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Scudamores On Tour
  • Sarah Scudamore
  • Nic Scudamore
Apr – Aug 2019

Scudamores On Tour

With our eldest starting school in September, we are following our hearts for one more big adventure before term times begin. We hope to explore as much of Europe as we can taking in mountains, lakes, rivers, beaches & islands across 8 countries... Read more
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  • Scudamores On Tour

    Boating up the Verdon Gorge

    June 15, 2019 in France ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    The family we’d met in Olbetrello had raved about this campsite around the Verdon Gorges, and although we didn’t know we would visit here, from their description we knew we had to go.

    We arrive, after a wiggly journey into the hills, at a peaceful campsite in the trees, set beside a lovely lake.

    The children immediately find the park (anyone noticing a trend?!) and we manage to get camped up right next to it so that they can go back and forth to their hearts content.

    There’s also a bouncy castle and a lovely pool with a toddler pool for Coen...so that’s the kids sorted for a few days! We manage to drag them away briefly to see the lake (the bit that nature created, though they love the man made stuff more), and Amelia and I (Sarah) get a real life game of stuck in the mud as we realise too late that the low lake bed has left some very sinky mud behind, and we don’t quite hear Nic shouting across the lake that ‘that mud is really squelchy!’, but we manage to find a rocky spot to wash off (although Amelia does take another fall caking herself from top to toe in the thick squelchy stuff)! We even manage a post-dinner swim on our first night after coaxing the children off the bouncy castle to eat.

    As it’s Father’s Day and Nics birthday coming up we decide to stay and relax.

    As we’ve been in France for a few days now we have found more and more English travellers. We also meet another young family who are doing an 18 month trip which makes us very envious!

    We decide to hire one of the electric boats to see the gorge, one of the most beautiful canyons in Europe apparently, so not to be missed and a nice treat for Father’s Day.

    The first day we try, the water is too low to get the boats out, as they rely on the dam up the river opening to rise the waters, but they don’t have control or know when this will happen. Luckily the campsite let’s you borrow equipment for every fun activity under the sun, so our day is filled with mini golf (impossible golf as we renamed it!), pétanque (note if you ask for a platonk set as I did, the french will not know what you’re talking about and likely give you a pencil!), bouncy castle, and then ‘we’ (ahem, Nic) decide that when Coen was asleep in his pushchair we should go and jump off the rocks of the gorge into the river. The problem was that this involved taking the pushchair around the lake (through that sinking mud), into a tiny, rocky horse track and down into the rocks. At which point another child started screaming and Coen woke up and got out of the pushchair. But never-the-less, jumping into the river was fun, a little chillier than expected, and more juggling with two children awake when on the edge of a ‘mini-cliff’, we both managed a swim across to the other side, and Amelia was happy paddling up to her waist in the chilly water, while Nic convinced Coen to have a piggy-back ride swim, which lasted half a second before Coen realised the temperature and was desperately trying to get back to mummy on the nice, dry, warm land!

    Another swim and we pack ready for our boat ride (as it’s Nics birthday on boat day, packing means making sure beers are cold and there’s room in the dry bag for them).

    The boat is a little electric one, so the top speed is abt 7 km/hr, there’s two rivers to explore - one in each direction and we’ve checked with the boatman on which ones best, so we head down towards the first dam (I am hoping there is a really clear sign of when to turn around as have visions of us casually floating over the dam down a huge drop). The first part of the gorge is wide, low and pleasant, but as it opens out onto and lake and then under a road bridge, it turns to amazing. Narrow, high walls of rocky cliffs shoot straight down into the water, there are tiny little caves under parts, the water is icy cold now and the sun is high, water drains from the sides of parts of the canyon walls making little waterfalls which Amelia and Coen want to touch, and we see little birds nested in holes in the sides. It’s beautiful scenery, and the quiet little electric boat makes the whole thing very peaceful, with just the odd kayak paddling around, or electric boat passing by. Amelia enjoys lounging about, Coen between snacks enjoys driving, throwing a rope over the edge and testing the kill cord. And luckily at the end there are huge, inflatable barriers meaning we don’t fall over the edge.

    We power back up the first gorge to the start and then make our way down the second river, this one still lovely, but wider and lower. We aim to stop for lunch, but realise when we get to the end of the 2nd river that the campsite have the timings bang on, we have a 4hr hire, and they said each river was 2hrs, we have reached the end of each exactly to the minute an hour after starting, so we ‘eat on the road’, Nic gets a quick jump from the higher gorge rocks and we make it back on time.

    More pool, park, bouncy castle, pétanque, making friends with German older girls, and lots of beer later, we’ve had a fab stay here, it’s a wonderful place for families, and considering it wasn’t in our to do list, as has always been the way, we’re glad to have found it.

    Now for a long journey across to the Ardeche...snacks are packed!    Read more

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    Ardeche and the amazing Chauvet cave

    June 18, 2019 in France ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    We decide to blast the whole way to the Ardeche region rather than making another overnight stop, so after a long drive with just a stop off for a food shop (fast becoming the best entertainment for the children as they blast round and round the aisles, and the most stressful part of our week!) we pull into the car park of a lovely site on the river - obviously the children head straight to the park, then we get a quick dip in the pools. After kids bedtime, we both get chance to see the sunset over the river - a beautiful treat!

    As Nic and I had both seen the beautiful river at our campsite, we head straight off in the morning to Pont D’Arc and find a parking spot (where we actually could’ve camped for free...darn!).

