clean washroom areas, the bivouac areas for BBQing and cleaning. There’s also grocery shop and swimming pool on site.
Huttopia Versailles, 31 rue Berthelot, 78000 Versailles (00 33 1 39 51 23 61; huttopia.com). Let P&O get you there; a crossing from Dover to Calais in a car with up to nine people starts from just £30.
Image Credit:R Etienne
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