Calais concerns (1 Viewer)

[Alistair33]

We will be stopping off in or near Calais this weekend, and have in mind the Aire at Gravelines that comes highly recommended by members. With the trouble last night , both my wife and I are concerned about safety.

We were a little concerened with the bad press the area gets before this and the anxiety levels have certainly risen.

I'm looking for a little reassurance that the area is safe and that folks stop off all the time?

 

[davidbaldam]

Stoped there many times and never had a problem nor seen anything untowards.

 

[MikeD]

We have not stopped at Gravelines for a couple of years or so but have never heard of anything nasty happening.

Its not a port for UK so should not have any immigrants near by.

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[Four of us]

Stopped at Gravelines and Cite Europe several times each during the past few years and never had a problem.

 

[chaser]

We will be stopping off in or near Calais this weekend, and have in mind the Aire at Gravelines that comes highly recommended by members. With the trouble last night , both my wife and I are concerned about safety.

We were a little concerened with the bad press the area gets before this and the anxiety levels have certainly risen.

I'm looking for a little reassurance that the area is safe and that folks stop off all the time?

Been to gravelines many, many times, and never seen one immigrant near the aire or in the town, always puzzled me actually , you see them on the main road and in other places, on the coast but never in gravelines

 

[KeithChesterfield]

What 'trouble' last night?

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[davanne]

Very quiet when we have stayed.....like @chaser said no sign of any immigrants.....I would stay there without hesitation

 

[gus-lopez]

Click on the OP¡s " trouble last night " words takes you to the link.
Short story Afghans & Kurds attacked each other & Grand-Synthe camp,Dunkirk got torched.

 

[csd4t]

Probably the doctors and scientists fighting with the 30 year old teenagers

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[gozomike]

If coming from the North I use the Aire at Bergues. No facilities but plenty of space, a nice walled town and less than a hour from Calais.

 

[Gaston aires]

Go to Wissant just down the road a bit. Dont get there too late as it gets full.
Phil

 

[Reallyretired]

Owing to the more or less destruction of the Dunquerke camp by fire last night there will be a lot of dispossessed migrants about, so may be more than usual at Calais.
There seems to be a tendency not to report on the fire. It was on the BBC news web site but missing from the radio news this morning. MSN do not report it at all.
Apparently 10 injured, 6 of them with knife wounds last report I saw.

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[jessthedog]

Click on the OP¡s " trouble last night " words takes you to the link.
Short story Afghans & Kurds attacked each other & Grand-Synthe camp,Dunkirk got torched.

I bet we wont be sending all available boats to save them.

 

[gus-lopez]

If coming from the North I use the Aire at Bergues. No facilities but plenty of space, a nice walled town and less than a hour from Calais.

I always use it for Dunkirk. Nice & quiet.Nice walks around the walled part. Usually something sporting to watch at weekends at the adjacent sports facility.

 

[hilldweller]

I'm looking for a little reassurance that the area is safe and that folks stop off all the time?

Clearly it isn't safe any more, nutters on the loose. Do the sensible thing and keep going. You can survive a night having good cat-naps in motorway services and by the next day you'll hundreds of miles away.

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[buttons]

Clearly it isn't safe any more, nutters on the loose. Do the sensible thing and keep going. You can survive a night having good cat-naps in motorway services and by the next day you'll hundreds of miles away.

Sleeping in French motorway services, have you gone mad Brian.....

 

[colyboy]

Cite du Europe nice and safe.

colyboy

 

[Alistair33]

Thanks to you all, we should be arriving in day light, so will make an assessment on arrival. It appears there are many alternatives in the area

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[iandsm]

Clearly it isn't safe any more, nutters on the loose. Do the sensible thing and keep going. You can survive a night having good cat-naps in motorway services and by the next day you'll hundreds of miles away.

There is no evidence that Gravelines isn't safe anymore, quite the contrary. Even in the height of the problems at the jungle there were never any problems at Gravelines. However, there is plenty of evidence that motorway services are not safe, yes there're are some people who have used them without incident of course but personally I wouldn't even consider sleeping in one.

 

[hilldweller]

There is no evidence that Gravelines isn't safe anymore,

yes there're are some people who have used them without incident of course but personally I wouldn't even consider sleeping in one.

All these displaced knife wielding nutters are in that area, it does not appeal to me. All it takes is one desperate one needing money.

We have stopped on French motorway aires a few times. The Ladies of the Night kept us safe in one, the truckers in another. The alarm is set, we are inside wearing our FUN gas masks and here I am typing this, alive and well.

You have to do your own risk assessment at the time. If you are uncomfortable move. If you are comfortable don't drop your guard.

Read Jim's Motorhome Security Handbook.

 

[Jaws]

Because the facilities at Gravelines being some distance from the aire we have now taken to using Bray Dunes .. OK, not so picturesque but everything right to hand including a big supermarket !! ( and of course unlike Gravelines it is free )

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[Jaws]

Forgot !
We ONLY use motorway services when travelling
Shortly after we started motorhoming we had a couple of issues in 'proper' aires.. Probably due to our own stupidity / inexperience ) but have never once had any sort of problem in service areas ..
As Brian says, there are always folk about and the lorry drivers do tend to look after not only their own, but others too..
In fact the most memorable over night we ever did was at a service area down the south of France somewhere on the way home from Zahora

As we pulled in Maureen said bugger.. I forgot to get any tomatoes for my salad
A few minutes later a 40 footer pulled in beside..
Driver jumped out and said was he ok there or too close to us ?
No problem mate.. As long as you're happy we are happy

10 minutes later said driver knocked on the door with a load of tomatoes !
I thanked him to which he said he had a 12 metre trailer full of them and we were most welcome ! LOL !!

 

[GWAYGWAY]

I think he is worried about the huge riot and fighting in the refugee camp which was burnt to the ground and totally destroyed. There seems very little mention of it in the UK media very quiet, so as not frighten us about the kind of people we are going to get over here, and what they will do when they get here. After all they are all waiting to come here and that is why the were in that camp/pile of ashes anyway..

 

[chaser]

Forgot !
We ONLY use motorway services when travelling
Shortly after we started motorhoming we had a couple of issues in 'proper' aires.. Probably due to our own stupidity / inexperience ) but have never once had any sort of problem in service areas ..
As Brian says, there are always folk about and the lorry drivers do tend to look after not only their own, but others too..
In fact the most memorable over night we ever did was at a service area down the south of France somewhere on the way home from Zahora

As we pulled in Maureen said bugger.. I forgot to get any tomatoes for my salad
A few minutes later a 40 footer pulled in beside..
Driver jumped out and said was he ok there or too close to us ?
No problem mate.. As long as you're happy we are happy

10 minutes later said driver knocked on the door with a load of tomatoes !
I thanked him to which he said he had a 12 metre trailer full of them and we were most welcome ! LOL !!

I have told this story on here before, but a long time ago, when we had our first van we did nearly 4000 miles on our first trip around Europe , didn't belong to fun or anything else , so just went learning as we went down to Pisa, and back round into Spain, stopped at all sorts of places , but our favourite was always somewhere with lorrys, because we thought was the safest, well anyway, on our way back to France from Zaragoza we came on this lorry stop, and drew up to the fuel pumps , and two guys in a BMW stopped and showed us how to work the pump and kept us talking, anyway filled up and parked up among the lorrys, in the middle of the yard was a greasy spoon cafe so we went across and had a coffee, no one spoke English apart from a Rumanian lorry driver who translated for us, and when he saw us looking at the menu , says don't have anything yet, wait till eight o'clock , no idea why but did as he said.
Anyway , eight o clock we went back , and lol and behold the greasy had been converted to a bistro diner and we had a brilliant meal and plenty of chat with all the lorry drivers, no one really knew what anyone else was on about but it was great, and to top it off the two guys in the BMW were in there as well wanting to buy us drinks all night , just because they liked motorhomes.
Right the moral of this story , if we had been on here, and other websites at that time we would have run a mile from such a place with all the talk of men in black cars, robbers, rouge lorry drivers , gassing, and all the other attendant scare story's, and we would have missed one of the best impromptu nights of our tours.
I have tried to find it on maps but there are loads of places it could have been , it looked out over miles of plain with hardly anything for miles.

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[frogijock]

I bet we wont be sending all available boats to save them.

Knowing the mental block polititions have regarding so-called refugees I would not bet on it

 

[denisejoe]

Have seen immigrants at grave lines but only at the bus stop to get the bus to Calais never seen any walking around the aire

Joe

 

[chaser]

Have seen immigrants at grave lines but only at the bus stop to get the bus to Calais never seen any walking around the aire

Joe

I have seen some black youths at the bus stop but put them down as legitimate workers, didn't look like the typical immigrants to me, might be wrong.
Edit , didn't seem to be causing any bother

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[PhilG]

Probably the doctors and scientists fighting with the 30 year old teenagers

Gold..

 

[Diabalo]

Probably the doctors and scientists fighting with the 30 year old teenagers

That's the funniest one liner I have read in a long while, I nearly wet myself.

 

[jonandshell]

It sounds like you should be OK as long as you aren't Afghan or Kurdish!

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