Messanges – South of France
Annabel’s Amputee Assessment: 5 star
Back in 2020 I went on the best holiday of my life. Camping Le Vieux Port in the South of France. It had everything an active teenager could want… and back then I had everything too (all of my body parts):
This year, when asked where I’d like to travel for my summer holiday, I said: Camping Le Vieux Port. Why shouldn’t amputees do everything that non-amputees do? It might be a little harder, but if you’re determined to succeed, you’ll always find a way, and I did.
The travel was exactly the same and a really nice way to start the holiday. You take your own car, filled to the brim with all of your stuff – bikes, bodyboards, scooters, the lot, and get the long Brittany Ferry to Santander.
It’s overnight and you get a cabin which means no long drives through France to get to your destination.
Camping Le Vieux Port has so many accommodation options. We chose the cabin with hot tub that’s right next to the beach, but there are camping pitches and wooden wagons and so much variety that all family members can come along and join you, regardless of budget and camping level preference.
The site is 5 Star and has everything you could possibly need:
You’re right next to Vieux Boucau which is a gorgeous little town full of trinket shops and restaurants, easy to bike to in about 10 minutes.
I did also take my electric scooter as I was unsure how I’d manage climbing the hill to the beach on my bike, but it turns out I was fine so my mum had to spend the holiday burning it up on my scooter which I think she secretly liked. Everybody of all ages had some mode of transport to get around which meant it was so safe as cars drove slowly to avoid people like my mum swerving around on scooters.
You have both the pool and beach options.
I had been told that prosthetics and sand don’t mix but the Genium X3 outdid my expectations once again. I literally got buried in the sand, thrown around in the surf, bubbled in the hot tub, shot down the slides, and absolutely nothing went wrong! I’d decided to buy an extra liner so I had one I could get wet in the day and one that I saved for the night. This worked really well allowing my day liner time to dry out.
It would have been so easy to book a ‘safer’ or ‘less demanding’ holiday, but then I’d have missed out on all of this fun.
Be brave, amputees, you can do it!