    We head straight down towards the river rather than taking the high path over the road, and wade through the small but strong rapids to reach the arc. We find frogs, lizards and more beautiful moths and butterflies, and watch as the kayakers paddle by. The Arc is amazing to see...to think how it has been eroded over the years to make the archway, but is still strong enough to hold up.

    Next up, some art. It’s getting hot but we’re making good time to reach the amazing caves at Chauvet. These are actually a replica of those at Pont D’Arc, which were only discovered in 1994 and are closed to the public to preserve what lies within.

    We get our tickets and make our way to the ‘cavern’ - they are very clear that is a replica, they are not trying to pull the wool over your eyes with this.

    Inside we get an audio tour in a very quiet cave system (cue begging the children not to make loud noises and finally giving in and illegally feeding them crisps to keep them quiet as the tour comes towards the end of its hour!), and at each point of the tour we are shown what is so spectacular. The oldest paintings by man on earth. When these caves were chanced upon by 3 explorers in 1994, they came across a huge cave full of magnificent artwork that changed the understanding of how modern man lived 36000 years ago. The cave drawings are so fine and detailed, so well drawn, with such skill and so few tools that this discovery was collosal in terms of how ‘modern art’ was thought of.

    The drawings are so well preserved, along with bear bones and other prehistoric animals and tools used to create the artwork, and the discovery of this site was so significant that the cave quickly became a protected UNESCO world heritage site and it was decided that other than scientists, no one would ever visit them. The replica took almost 3 years, 35 companies and many people to create, it is half the size of the actual cave system, a condensed version of what actually exists.

    Each piece of artwork was created from photos and scans of the originals in a studio and then fixed to the ‘cavern’ as the build was complete, and it opened its doors in 2015.

    We wondered through trying to make sure our audio was in time with what we were seeing while keeping Coen from climbing/jumping/shouting at the cave, and it was fascinating to hear and see a tiny insight into the lives of the people that roamed our earth so many years before us. The drawings of woolly mammoths, reindeers, horses and lions were so lifelike, but these were drawn 36000 years ago, it’s hard to imagine these animals back then. The caves were visited again 6000 years after the drawings were made and footprints of prehistoric children holding torches still remained when the caves were discovered. No one found the caves again until 30000 years later, this made us wander how much more on earth we (as humans in our modern day) have not yet found.

    We also visit the little museum with the huge life size animals that feature on the artwork and lots of interactive info which is great, Amelia enjoys pressing ALL the buttons and asking why they aren’t speaking English, but by the time this is done we are starving and it’s pretty baking outside, so we hotfoot back to the van, get some snacks and head up the road to our next stop.    Read more

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    Ardeche waterpark fun!

    June 19, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    We are literally in the middle of nowhere here in beautiful, hilly green countryside deep in the heart of France, and would not have found this stop except it is a sister site to where we stayed in Verdon, and our main and only reason to visit it is that is has a huge waterpark within it (actually France’s only residential aquapark) and, as it was so close to the Ardeche stopover, we couldn’t resist.

    After a brief panic thinking we’re going to have to pay 100e to get into the waterpark (no, it’s all included in the 20e camping price) we get set up and in no time we find the waterpark.

    This is an outdoor version of one we went to in Austria with many identical slides and pools, so the children enjoy the huge pirate ship, the normal size flumes and jets and Nic and I try out the ‘big’ ones, to see which ones Amelia (and Coen) can handle.

    The only downside (well literally the upside) is that our pitch is at the top of a huge hill and the waterpark is at the bottom so after expelling a lot of energy in the pool, it is a real struggle to get Amelia up the hill back to our van in the 6pm 30 degree heat.

    We take Coen and Amelia on two of the big slides as you ride them on rubber rings and they are not too crazy, they both love them and want to go again, again, again...’luckily’ the lifeguards at this pool are very laissez-faire as neither of them reaches the 1m20 height restriction!
    We get a little thunderstorm over lunch, and when we head back to the pool, we wonder if it will be open with the lightning going on, but no problem - until the storm is literally above our head and they close by which time we’ve done all the slides and pools quite a few times!

    We stop over for two nights so that we get a full day at the waterpark and can leave refreshed ready for the trip south to be beach (and hopefully some beautiful pink wildlife!), and we’re definitely fitter than when we arrived after a few times walking up and down the hillside to the pool!    Read more

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    Camargue Wildlife to Marseillian Plage

    June 21, 2019 in France ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We aim to make it at least to the Camargue region today, although we hear the mossies are pretty bad and we’ve already been bitten quite a bit, so we are not looking forward to more around the marshy lands.

    We are not quite sure where we’re heading when we get here but the area is known for its beautiful white horses, black bulls and the main attraction for us, pink flamingos.

    As we drive down through the nature reserve we immediately see the black bulls and white horses (the oldest breed in the world, and a brilliant white - used by cowboys to herd the black bulls) in the fields besides the wetlands, and then as we tell the children to keep their eyes open, we see two flamingos in the water beside the road - so now we know we’re on the right track. There is a large bird park with miles of trails around the marshy fields of the nature reserve so after a quick drive around the seaside town of Sainte Marie De La Mer, we head into the park.

    Amelia is excited as she has her very own flamingo to show to the real ones! As soon as we get into the park, we are greeted by huge flocks of beautiful pink flamingos, along with huge herons, ducks and many other bird species (of which I couldn’t name!). As we walk around the lakes and marsh land with boardwalks in every direction, the views get better, and we get closer views of the birds, we are amazed as they stretch out their wings at how colourful they are - apparently more pink in the winter - and not because they eat pink shrimp, this is a flamingo myth!

