CHM Montalivet: A Short Review

[Historybuff83]

My family and I just returned this week after spending a week’s holiday at Centre Helio Marin (CHM) Montalivet.  Located in the Gironde department of France (near Bordeaux), CHM Montalivet is one of the oldest of the French naturist villages, founded in 1950.  In my opinion, the place has aged well with a lot of amenities while still retaining that “old timey” feel.  In my opinion, this place does naturism right!

First Impressions:  My first impression was that this place was busy.  One ding against it was that it took me almost 30 minutes to get checked in because they only had 3 people working the front desk and there were so many others at the center getting checked in as well.  Mind you we were showing up during their peak season so I guess that is to be expected.  Also this place is huge.  The resort area boasts a size of 200 hectares (or 432 acres) of space.  The place itself is divided up into sections to house the over 3,000 camping pitches on site, each section surrounding the Centre Comercial.  Each section is defined by what kind of camping they have. The area we stayed in “Les Sables” had the Mobile Tithomes (yes my inner 13 year old chuckled on that one) which were half trailer, half tent establishments.  Other areas have more permanent trailer homes and others support RVs.  Still others are not much be open land so you can set your tent up and camp.  Each area seems rather well laid out, and we did not feel like we were crowded despite neighbors being near to us. 

The Centre Comercial:  The Centre Comercial, as the name implies, houses most of the places to spend your money while on holiday.  The center boasts a butcher, a small supermarket, a pizzeria, a bicycle rental shop, a seafood restaurant, a bar and grill, a hamburger/hot dog/hot sandwich stand, a  “buffet style” take away food stand, another market for fresh fruits, vegetables and other things.  A creperie, a newsstand stop and a handful of shops showcasing wines and regional foods rounds out the center.  For me and where we were located we were about a 10 minute walk away from the centre commercial, so every morning I would walk down to the market, buy bread and fruit for breakfast and take it back to the family to eat.  A lot of their events take place in the center as well.  The night before we left there was a concert held at the center.   

Other Amenities:  Did I mention there was a nude beach on the property?  In fact there is 2km of nude beach that are a short walk from pretty much anywhere on the center.  The beach is divided into two sections, one of which boasts a surfing school, both are monitored by lifeguards.  My children’s favorite part was the aquatic park, which boasts 5 water slides including one twisty kind that was hard to pry my 7 year old daughter away.  The aquatic park had a restaurant located right behind it, where we ate dinner one night (try the beef tartar!) which was very cool, they also served ice cream and crepes as well.  In another area of the resort is their pool, which boasts a deeper pool for those who prefer to swim laps (compared to the aquatic park which is more social and whirlpool type water).  CHM Montalivet also boasts a spa, but I did not visit that so I cannot speak of it (too busy hanging out by the pool and beach!).  Another area we did not really visit was a large play area with sports pitches and playgrounds (darn the seductive nature of a pool and beach!)  And activities, the resort does not lack in those.  Besides the surf school, they had body painting, scuba lessons, yoga on the beach, aforementioned concerts, arts and crafts seminars, art exhibits, the whole gamut really.

Overall impressions:  Overall like I said earlier, this place does naturism right.  While it maintains modern amenities like WiFi (you have to pay extra for it) the place still holds true to the naturist values that existed when the place was founded over 60 years ago.  It is still a nudist area, not clothing optional.  Of course as the weather got cooler in the evenings you would still see t-shirts and the such appear, most of the other visitors I encountered were nude.  You could also go nude pretty much anywhere in the resort area.  That includes shopping, restaurants,   in fact, my wife and I went the entire week without a stitch of clothing on (which reminds me I need to update my posting on the “whens the longest you’ve gone nude” thread).  Little signs around the area imploring visitors in French to “respect our values” with a cartoon naturist family would hammer home the point to people that this was a place to be nude.  I would say most visitors stuck with the nudity thing more often than not.  As for language, most of the staff I encountered was proficient in French, English and German.  The place itself is set up primarily for French, English, German and Dutch (whom I saw a lot more Dutch there than I had anticipated).  I saw a couple of British families there, but for the most part the French and Germans dominate in terms of numbers.  As for the vendors and restaurateurs most were generally French only, so of course my wife with 2 years of high school French under her belt sends me (with next to no French) to do the ordering!  If all else failed I played dumb and pointed and spoke the ultimate language of Euros.  One part of the whole thing that left me pleasantly surprised was the youth movement and the non-WASPy nature of everyone.  I literally saw just about every major ethnic group at the club, which was really cool to see.  Also the amount of young families blew my mind.  There were so many kids at this club it amazed me.  Especially coming from my experiences with US naturist clubs where things are much, much older.  I saw babies from about 6 months of age to teenagers all over the place at the park, which was very refreshing to see, especially with all the discussions of the future of naturism.  Hopefully if CHM Montalivet is any indication, the future of naturism is as strong as it ever was. 

