A BIT OF HISTORY

Before it was a campsite ...

Before it was a campsite, our land was a sawmill of approximatively 100 hectares. In the 1930s the sawmill belonged to the real estate company Wurtz owned and led by Lieutenant-colonel Wurtz. Today our street bears its name. After the Colonel died, Mr Henri OECHSNER de CONINCK, his nephew took over and took care of the property.

In 1949 a fire burnt down 2/3rd of the property. The wood market crashed in 1952 so the owner had to find a way to avoid bankruptcy.

In the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's ...

Every summer crowds of people came from Bordeaux and campd illegally on the Bassin d’Arcachon. At the time Henri OESCHSNER de CONINCK was working for Dassault firm in Merignac. He thought about using his lands to welcome tourists and that is how the sawmill was turned into a camping. After designing and constructing the facilities suitable to welcome campers (bathrooms, an artesian well..) the camping was officially recognised as one in 1954 by the Prefecture of Gironde, the Town Hall of Andernos and the French Touring Club under the name of Camping FONTAINE VIEILLE.

Henri OESCHSNER de CONINCK resigned from his job at Dassault and worked full time on the camping, taking care of its management and improvement. He built more than 822 pitches on his 13 hectares of lands. He retired in 1976 and his son Alain took over.

In the 1980's and 1990's ...

Like his father before him, Alain worked hard to improve the camping’s equipment. In the early 1980s he built a paddling pool. Between 1982 and 1996 the camping’s finances hit rock bottom after an argument between the camping and the Tour Operators. Half of the pitches were left empty even in high season and the sales went 30% down.

In 1996 the British mobile home phenomenon spread and reached us: we installed our first mobile homes on the camping in 1998. This attracted more tourists and Camping Fontaine Vieille was reborn.

Over the last 25 years

Alain OECHSNER de CONINCK retired in 2001, leaving the camping better and more popular than he found it. His cousin Laurent HEIZMANN stood up to the task and took over. He is the current director. He helped modernising the camping (we now have a heated indoor swimming pool, some more recent mobile-homes and infrastructures.). We take pride in the fact that we took a good care of preserving the natural environment of the camping. Even though, business was not always good so we kept improving our infrastructures to please our campers.

Pour autant, le camping connait à nouveau une période difficile. Pour faire face à la situation qui devenait critique, le directeur a choisi de proposer de nouveaux produits et nouvelle formule de location.

In 2019 we put in a lot of effort to make the camping more comfortable. To be mindful of our camper’s budget we diversified our offers and price range.

Camping Fontaine Vieille evolves maintaining its friendly atmosphere. We take a special care of our rich natural environment (of the camping’s forest and of the shore). The path between the beach and the camping was inaugurated on the 30th of September 2018 by Andernos’ Mayor, Monsieur Rosazza. It bears the name of the camping’s founding father: OECHSNER de CONINCK.