    We decide to take the shorter route round as the children are both melting and satisfied that we’ve seen hundreds of flamingos already. As we turn around to make our way out, we cross a little bridge where a couple are stopped looking at something. A really friendly, tame otter looking species - we are not convinced it’s an otter, though it’s definitely not a beaver. He gives us a wonderful show ducking and diving, Coen shouting ‘doggie’ at it (we can tell it definitely isn’t one of those!), and then swims under the bridge that we are stood on and stops the other side and finds the greenery from the bottom of the river bed to eat (which is vey cute with his little hands holding the clumps of algae) before swimming off to take cover amongst some branches. On the way out we see some info boards and find it was a Koypu, which we’ve never seen before, let alone so close up.

    As we’ve made good time getting down here and seeing the flamingos, we decide to crack on and get to the beach where we will stop for a few days, so stock up on more snacks and head to Marseillian plage - where the campsites all line up along the beach. Time to relax (again!)...

    We drive through this tourist hot spot past a long row of campsites lining both sides of the road.

    We are lucky to find a non sandy space at the campsite, almost all the free spots we see would be sinking territory for us - weekends are getting busier as the high season is almost in full swing and each week is now holiday time for a different region in Germany - will we have to leave our ‘where the wind blows’ ways and start booking or can we wing it for a little longer?!

    Our pitch is opposite the big, tall play park/outdoor wooden soft play-type structure, Nic describes this one as a bit like caving after he goes in to help Coen get up to the top to go down the slides, we both have a go but it tests our flexibility (and claustrophobia), so we leave it to Amelia to help him from there on.

    We check out the beach with beautiful, calm sea and the big pool area with slides and splash parks, and spend the next couple of days enjoying this: mornings at the beach, afternoons at the pool. The sea is nice and shallow and calm so the children can wander in safely. The pool has some great slides for us to play on and a sloping pool which is great for Coen’s confidence! There is a pool that is not heated which is fun to dip in like a plunge pool and then back into the warmth of the other pool!

    There is lots going on at this site, a full entertainment programme, which although we avoid as nights are already late enough - we still hear from our spot late into the night as the DJ sets boom through the campsite. Amelia does enjoy watching rehearsals and dance lessons on the big stage in the daytime and joins in when it gets to Greatest Showman, but it does make it all a little noisy for us.

    As there is a little town, we have a walk to the shops and cafes, but either it’s siesta time or limited Sunday hours as the shops seem to all be closed. Apart from one that has the feet eating fish...Sarah gives it a go and after the initial shock that it might actually be a form of torture as the nibbling tickles her so much, they seem pleased with their new food but only really go for the easy morsels rather than the really tough bits that she wants them to eat...so she comes out with feet looking pretty much the same.

    After a few days, we decide to head a bit further down this coast to find a quieter site, it’s set to be pretty warm so we need to be as close to the sea as possible!    Read more

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    Sainte Marie Sur Mer Plage

    June 25, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    We head west along the med coast, but make a change of plan to make the drive a little shorter, and when we arrive, we are so glad we did. We find a beautiful, natural and peaceful campsite with our pitch a few metres from the big, sandy beach, where the sea is perfect temperature. The site feels really off the beaten track, with lovely little extras, like the little farm with donkeys, peacocks, sheep, alpacas and goats - although one of the goats did try to butt Amelia as they roamed freely around. No harm done luckily!

    We are getting reports that the temperatue is rising this week, and we extend our stay a few days so that we are by the sea and pool for the hottest days. And we’re also feeling pretty smug about the air con in the moho now!

    We spend our mornings at the beach, and then head to the pool late afternoon. As the days go on, we spend longer at the beach, the sea is perfect to cool off and there’s sea breeze. We see lots of fish swimming about in the shallows, and although the sea gets deep straight away, the children love it with their new body boards, or arm bands or woggles. There’s also a big pool area with toddler pool and some great flumes, and a very heated pool too - a favourite pool so far. There’s even a spa! Obviously we don’t really spend much time in there, but it’s lovely to be able to cool off before the evening heat. It’s still high in the 30s when we are going to bed most evenings.

    Amelia loves being able to cycle all around the site, and we all love being seconds from the beach, although even the walk down towards the sea to set up is getting pretty hot. We take the SUP down and it’s great to get out on it on the warmer sea. Nic spots some big jelly fish way out, so I take the children (including Amelias new friend) our to see if we can see it. Nic is adamant he wants to get some sea life photos, so heads out again, just as he gets out one of the jelly fish gets washed in to our feet so we get some really good photos from dry land. We have fun trying out some headstands on the board - easier to be a bit braver when the sea is so much warmer and calmer!

    We chat to some other English travellers on te site who have had to leave their holiday home inland and move to the coast for the heatwave - we’re in the midst of a big Saharan bubble and the rainy days are forgotten!    Read more

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    Coulliere - our hidden gem

    June 29, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    We find out that our friend is on holiday very close by, so we hop down the coast to a small campsite set on top of some cliffs above beautiful little coves on the French Spanish southern border. Another one of those unplanned stops, that makes us grateful not to have an agenda.

    The sea is crystal clear, the bays are rocky, shingly and some sandy. It’s still pretty hot so we get out into the sea with our goggles to see the beautiful marine life. Tons of colourful fish, crabs, anenemy, tiny sea urchin - but much to Nic and Amelia’s disappointment - no mussels! I name a new creature, sea tomato (must find the real name but they are so red they look like tomatoes sat on the underwater rocks).