In conclusion:  Why aren’t you booking your trip here yet!  You must visit this place.  The prices seemed more reasonable than better known Euronat (which is located nearby) or La Jenny, but can still pricey depending on the level of accommodation and what commodities you wanted.  Still though, for what we paid, the peace of mind of being able to go nude for a whole week was definitely an experience that few other places can replicate.  CHM Montalivet has just about everything for the whole family, for the young and the young at heart.

Here is a short video put out by CHM Monatlivet.  Their youtube channel also has the video in French, Dutch, and German, but I posted the English one below:

[Northman]

This place looks too good. And I want to go there.

Thank you for sharing this. This goes on top of my list of places to visit in France.

[ToneBender]

Awesome! Thank-you!

It's on my list.

 

[nitram]

Lintu and I went there more or less one month after you with ± 20 another youth.

There is everything at Monta, but a pharmacist. One friend had to go to the outside village after her baby kicked her face :/

The thermal baths:
* a ± 50 places sauna, the biggest I've ever been in
* a ± 30 places steam room
* ± 5 desk chairs outside and ±3 inside
* not-nude (bull shit...) work out room
* very huge and comfortable water jet and bubble round swimming pool. Funny to discover the water jets in the penis provokes erections that disappear as soon as the jet is no more there.
* well-being services (massage, etc, didn't try)

Youth
* there are lots of that come since they're kids, Monta is their spot
* many come cause of friends, not cause they're attached to naturism
* therefore, many don't respect nudity
* that's why you saw signs like this one: http://www.chm-montalivet.com/sites/default/files/valeurs%202.png
* they often only respect nudity at the water park, the swimming pool and the beaches because there are employees paid to enforce the respect of the nudity at these places Therefore, at these places, the majority respect nudity
* otherwise, you'll find group of teens wearing clothes while it's scorching hot. It's their way to rebel against their parents, as teens do. Teens who remain naked can be rejected by these groups.
* Monta is very cool cause you feel like at a small city where nudity is the normal thing, but some people find it too much urban and prefer more nature themed resorts.

Overall, as you, I really enjoyed my vacations there, and all my group too!

[nitram]

This place looks too good. And I want to go there.

Thank you for sharing this. This goes on top of my list of places to visit in France.

My youth association, AJNF, will be there from 15 to 22 July 2014.

Feel free to join us :)

[rosed]

Teens who remain naked can be rejected by these groups.

So there is no middle term (like a mix-clothing optional group) nor tolerance to options? Something like clothing being the main trait of the group, and not the age.

I won't be making a mistake if I say that the AJNF didn't recruited any "young local", right?

[nitram]

Talking about the "troublemakers" (lots of people get furious cause of them), we can see bare chested boys, but not topless girls among us.

They're all teens, or very young adults. Age is determinant, together with age.

No, no youth recruited. We engaged long lasting conversations with a teen girl, a teen guy friends with her, and a teen girl with her mother. One of ours though the last one was really interested, but none contacted the association until now.

Hope you'll attend this year, Ben, who lives near Rennes, will come, and will perhaps carpool with Alex, a 19 years old funny newbie from Normandy :)

[Beinnz]

I was there last week! It was the start of the season, so not fully booked at all. The resort is huge: over 3000 places, in summer over 10000 people there each day. It can be good or too much, depends from what you like. Some places were too close to each other, some other places were bigger en had more space. Many places were taken by people who own the caravan and seem to 'live' there'. Everything you need, you can find it on the area (so you don't have to go out). But the nearest village is 1 or 2km, which I like. You can (learn how to) surf on the beach! There were several young people there, mostly because of the surfing I think.

[nitram]

I was there last Saturday, were you there?
There's everything, but a drugstore.
There are lots of youngsters from neighboring villages also thanks to the nightclub Gaïa.