A magical week driving Miss Daisy
My family spent a superb week enjoying all the usual stuff you can do in Dordogne – visiting foodie markets, climbing around clifftop castles, and canoeing down a scenic river. However, the highlight of our week was Daisy. Olive green and boldly emblazoned with daisies, our classic VW campervan was a tourist attraction in her own right. Wherever we went, strangers would smile, make soppy comments, take pictures of her and ask to look inside.
WeDubYou rents out Daisy and other VW Kombis – all fully reconditioned and painted in fun, retro designs – from a depot close to Bergerac airport. The idea is that you can fly in with minimal luggage, and everything you need for a campervan holiday in southern France is waiting for you.
And WeDubYou really has thought of pretty much everything. I’m not just talking tables and chairs, pots and pans, cutlery, crockery andd b bedding.ddi Di Daisy alsol came with an iPhone pre-loaded with a navigation system, and an iPad with music to play through a Bluetooth speaker. It was a case of 1970s style combined with 21st Century technology.
As campervan virgins, we eased ourselves in with WeDubYou’s EasyStart’s dinner-included, first-night package at Les Ormes, a rustic-chic campsite an easy drivedi south-easth of fB Bergerac.
On subsequent nights, we rustled up simple meals – omelettes, sausages, pasta – on the van’s hob. At lunchtimes, having Daisy was a treat. We would drive to a riverside spot, park yards from the water, get the tables and chairs out, lay out a spread of salamis and patés, walnut cake, peaches and greengages – all bought from a local market – and tuck in.
AlthoughAl h h our fl flower-power van was faultlessly reliable, horsepower (and power steering) were noticeably absent when driving Miss Daisy. She trundled along at a top speed of 80kph. A cheer went up from our boys when, three days in, I finally managed to overtake a vehicle (it was only a moped).
Moving on is also much less of a faff in a campervan than a tent. After a couple of nights at Les OrmesO we chuggedh d on to CampingC Maisonneuve,apicturesquecampsite near Castelnaud-la-Chapelle where we woke each morning to hot-air balloons flying overhead.
A few days later, we switched again to Domaine des Mathevies, a family-friendly site hidden away amid goose farms north of Sarlat. But lovely though the campsites and the Dordogne were, the star of the show was undoubtedly Daisy.