    The campsite is set on top of a high cliff side, so although to get to the beach we have to walk up and down quite a few cobbly steps, it’s worth it for the beautiful views we get from the pitches and the perimeter of the site. We get a crazy, hazy sunset over the mountains and the sunrises directly over the sea in front of us.

    After some snorkelling and crab hunting, we check out the pool, Amelia does her first solo swim of a width of the pool, her confidence is building after all these daily swims, she also gets told off for going down the flumes head first (!) and we cool off from the southern heat.

    The next morning, our friend Jon and his lovely American girlfriend, Ashleigh, who have stayed just a short drive away come to visit at the campsite and we have another swim/snorkel on the other side of the bay and through some rocky patches, the children braving it for the deep water swimming armbands on.

    before heading down to our Barcalona stop.    Read more

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    Barcelona

    June 30, 2019 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    We have done a lot of research for this stop to find a campsite which has a shuttle bus into the city. Our site also has a lovely pool which is lucky as the heatwave continues and we know the children are going to melt as we visit the city.

    We fit in as many swims as we can and then get an early bus into Barcelona. We have to make a quick but urgent pit stop to McDonald’s for some free WiFi, as I’ve accidentally left some work uploading as we got on the shuttle bus and drive away meaning we’ve used our whole months data in one morning! The children are pretty happy with this as they get an extra meal, we in manage to back up some photos and then start out on our tour.

    We immediately realise with all the super straight streets and the adult scooters whizzing around, that we should have bought amelias scooter for her to get around. Nic is keen to go back and see the Gaudis La Sagrada Familia, to see how it had changed since we came pre children. This did mean quite a big circuit of the city though, as we also wanted to go to the port to get some Tapas.

    We managed to 2 hour circuit in the heat, through the beautiful Ciutadella Park and out to the bustling port. Needless to say Amelia was well rewarded for her walking with a huge plate of calamari at the tapas, we manage to order enough tapas to take up the whole table, and of course, Sangria.

    We also watched the amazing and huge yachts in the marina, and headed back for a hot walk towards the bus pick up. We managed to stop at the largest food hall for some fruit and smoothies, another ice cream (so hot in the city!) and Nic attempted to get a beer on the Ramblas but was put off by the 12euro price tag!

    We could easily stay longer here, visit more parks, the beach, the aquarium, but it’s hot to be in a city, we get back to the campsite and straight into the pool to cool off and decide to move on tomorrow.

    We manage to fool off in the pool befoe departure and even get a quick aqua Zumba class in before we leave.

    We think we’re heaving north now to the northern coast (not before our bi weekly stop off at Decathlon!), but the traffic and heat have other ideas.    Read more

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    L'Amettla de Mar

    July 2, 2019 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    Our journey to the northern coast of Spain starts with a swim in the pool, and then the stop at Decathlon (a regular stop now, to buy rash vests/flip flops/other beach ‘stuff’ - and also great entertainment for the children scooting around the aisles), and a trip to Lidl, but not long into the journey we hit some pretty bad Barcelona traffic, and realise we haven’t made much progress towards a campsite or the coast and are still quite near the southern beaches, so make a quick diversion for one more stop on the south coast, before heading up. The children are literally melting in the early afternoon sun in the back of the Moho (where the AC does not quite reach them) so they are pleased to get out of their seats sooner. By the time we pull into our pitch they are both a bit besides themselves with the general ickiness of being stuck in a car seat in this temperature.

    Luckily the site we pick is another if those hidden gems. Set on top of a little sandy bay, with a large pool and beautiful views of the coastline.

    We get to the beach for a quick swim to cool off, and find the sea is like a luke-warm bath, with lots of rocky areas to try some more snorkelling.

    We spend a couple of nights here so that we can enjoy the beach some more and relax in this hot weather. We find more amazing fish when we snorkel around the rocks and reefs,

    The recent hot weather means no more wetsuits in pools for the children which is a relief. The pool overlooking the bay is literally a hot tub when we go for a dip. There’s a small children’s pool and for quite a while we have it to ourselves which is quite a luxury.

    We are parked next door to a lovely dutch couple who are heading to live in Spain to have a baby, so have a drink with them one night, and then try to keep the children from being too loud to avoid them thinking ‘what how we let ourselves in for’ the rest of the time.

    The hot weather continues but it’s time to head inland to make our way north, so we brave the drive to find a half way spot between north and southern Spain.    Read more

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    Spanish stopover Borja

    July 4, 2019 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    This is one of those random stops where we literally put our finger on the point on the map which we think is half way to our next destination. We’re travelling blind in this leg without any recommendations or real stand out points, as we just need to get north. We had envisioned that we’d be travelling along the foothills of the Pyrenees, but we hadn’t actually looked at the map to verify this and the heat had meant we’d moved further along the coast to be near the sea.

    As we near where the map tells us there is a campsite, it’s eerily remote and we’re not sure if we’ll find one, but luckily after a few tight u-turns, we pull in. It’s a tiny and quiet little stopover, and as I go to check in, I realise the lady speaks zero English, and with my dismal lack of Spanish, we weave through an awkward conversation of pointing and writing things down and she shows us to our pitch.

    We are perched on a hillside with amazing views across the Spanish valley. Although it’s quiet, there is a lovely park for the children, free WiFi and a small swimming pool. Granted we had to fish the millions of bees out of the pool to have a swim but it was lovely to cool down after the drive.

