Gerd Waloszek       

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Our Campsite History in Short Form

How it Started | Interruption and then... | Changes

How it Started

In 1990 we first touched the area around the Meygal massif, when we were on our way to the Cévennes and stopped for a night or two at a small campsite "a la ferme" that was located in Marcilhac near Saint-Julien-Chapteuil (Haute Loire); perhaps we returned there on our way back.

Two years later, in 1992, we spent our holidays at the campsite for the first time. Since I had sprained an ankle, we took our bikes with us for the first and only time. On an bike tour, I fell and damaged my front teeth. But we did not stop our holidays, I had my teeth provisionally cared for in France.

Interruption and then...

Then it took until 2001, until we stayed on the Marcilhac campsite again, in that year even twice. At the time, however, the campsite owner was already ill, and he died only a few years later. His wife maintained the campsite alone, and later continued this with a partner, while the occupancy of the site decreased over the years. Later we were three, and in the end only two parties he stayed there during their vacations, a French couple and us.

Changes

Since 2001 we have been on the campsite in Marcilhac every year, since 2013 even twice a year. But 2014 was the last year for us there, because the campsite owner and her partner were not longer able to maintain the house and the site. Since 2015 we stay on a different campsite in Sumène near Saint-Julien-Chapteuil. The future of this site is also open, because the campsite owner had to retreat to a nursing home and in the meantime died. How long his wife will be able to continue maintaining house and site is unclear (in former times even St. Jacob's pilgrims stayed there over night). In any case, we only had two parties left on the site, and the French couple, who were the last ones with us on the previous site and who had recommended the new site to us, left it and bought a house in the area.

I will explain all this in more detail here (some day)...