La Village Cancalais, Cancale, France
We needed an ’emergency’ night due to an issue with a part of our ‘main’ holiday booking. Found this on Booking.com and the photos and location looked good and near to the port in St Malo so decided to take a punt.
Top tip #1 though - book direct with them - not through a third party. It was nearly 60euro more expensive through Booking. Apparently rules have changed recently where the venue had to match the 3rd party price and this no longer applies - so the venue can now charge what they like and it seems the 3rd parties haven’t caught up.
We just needed one night before a ferry and it ticked all the boxes. Easy to find and perfectly functional facilities. The ‘cottage’, if you can call it that, is quite basic, and the layout is a bit awkward, but ours (#147) seemed to have been refurbished recently and to a high standard. Mattresses were nice and all was fine. The ‘resort’ area was pretty good, and the pool complex, whilst a bit grimy, was super fun with indoor/outdoor swimming all connected which is great, plus a nice deep section and lots of shallower sections - so perfect for the kids and adults.
The reception and bar/restaurant was great - everyone in there were really really friendly and spoke great English. In particular, the receptionist on arrival, and our waiter in the restaurant (a young ish look chap, very softly spoken) were excellent and a credit to the establishment. An evening meal, whilst fairly basic / limited in choice (galettes or pizzas) was great value and fresh and tasty. They did good cocktails do. (Just avoid the house wine - pretty disappointing for house French red wine.)
There are a few downsides:
- Parking facilities near the chalets are quite limited; the roads are quite narrow and it’s a bit awkward when busy
- Towels are not provided
- Having the bunk beds downstairs and the master bedroom upstairs is a little unnerving to have children in when there’s a likelihood they’ll wake in the night and be unsure where they are - the stairs in the place are quite steep and a slippery wood so potential for accidents
- No oven in the kitchen (but otherwise well equipped)
The village of Cancale is very pretty with a lovely beach - that would be a great day out (other than limited parking.) The tourist / lookout spot at the point is also very beautiful with some stunning views - but again very limited parking, we drove around looking for somewhere to park but had to leave as there was nowhere to stop. Top tip #2 - if you have a top box on your car, take it off before going here - the barriers to the car parks are 2m10 so we weren’t able to get in. Obviously designed to stop campers but slightly irritating nonetheless.
It’s about 15km to St Malo from here. We’d hoped to get a trip to Mont St Michel in - but according to the satnav it was an hour away (each direction) so had to bin that due to lack of time (and kids having been in the car too long already.)
I’ll be honest and say I can’t imagine spending a whole holiday here - or even much more than a couple of days; but as a stopover it fits the bill as it’s fine for a short stay and good value and will certainly consider it again in the future.