    We were going to try the local restaurant as the tapas was ‘locals’ prices, but some local campers didn’t recommend it...luckily we had enough food to make a meal out of.

    We head off early to reach the northern coast and as we head into the mountains and out the other side it’s like a different climate. All of a sudden the sky is white and grey and the air is cool. We get great views again of the north Spanish coast.

    We manage only one wrong turn (albeit that led us up a very winding dirt track which quickly narrows, luckily we find a field to turn in before we got stuck and we make it onto the very large campsite on the hillside.    Read more

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    Zaurautz

    July 5, 2019 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    As we hit the north coast, we choose a camp spot the most reasonably priced (although still very expensive considering the long 1km walk down the cliff side to reach the beach) just west of San Sebastian. It’s a huge site with lots of surf camps and teenagers there for the surf and some partying.

    We get a great pitch very close to the cliff side with amazing views out over the big bay, but we are quite a way up and the walk down is long and winding, with lots of steps and steep slopes.

    This is one of the most well known surf spots in Spain and even with the small swell and next to no waves there are still a lot of surfers in. We decide it definitely is not worth the trek down with a surfboard...

    We put Coen in the carrier and head down to the beach, Amelia’s little legs power on down the steps yet again, round corners with views over rock stacks and an old docking point where they used to haul goods up from the boats, and down the long path to the beach...and just as we arrive, and the children start playing in the sea, the rain starts and we can see a big storm over the mountains that seems to settle right above Zarautz - so we have a play, find a crab and then decide to start the ascent back up the 1km hill we’ve just come down. We make it back without getting too wet and Amelia makes it the whole way without a moan about how far it is.

    The other brilliant thing about this site was it’s sunsets...we were so lucky that our pitch looked straight out to the sea and as the weather had been stormy and cloudy, by sunset we were treated to some amazing colours in the sky...so much so that when Amelia got out of bed to see where we were, Nic took her to get a closer look as it was so pretty. We were also treated to some pretty loud disco music throughout the night too...surfcamps for the youngsters, which means time for us to move on!!    Read more

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    Erromandie - avoiding peak season!

    July 6, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    Although Saint Jean de Luz is a popular spot, we had been told that it would be quite busy and expensive to find a camp spot here now that we’re in peak season, so we head north to the next bay. Getting here is a bit of a mission, as we put the spot we think we want to head in the sat nav and it tries to take us under a tiny 2m height restriction bride, we turn around and head to the next part of the road, surely we will be able to reach the campsite from there. When we get there, we find that there is a big 5 star campsite that we are keen to avoid (suddenly prices have hiked up and 5 star equates to a normal hotel stay!) but the only other access is a service road which there is no way we can fit the Moho thru. So back to that tiny 2m bridge, and we figure that we can go the long way past it and come back on ourselves to find a little municipal site in a grassy spot above the beach. Immediately a hit with the children of course (park - tick) and we find a lovel grassy spot with plenty of space for them to run free.

    We venture down to the rocky beach and enjoy some time there, collect a bit more plastic and some drift wood to make a fire for the bbq.

    We have a lovely bbq (after getting totally smoked out trying to light it), our first proper bbq for a while and overlooking the bay too, with some kind of folk singing going on down at the beach bar. The big stone bbqs are right next to the play park, so everyone’s happy. I enjoy making fire (Nic rolls his eyes!) and we get the children to bed in time for Nic to have a night swim in the sea and for me to watch the sunset.

    Next day we walk along to the little ‘town’ - more of a tourist centre for the campsites, and then walk along to the neighbouring bay to see the little market and find the amazing burger van we’d been told about. As we get there though, Nic and Amelia decide they want mussels. So Coen and I are overruled and we share a pizza while Amelia and Nic luck out with some huge bowls of mussels. Ice creams all round and we head back, the children scooting (we realised Amelia has scooted a hole in the sole of her best sandals) and we decide to move north the following day.    Read more

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    Rainy Biarritz

    July 8, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    We’ve sussed out a few spots to stay to allow us to be close to the surfers town, but as we pull up at the first aire, the ticket machine says the parking is full, even though we can see tons of spaces. Luckily between some ‘locals’ and an English chap we figure out what’s going on and manage to somehow get the barrier to open so that we can stay at our first choice - aires like these in the towns are really just secure car parks with spaces big enough for motorhomes, and varied services; this one is pretty basic with electric hook up, clean water and waste emptying. But the location is great!

    We have a quick lunch and head to beach which is just is just across the underpass. It is a beautiful beach, reminds us of Cornish bays. Before we can get to the actual beach we pass a gigantic sandy park, the children have a brilliant time roaming freely through swing ropes, spiders webs, and climbing frames and we can relax knowing they have a soft landing for once.

    We manage to convince them it’s beach time and take them straight out into the little waves with their inflatable body boards. They have a whale of a time;
    Coen loves catching the waves and says ‘more, more’ each time, until he tumbled over his board gets a dunk - then he’s not so keen so we go and snuggle up on the beach and watch.

    Amelia is also loving it and catching amazing waves without any fear! She also gets a dunk though which ends sea play for the day. The kids play in the sand, and we watch the surf lessons while Nic goes to see what’s passed the big rock stacks at each end of the beach. He comes to tell us he’s found crabs, so off we go, lots of great sea pools, and interesting rocks although the big crabs have now disappeared.

