Our Holiday to Eurocamp Ca Savio, Italy – Part 1

If you’ve been reading my blog the past week or so, you’ll know that we recently spent two days in Venice, Italy (Part 1 and Part 2 here), before hopping on the water ferry and embarking on the short journey for the remainder of our holiday to the Eurocamp site of Ca Savio. I’ve broken these Ca Savio posts into 2, as I have so many photos, and will also do a post on our mobile home shortly too, as I think it warrants a review of it’s own. 

This summer, we weren’t even sure if we were going to have a holiday at all, what with the originally proposed house move dates chopping and changing, and increasing move-related expenses. By the beginning of July, we still hadn’t booked anything, but we’d been so stressed and fed up these past few months, that I said to Adam that we WERE going away- somewhere, anywhere! After looking at some last minute package holidays abroad in places such as Spain and Greece (which seemed crazy-expensive for the resorts and what was included), and then looking up last minute hotels and cottages in Cornwall (fat chance, and £££££!), I started to think outside the box. We wanted SUN, a mix of site seeing and pool fun, and it had to be reasonably priced.

I quickly started googling ‘Eurocamp’, just to see what was on offer and how much a week in one of their mobile homes might cost. I wasn’t hopeful initially, as in my mind Eurocamp always involved driving abroad, something neither Adam or myself have attempted yet, and it was also something we didn’t fancy much with two little ones in the back. However, my excitement levels rose on browsing the website, and saw that there was a box you could tick for ‘non-driving’ holidays, with sites within easy reach of an airport. 

After much deliberation over a few different French and Italian campsites, we chose the 3 star+ Ca Savio site, and decided to incorporate a short break to Venice before we settled at the site for 5 nights (although you could easily do a day trip to Venice whilst you’re there). If you wanted to travel direct from Marco Polo airport, there is a coach about 4 times a day that can take you to the campsite for under a tenner per person (and under 6s are free!). I had travelled to Eurocamp in France 3 times as a child, and had great memories of it, so was hoping to make the same sort of memories for our little ones, this time as a parent. 

As per my last post, we arrived on Wednesday afternoon about 4pm, after taking the water ferry from Venice to nearby Punta Sabbioni, and then a 10 minutes bus ride to the centre of Ca Savio, The campsite is then a 10 minute walk from there. I was slightly apprehensive as I had read a few Trip Advisor reviews saying how hectic check in was, and that there were mosquitoes everywhere. I needn’t have worried on both counts though. Our check in was super-smooth, and we located our friendly Eurocamp rep easily, as well as picking up our campsite passes and site information from the main reception. Our rep, was ace, and wheeled our suitcases in a big trolley to our mobile home, which was really appreciated after a busy day’s travelling!

Ca Savio campsite is, in my eyes, situated in an ideal location- right near the beach (there is access to this from the campsite itself), yet in a shady pine forest, which meant you could escape the baking sun during the day. Essential for a pasty family with young children! The pine forest also gave the site a really calming atmosphere, and all the mobile homes and tents were artfully arranged so you didn’t feel ‘one of a row’ (if that makes sense?).

As well as Eurocamp, other holiday providers are also based at Ca Savio, along with a certain number of pitches for independent campers (the Dutch and Germans seem to be big on this, they come well prepared!). Our rep told us that the Ca Savio site was one of Eurocamp’s largest, yet it never felt too big or hectic, even for early August. 

Our home for the best part of the week was to be one of Eurocamp’s Esprit mobile homes, which are their mid-range mobile homes. Our home consisted of 2 bedrooms (one double, one with bunks), a separate shower room and toilet, a large kitchen/diner/lounge, and a big decking area with table/chairs/umbrella. I’ll write a proper post on our accommodation at a later date, but here are a couple of snaps of what our Esprit home looked like to give you some idea. On arrival our particular home was spotless, and I didn’t feel any need to give anything a clean. We were also really appreciative of the pre-ordered ‘welcome pack’ (containing tea, coffee, washing up liquid etc), and of the bed linen that we’d booked. 

I had planned to unpack whilst Adam took the children to the pool (Freddie must have said “Can we go to the pool now?” about a million times on arrival), but ended up dumping everything and grabbing our swimming stuff straight away- 5 year olds are bloody persistent! (Not before checking out the bunk beds though- cue much excitement from our two and negotiations as to who was going to be on the top for the first night!).

There are two, almost identical swimming pool complexes on site, both with a large pool plus little ones with waterslides, which meant neither ever felt too overcrowded. Each pool is open 10am- 7pm each day, and we always found a sunbed or somewhere clean and safe on the grass to put our towels and belongings. 

This is one of the pirate ship areas that had a couple of mini slides, aimed at the under 5s- a big hit with our two, and even Sasha who was a little nervous at first.

There was no stopping Freddie though, and he stripped off and ran straight onto this slide as soon he clamped eyes on it!

These slides were for both adults and children, and meant that on occasion Adam and I could rediscover the child in us (pretending we were on just for the children’s sake of course… 😉 )

Our little lady enjoying one of the pools. What Adam and I both commented on was how impressed we were with the number and quality of the lifeguards at each pool complex. There were whistles blown a few times, not to kill the buzz at all, but it showed that they took their jobs seriously and were actually watching what was going on- important to us as parents of young children. 

One…

Two…

Three! It was lovely to see S grow in confidence after spending so much time in the pool. She has lessons at home but has always been a little nervous, so we’re very proud of how far she’s come this holiday. 

After a few days, Sasha was brave enough to come down the slides by herself. Look how pleased she is here!

This photo of Freddie cracks me up! He looks terrified here, but actually wasn’t at all, he really couldn’t get enough of the slides and the pools- a proper little fish. 

After swimming on our first day, we stopped off at the supermarket to get some supplies for the week. The supermarket is open from 8am until 8.30pm every day, and stocked almost everything you could think of, including some English brands. It also had a bakery, wine stand (a bottle of the decent ‘house’ white or red from here for 2.50 Euros =  AMAZING!) and a huge array of fruit and veg. The prices were reasonable, probably on par with the UK (apart from that wine) as you pay a bit more for certain brands. They also cheaply stock children’s beach toys, which was a lifesaver as we didn’t want to add to our luggage-load by bringing any of our own out there. 

That evening after supper in PJs on the decking, we put the children to bed early as they hadn’t had a sleep during the day and were tired from swimming and travelling. Oh, and I’d just like to add that there was barely a mozzie in sight! I got bitten 4 times throughout the whole of our trip, Adam the same, and the children weren’t touched- in case anyone is worried. They de-mozzie and spray the trees regularly, and we also used fairly bog-standard mozzie killer on our bodies to keep any at bay. 

Adam and I then enjoyed wine, food and a game of cards outside at dusk (there was a lovely ‘atmosphere’ around the mobile homes if you wanted to stay in during the evenings, but it wasn’t a lairy site by any means- bliss), before hitting the hay and looking forward to a fun-packed 5 days with our little crew. The campsite was truly beautiful, and I can’t fault it for ‘looks’ to be honest, just lovely. 

So there we have it, the first of my posts about our Eurocamp break to Ca Savio, Italy. 

I’ve taken so many photos of our trip, and I can’t wait to show you the beach, plus the rest of the campsite and what we got up to in our next post!

*We booked this holiday ourselves and would have done regardless, however we are reviewing the Ca Savio site for Eurocamp in exchange for another Eurocamp break next year. All worlds, thoughts and opinions my own.