Aire Lavoir - Caulnes

03 · The write-up

What it is like to arrive here.

Parking is free for 24 hours. The services are not, and they only run for eight months of the year. Both halves of that matter.

This is an aire de services at Caulnes, next to the lavoir, the old communal washhouse. Dinan Cap Frehel Tourisme, the local tourist office, publishes the listing and states plainly that you park free for a maximum of 24 hours.

What it costs

The parking is free. The borne, the service pillar, is coin operated and charges separately: 2 euros for the waste dump, 2 euros for 15 minutes of water, 2 euros for 3 hours of electricity. Bring 2 euro coins if you want any of it. You can sleep here for nothing and pay nothing, as long as you do not need the borne.

The borne is open March 15 to November 15. Outside those dates the parking is still there and the services are not, which is the usual arrangement in Brittany because the pipework would otherwise freeze.

What is actually here

Water, electric hook-up and a waste dump point, all on the borne, all paid. The tourist office describes 10 undelimited spaces, meaning no painted bays, and says the site is unshaded. Toilets and showers are not listed either way, so use the town before you settle in for the night.

Where it sits

Caulnes is a small inland town in the eastern Cotes-d’Armor, close to the Ille-et-Vilaine boundary, sitting on the N12 corridor that carries traffic between Rennes and Saint-Brieuc. That location is the point of the place: it is a convenient break on a long west-bound drive rather than a destination.

Caulnes has a station on the Rennes to Saint-Brieuc line, which is genuinely useful if someone in the vehicle wants to reach a city without moving the vehicle. Dinan, the walled town above the Rance, is roughly 20 km northeast and is the obvious day out from here.

Being near a trunk road cuts both ways. Do not expect silence.

The rule that applies

France leaves overnight motorhome parking to the commune. See our France bivouac and overnight parking rules, and what an aire actually is. The mairie of Caulnes sets the local rules, including that 24 hour limit, and the posted sign at the entrance wins over anything written here.

Before you rely on this

Check the tourist office listing linked below, especially for the borne dates and the current tariff. Coin-operated bornes get converted to card, get taken out of service, and get repriced, and a 24 hour limit is the kind of thing a commune tightens after a bad summer.