    We aren’t sure whether to stay another day here as we head out to find dinner, we quickly realise we are based in an area with no eateries so decide to walk into town, which isn’t far. There is a huge selection of tourist friendly restaurants and bars -‘d we choose a quirky looking burger and taco place with giant tv screens showing surf movies that the children love. Whilst we are eating, the heavens open and we have a VERY wet walk back to the aire. Luckily we picked up an umbrella but we still get a soaking.

    We decide to stay another night so that we can take the children to the brilliant aquarium, after taking the scenic coastal route back into town, including the Rocher de la Vierge viewpoint with views back over the coast north and south - the viewpoint is made up of rock stacks, narrow walkways onto the jutted rocky outcrop and a little rocky tunnel to walk through as well.

    The aquarium is huge by all accounts (Nic is convinced it will be about the same size as Bournemouth’s) and does not disappoint. We see every type of sea life, in huge and varied tanks, as well as museum style show rooms, large screens with films of ocean life and interactive features.

    As we reach the roof top, we reach our highlight - nap time for the enormous sea lions in their huge pool - they are snoring so loud it makes us all chuckle watching them, the kids think it’s hilarious!

    We finish the tour having seen every sea creature you could imagine, and head back through town, taking in some more sights and the trendy shops, and get back to plan our next stop up the lovely surfers coast!    Read more

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    Capbreton Plage Oceanides

    July 10, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    After our 50th trip to Decathlon, the purchase of a new scooter and surfboard for the children to learn on, later we arrive in Capbreton just south of Hossegor, at an aire that has the beach as its back garden so are pretty happy with the very basic set up of electricity, cold beach shpwers (and we’re grateful to have an onboard toilet). One of the best things about France is how well set up it is for motorhomes, with so many safe places to camp up, at low cost, in great locations. It seems many French families spend their whole holiday in these aires with huge set ups.

    Like most of this coast, the beach is a beautiful long stretch of golden sand and pretty consistent, good surf. The sea is still warm so we all get to try out Amelia’s new board - Nic and I both getting one of our first surfs of the trip. The children love playing in the surf on the bodyboard and surfboard, and building castles; we’re enjoying the sunny weather, it feels more holiday like here, with a big surfers vibe, live music in the tiny beach bar. The children are becoming much more aware of the big waves along this coast too, so neither of them run straightout to sea thankfully now.

    We don’t venture out of the car park here, we came for the beach, and it’s so close, we don’t want to spend any hot days in towns right now - the coast here is all about big beaches and surf!

    We attempt to get the children totally clean in the beach showers, however, they’re a little cold and so neither of them are keen to stay in long, and poor Coen has no choice as Nic picks him up and showers him down to his whimpers of ‘dold, doldy!’ (can’t quite say the C yet!).

    The basic/lack of facilities (cold beach showers) mean we don’t stay long here - as our shower is basically just wardrobe storage full of wetsuits and who knows what, Nic ends up having an interesting conversation with the security guard on the campsite next door as he attempts to sneak in for a shower (the two french girls next door have been doing it, but I suspect their eye lashes flutter a little more than Nic’s) and he is busted - but being the sweet talker he is, after a conversation via google translate, the guard lets him shower, bait we plan to head up the coast to some of our favourite spots to spend a little longer.    Read more

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    Saint Girons Plage

    July 12, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    This is a stop we’ve been looking forward to from the whole trip - arriving back at the beach where we got engaged, 8 years ago!

    We decide to stay in the aire that is attached to the campsite, which, now in high season has very few decent pitches left and is very pricey. The aire, which is like an overflow car park with motorhome sized pitches that have a little room at the side to set up table and chairs, has a small path that leads directly to the campsite and you get full use of all facilities! So for less than 15e/nt in high season, we know that we’ve lucked out and make the most of it! Many fellow tourers are spending the whole summer here in the aire, some of them in the end of row pitches have quite the set up with gazebos and awnings.

    The site has three adjoined swimming pools and a splash park area, plus sports pitches and a really great sandy park that the children love!

    There is a bakery, pizza place, organic rotiserrie, and bar, and also an activity programme with some fun stuff for the children and adults. The children are excited about the face painting session, which is comically bad, but they don’t notice. I get to try out a French Pilates style class (more of a stretch class, but much needed!).

    We have a pizza and cocktail evening which feels very luxurious at this stage in our trip, and the children have a dance while we relax...ahhh!

    We are blessed with beautiful blues skies, great surf and hot sunshine for most of our time here, although as we are planning to leave we are treated to a spectacular Atlantic storm with an amazing bolt lightning show! This extends our trip a little as we don’t want to pack up and head somehow that may not have facilities with the weather turning...so we end up staying 15 nights in total (we’d planned 5-7 days!).

    We are here for Bastille day and notice the town has set up lots of fireworks, literally 100m from the aire, but oddly, we go to bed after hearing no fireworks - then at 11.30pm Nic and I wake to hear the loudest bangs ever, we open our bedroom blind to get the best view of the whole amazing display - and even though it sounds like world war 3 as the bangs reverbate around our little motorhome, neither child is woken by the noise!

    We go to the beach each day, which is a bit of a mission due to the big sand dune that seperates the site from the beach; it’s a short, hot, steep trek each day laden with two children, beach stuff, umbrella, surf biard, body board....but it is worth it when we arrive to some amazing surf each day (by standards of Europe in summer months), warm sea, and lots of sand castle making.

