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« on: July 17, 2016, 01:17:34 pm »
Garage Vert
Access We arrived on Sunday afternoon and the campsite was already open. Finding the entrance is a bit tricky - as you come in to the circuit from the mulsanne, you will pass the tram stop and the stadium on your right. There is a pedestrian entrance to garage vert straight ahead of you (which only opens to pedestrians on Wednesday) but the main/vehicle entrance to the campsite is hidden away, off to the right. It is a shared entrance with hunaudieres campsite. It is also worth noting that both the pedestrian and vehicle entrances are locked shut from sunday night, so after the race has finished the only way to get off the campsite is to head towards houx.
Proximity The site provides good, quick access to various parts of the track. Getting to the Dunlop bridge is a 5/10 minute walk through the tunnels under the Bugatti Circuit. Similarly, getting to the inside edge of the Dunlop Essess is a 5/10 minute walk, where you can get some great views of the cars emerging from under the Dunlop bridge and snaking down through the esses. You can just about see a screen from here. Tetre Rouge is about 10/15 walk where there is also a screen (although didn't appear to work during practice or qualifying). The outside of the dunlop esses can be reached in 15/20. The pit straight is probably a solid 30 minute walk, but most of this can be done trackside if you join the circuit by the dunlop bridge. One of the best things about Garage Vert though is the proximity to the tram stops - 5 minutes walk from the campsite which is ideal if you want to pop into town for scrutineering, drivers parade, or even if you just want to pop down to the Carrefour without taking the car. Being so close to Tetre Rouge also means you're only a short walk away from the Tetre Rouge bar which offers cold beer and TV screens which were showing the football this year if that's your thing and it's a tournament year.
Facilities The facilities are generally good. There's a plumbed in toilet block which is kept relatively clean. Unfortunately there is only one throne in the gents, although there was generally always toilet paper! There are more toilets by the pedestrian entrance but these don't open until Wednesday. There are half a dozen showers which were generally clean and the ones I used tended to be scalding hot.
Atmosphere More of a sedate atmosphere than some of the more party-centric campsites like Houx or Bleu Nord. We arrived on Sunday when it was very quiet. There weren't really any other arrivals until Wednesday when it started to fill up. Most people tended to come in cars and pitch tents with gazebos. There was the odd marquee but nothing too grandiose. There were a few motorhomes as well. There was a decent atmosphere but you didn't get people partying into the wee small hours. You can actually get a reasonably decent night's sleep early in the week, although the campsite is flood-lit so from inside your tent it's impossible to tell whether it's night or day.
General Pitches are standard 7x5 but they are unallocated so you can turn up and camp wherever you like (well, we could when we turned up on the Sunday, I think the marshalls tried a bit harder to direct people to certain pitches/areas later in the week, but once the marshalls had gone, those people just moved to wherever they wanted to camp!). The campsite has a half tarmac/half gravel road along the outside edge. It's generally flat but there's a gentle slope towards the fence (which tends to get used as a latrine later in the week by people too lazy to walk the 100m to the toilets). There is only a very thin layer of topsoil so getting tent pegs in can be tricky - we had to use a drill one year to create pilot holes. This year was wet and muddy because the rain water didn't drain away. I'm afraid I have no idea how much the tickets cost as someone else in our group bought the tickets this year!
Aricus - I have some pictures as well which I'd be happy to send over to you/upload to somewhere useful.
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