Cultural relaxation

My family no longer trust me. To be fair, I was already on thin ice after the whole "just let go, I'll catch you" incident. My children also know interesting new words to describe the impressionist school of cartographers who seem to have designed the street maps.

Contrary to what Jean-Paul Sartre said, hell is not other people. It's being in a hot Suzuki Swift in search of a campsite with two children, a partner, and so much luggage that the youngsters' faces are pressed into the back of the front seats.

When the idea of a family trip to Paris was mooted, the children got as far as the second syllable of the word EuroDisney before we'd pointed out that it was a cultural trip, rather than a mission to Mickey Mouse.

They embraced this surprisingly well; while our 12-year-old lad planned to unravel the mysteries of The Da Vinci Code at the Louvre, our five-year-old daughter decided to give The Hunchback of Notre Dame a makeover.

To fit in the children's stuff, we split the week between two modern campsites. Breaking our journey from Lincolnshire with a comfortable night in a Travelodge (the Premier Inn on the return got the thumbs-up, too), we caught an early morning ferry to arrive in Calais in grey, miserable weather.

Armed only with a print-out from Google maps, we managed to negotiate rural France with few U-turns, and reached the delightful Camping La Croix du Vieux Pont lakeside park by the Compiegne Forest within a couple of hours. Ideal for families looking for either a main holiday destination, a handy

resting place near Disneyland Resort Paris, or a stopover en route to the south of France, it had come highly recommended and did not disappoint.

Within walking distance of the delightful town of Vic-sur-Aisne and set beside a meandering river, the site specialises in the kind of break the British love.

With barely a single French accent audible the whole time we were there, this peaceful but well-equipped site served up relaxation and fun in equal measures.

Having taken an inspired decision to link with adventure holiday specialists PGL, the site offers plenty of extreme sports (watching mother do a trapeze jump high above the tree-line remains a proud family moment) and adrenaline-boosting pastimes, alongside some nicely stocked bars, a takeaway and restaurant – and a swimming pool that, though chilly, rivalled the very best.

We'd even pushed the boat out to ensure our roomy mobile home came with the eagerly-anticipated Dutch tub – a hot tub heated with an open log fire, which got so blissfully hot we pretty much turned ourselves into soup while relaxing with a glass of wine.

While cycling, trampolining, shooting down zip-wires, and attempting archery classes (not to mention saying "wow" at the huge sturgeons which anglers pulled from a well-stocked lake), we had a blast – not least when the youngest revealed her dance moves at the evening disco and cleared the dance-floor like a pit bull off the leash.

After three days of kicking back in our tranquil holiday home, it was time to move to the next campsite.

It was only a couple of hours away, so we decided to take in the Palace of Versailles on the way. While wowed by the splendour of this glorious feat of architecture and ego, the magic was tarnished by the simple fact that much of the day was spent in queues. Whether waiting an hour for a toilet, two hours for tickets, or just shuffling in line behind thousands of tourists, we weren't exactly blown away by King Louis' crowning glory.

Back to the car, and time for campsite number two. After getting hopelessly lost (we found ourselves in tunnels that weren't on the map and heading down one-way streets to be confronted by lorries coming from the wrong direction), we eventually arrived in the delightful environs of the Maisons-Laffitte estate (famous for its chateau) on the outskirts of Paris. A few Metro stops from all the main attractions, Camping International is located on the banks of the River Seine. The facilities are quite basic but do include a shop, bar and snack bar.

We were also within walking distance of Maisons-Laffitte where we found several good restaurants, a supermarket, local shops and a sports complex.

On our to-do list were Notre Dame, Sacre-Coeur, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but the sudden heatwave which coincided with our arrival made a compelling case for lying on the grass with an ice cream.

Anyway, we ticked off everything we had planned, even if the sheer volume of tourists meant that the majesty of the two superb churches was somewhat diluted by flashing cameras and pushy tour guides.

In the Louvre, it was well nigh impossible to see even a fraction of what we had planned, but our lad got to the front of the queue to see the Mona Lisa and his head will doubtless be in thousands of snaps displayed on mantelpieces around the world.

The queue for the Eiffel Tower was so long that we decided to leave it for the next time, but our culture strategy worked so well that neither of our children even mentioned Disneyland Paris.

All in all, this was a tiring week.

But despite the fact that the street system was probably designed by somebody in a straitjacket gripping the pencil with their teeth, we loved it.

WHERE YOU CAN GO AND WHAT YOU CAN GET

Dave Mark was a guest of Keycamp, which offers self-catering holidays in more than 100 parcs in 11 European countries, including Greece, Denmark, Corsica, Belgium and Germany for 2010, plus US and nine UK parcs. Three nights' self-catering at Keycamp's Paris International plus four nights at La Croix Vieux Point for two adults and up to four children sharing a two-bedroom mobile home with decking starts at 535 in high season, including Dover-Calais ferry crossings. Each site offers extensive facilities and choice of mobile home, chalet, apartment, Supertent and tree house accommodation. Reservations: 0844 406 0319 and www.keycamp.co.uk. See also The Little Book of Holiday Fun at www.keycamp.co.uk/funbook