    We watch the lifeguards in action daily as the rips and currents catch people out, and they even how to rescue one of their beach flag poles. The surf can be really trecherous here, churning huge dumps at the beach break so the lifeguards are very strict to make sure people don’t swim near the rips or outside of the flags - this coast is notorious for casualties, and you can see why as they whizz you and down in the jeep rescuing those who have been swept out on boards, or collided with other surfers.

    The children have now become confident swimmers and Amelia happily jumps in and swims across the pool with no arm bands, Coen swims happily on his back with his arm bands on, and they confidently dive from the wall (3 foot up) above the pool each day making huge splashes and cheering for more. Coen does pick up an injury of his own though which is not helped by the constant swimming - he stubs his toe on a stone, taking a big layer off, but he just keeps stubbing it again and again, making it bleed each time.

    The highlight of our trip here and the reason we stay a little longer, is the wonderful french family, Yann, Sophie and their teenage daughter, Lili Rose who are parked up next door to us, who speak excellent English. Lili Rose loves playing with the children, they love her, she teaches Amelia how to make bracelets and gives her a turtle tattoo, paints both of their nails and shares her toys, Amelia and Coen are both smitten with her and Nic and I try (badly) to learn some french from them. They are a big surf family, and Sophie actually used to teach fitness so we all have lots in common. Nic and Yann enjoy catching waves together ‘outback’ and Lili Rose helps build sandcastles. This does, of course, make us feel a little worse at how loud our children are constantly, especially when they are enjoying their siesta! Nic and I also get our first ever (since children) surf together as the children happily play with them whilst we have a quick go. I catch my best wave in about 10 yrs so am happy if I don’t get another surf.

    Amelia also gets treated to some great children’s discos, and both children enjoy some later nights, extra park time and people watching. We wander along the big board walk that leads to the beach lined with beach shops, surf shops and chilled out cafes and restaraunts. Coen gets a treat as a big monster truck show comes to town, we don’t go to the show as it’s an evening affair but we do get up close to the trucks. We also visit the night market, although this becomes a bit stressful as we think we will enjoy some amazing take away treats for dinner, but there actually isn’t much in the way of dinner!

    We also have a bad day here, which only needs one line written about it - The day that Amelia smashed her ‘in-bed’ TV! Oops!

    Coen’s second highlight after the monster trucks is seeing the helicopter come to land, so we go to see it on the helipad, it has come to help some injured surfers, we wait and get to see it take off - Coen is besides himself with excitement as it rises up into the sky!

    After an amazing two weeks, we say a find farewell to our new friends and leave (in the rain!) for our next stop, and armed with a few recommendations too!    Read more

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    The Grand Dune du Pyla - WOW!

    July 27, 2019 in France ⋅ 🌧 0 °C

    Luckily we find a campsite on our 2nd attempt, it’s pricey, but we’ve weighed up having to drive and park in the main car park and this site is at the foot of the dune, so decide for one night it’s worth it.

    The dune here sits next to the Basin du Aracachon and is the largest in Europe. A huge wall of sand visible behind the trees from the road, with beautiful sand banks laid out below on the ocean side.

    We get the last pitch, which has loads of space for kids to run about. We have a quick dinner and as it’s forecast to rain, we decide to just pop along to the bottom of the dune at the end of the road. When we get there though, the children are so excited to see how big it is and the thought of climbing it is just too much, off they go, Nic and I following behind. By some miracle, Coen manages to climb the whole way, with Nic just holding his hands, and doesn’t ask to be picked up once (this is the first time ever!) - the dune to him is the biggest playground. Amelia powers up using her hands to climb herself to the top.

    We get stunning views as the sun is starting to set, the huge dune in front of us, like a Saharan landscape backed by a huge pine forest. It is a breathtaking site. Nic and I had visited the dune years ago, and we found that as we had parked in the main car park, it was much busier, whereas this time we had a huge part of the dunes with the small hills at the top to roll around on. The children were in their element diving and rolling. Amelia did suffer slightly with a ‘sand in eye’ incident, but they were both in fits of laughter running back down the huge hill of sand that led us home.

    We also head out for breakfast on the dune to really make the most of it. We take Amelia’s kite up and have another amazing time; it’s so liberating feeling like you’re on top of the world and seeing how much the children appreciate it. I think they feel like birds zooming about above the world on the soft sand, running, diving, falling and tumbling as the dunes seem never-ending.

    We manage a quick dip in the pool to clean the sand off before heading out to our next stop (after a very tight squeeze out of the campsite - which we think may be shrinking back towards the main road as the dune pushes it’s way inland!).    Read more

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    Biscarosse - a busy beach!

    July 28, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    This is a well known surf spot and there is a long board competition on this weekend, so we head down to see what the beach is like. We’d been recommended an aire on the beach just along from the comp, which turns out to be huge. It is basically a big circular car park that leads round in a big circle through the trees, tons of motorhomes, it is very low priced and right on the beautiful beach. We set up and head across to the beach.

    It’s a little walk from our spot to the beach (as the place is so big) but Coen found a stick that he thought looked like an aeroplane, and amazingly he ‘flew’ it almost the entire walk to the beach saving us carrying him.

    There are a couple of surf hire/lesson shacks at the beach, we’ve never seen a beach so busy, a combination of the busy season, surf comp and a hot Sunday bringing locals in. A nice beach, big waves today; we have to make sure Coen doesn’t get washed away with one as he runs through the shallows as the tide washes out.

    We try to shower the children in the cold beach showers, but they are starting to get wise to this and wriggle as much as they can to avoid the cold!

