Huttopia Pays de Cordes

Huttopia Pays de Cordes sits on a hillside three kilometres from Cordes-sur-Ciel, with the bastide as a backdrop. It is a campsite from the Huttopia chain — which means wood, canvas, nature, and a genuine effort to make sure the setting does not look like a rental car park.

The accommodations are scattered under the oaks: trapper tents in wood and canvas (the Huttopia signature product), cabins, and bare pitches for those with their own tent or van. The trapper tents have an unashamed scout-camp charm — a bed, a basic kitchen, no air conditioning, a wooden door, and the morning light filtering through the canvas. The inside smells of pine. It is not luxury, but that is precisely the point.

The heated pool, on a wooden deck, overlooks the Tarn hillsides — you swim while watching the hills. The Café-Comptoir, in a timber building with rattan light fittings, serves light meals and becomes the social hub of the campsite. In summer, Huttopia programmes concerts, shows and an open-air cinema. The heated Central Lodge offers shelter when the evening turns cool. Cordes is ten minutes by car — or on foot, for the brave who like a climb.