We had time to look around the shops at the terminal and Paul dumped our waste water and emptied the chemical toilet in the facility especially provided for Motorhomes and Coaches. At least we'll start off all clean and new. I bought some books and magazines and Paul bought a large map covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland then we boarded the train. No long wait this time, straight on.
We drove up to Belgium and headed for an ACSI listed site called Groenpark located near Ghent. Paul had an email confirmation of this booking just to check that they would honour the out of season price as strictly speaking it was still in high season although by this weekend everybody was on their way home from holiday. We parked opposite reception and went in to book in. There was a lady there who seemed very harassed although I don't know why as the site was more or less empty. When I asked her to confirm the price she said that the price we had was too low as it was still high season. Paul commented that he had an email confirming the price, and she just said ‘no I'm not doing it at that price.’ We were dumfounded and determined not to pay the higher price which I think was €32 per night. The problem was we didn't have an option close by but nevertheless we were not going to stop at that site even if it meant we would sleep by the roadside.
I have to say that the two bad experiences we had were both with Belgian run campsites, this one and another in south western France. They seemed to be either money grabbing or just didn't like the British. Shame as we have also had many pleasant experiences with Belgian people.
We turned round in their car park and left the site. Paul stopped by the roadside and we tried phoning another campsite mentioned in the ACSI guide. Luckily, these people were very pleasant said they had no problem giving us the off-season price as their season ended this last week. The only problem was, the site was quite a long drive from here. We jusy hoped it would be okay.
We arrived at Domaine Chateau de Dieupart at around 4pm, and the campsite was okay. It was situated under the trees and beside a small river but it was a bit dark. The facilities weren't brilliant but for one night it would do.
 |
Tina at Domaine de Dieupart
|
Paul: I was really furious with the Groenpark campsite woman. I had an email confirmation in my hand and she refused to even look at it. Arriving at the Domaine de Dieupart I was a bit worried as it was dingy and I could see from Tina's face that she wasn't impressed. Nevertheless, we set up the van and went and had a look at the rest of the site.
They had a little restaurant by reception and I suggested we might eat there but the menu was very limited so we decided against it. Tina decided to have a shower, but you needed a token, which we got from reception. She was worried that the token wouldn't last long but the guy on reception assured us it would be fine.
The weather was warmish so we sat outside and had some wine before we had dinner inside. We’ve learned not to sit outside by water as it's just asking to be bitten by mosquitoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment