France from he'll

Having spent over 25000 miles touring France over 20 years camping we decided to take our caravan to the south coast and the dodrdone. This was August 2012. I have masses of experience travelling by motor on the continent and could tell of all pitfalls , we arrived in France by ferry 9.45 am at Dunkirk and headed for the south deciding to travell via Paris as we have done many times before  this time we got caught up in 20 miles of queuing traffic  and ended up missing. Our booked campsite deadline bu 2 hours so opted for the service area. I have slept at this area in trucks on many occasions so thought get with the hgvs and all will be fine. That was until I woke at 3am to a wrenching noise  as I gotvupbto look a  grubby looking man was coming in the door. All the family were asleep.  I needed to protect them so gave this chap a huge Kung foo kick out of the door and gave chase  butvhe was off like a scared rabbit. The pool ice were not interested neither were the 100s of other motorists.

my warning now is under no circumstances sleep on the service areas  after 2 weeks of goog times we headed home only to be broken in at services whilst we we in garage,then blew up the car on route home. This did not put us of caravaning,we have since been to Spain the dodrdone again and the south of France but do not sleep over on rest areas. we are  going again in October 

this has only added to my experience so I can share with others