    There is lots of space here so the children enjoy some football before bed and we head off early to get to the other side of the Bassin d’Aracachon.    Read more

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    Andernos-les-bains - Oysters galore!

    July 29, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    We find a camping aire at the side of the bassin in the hope of finding some good seafood...the smell as we pull in tells us we’re in the right place!

    It’s a great stopover for the night as it’s inexpensive (well actually, free, as the payment machine is broken) and right on the side of the Bassin.

    We go to explore and find a lovely sandy park and then rows of oyster farm shops.

    There are tiny little sandy beaches where the sea is warm and the sand underneath is squidgy, a new experience for the children, they have a splash to cool off, Coen is not so sure about the green slimy seaweed though!

    After finding out how they grow the oysters (which takes 2.5 years) we check out the restaurants for a fish dinner and get a good recommendation from a local farmer.

    After Coen’s nap time, we head down to the white sandy beach at the headland and Nic gets some oysters from the guys who told us how they farm them, and we sit on the beach to eat them, Amelia even tries one but isn’t convinced by the saltiness!

    We go to the restaurant that was recommended and enjoy an amazing meal, and Coen managed to stay sat in his seat for the entire meal for the first time in 4 months. The children enjoy a lovely meal finished with candy floss ice cream. Nic enjoys a lovely Monk Fish dish and I have a St Jaques risotto (scallops) which is amazing and has her biggest scallops ever. We finish with the special pudding - Cafe Gourmaund - 10 mini desserts on one plate!

    Again we leave early in the morning (well 10am is now our early) to see the tip of the headland, Cap Feret.

    We drive through little seaside traditional French towns and villages to find the only car park we can fit in. A short walk up to the head land, although you can no longer walk the whole way as much of this coast is being protected and tiny dunes are being replanted. We get beautiful views back over the dune where we were a few days ago, and out into the choppy waters at the mouth of the bassin and into the Atlantic.    Read more

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    Le Porge Ocean

    July 30, 2019 in France ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    We decide to make one last stop before our next ‘holiday’ at a place that Nic and I visited years ago for a holiday. We can’t quite decide if this is definitely the place but there is a camping aire about 1km from the beach and it’s cheap and even has electricity. As we pull in we recognise the campsite that we’d stayed at, so we have a look around, let the children scoot free for a bit and then load them into the croozer to head down to the beach.

    There is a small boardwalk of restaurants and surf hires that lead to the beach, and we arrive at high tide in high winds. The sea is a mass of white, bubbly mush. Not a day for the children to mess about in the water. We enjoy some frisbee, and Nic and I both have a ‘swim’ in the waves separately! It’s such a strong currant here, the big waves push in and wash all the children playing in the sea 30-50m up the beach, and the waves push right up to us as we play up away from the sea.

    On the walk back to the campsite, we get a bit of free entertainment as the high ropes course is right above our heads, there is a big Spider-Man jump into a cargo net, we watch as a couple approach it, the man flies into it and we wait to see the woman do the same...and we wait..and we wait. It feels like a long time to us, it must feel like eternity to her. We have been stood on the path waiting now so feel like we can’t leave until she jumps, like we’re all in it together!! Eventually she takes the leap, and we make it back to the Moho before dark!

    After 4 months on the road we finally figure out how to get hot water from the shower in our Moho so we can wash the sand off, although our shower is full of ‘stuff’ so we have to hang the shower head out of the window to actually use it!!

    We pack up and leave early in the morning so that we can get a food shop in and get to our holiday stop in good time...    Read more

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    Montalivet - holiday time!

    August 1, 2019 in France ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    Back to more familiar territory again for our next long stay. We booked a little ‘holiday’ for our final west coast leg to make sure that we returned home a little more rested, and this place never disappoints.

    We stay in a big pine forest campsite with direct access to the beach. This part of the coast is lined with many large pine forest camp sites making the most of the beautiful long stretches of white sandy beaches, a fairly consistent surf, south westerly sunshine, and chilled out vibes.

    We spend our days here between the beach, with games, surf, sandcastles and a small amount of sitting, and the lovely pools with lots to entertain the children and plenty of English friends to play with. Their confidence in the water grows more, they have been in a pool every day for a couple of months now. and they both duck and dive freely and beg to stay longer each day to play in the bubbles, slides, bridges, shallows, Amelia even makes some friends who take her on the big curly slide on her own.

    Our pitch is just a couple of minutes from the beach so it’s easy to carry Amelia’s new surfboard down, and she gets her first proper ride managing to stand up straight away! There are some lovely waves that push in to the little pools that have formed on the beach, so Coen can splash about in the shallows too, and we find starfish too. Coen finds a fear of seaweed, which is very funny to watch as he suddenly comes to a halt as he’s wading through the water, as seaweed appears in his path. We also enjoy our ritual of covering ourselves in the mineral mud that appears at low tide under the sand, hoping that it does our sun-baked skin some good!!

    There are lovely parks and lots of chance to cycle, scoot and run, the children are also pleased to see the bouncy castle park is open, not to mention a few extra trips to the ‘indoor pool’.

    We want to make the most of the activities on offer here, as there is so much on site for adults and children. We take the children to the porcelain painting where they paint a plate and a plaque, I went along to a brilliant 90s style abs workout (thought it was Pilates but got the wrong day!), and we even both get to play a bit of beach volleyball whilst the children play happily next to the court!

    One of things we enjoy most is that there are lots of English and Irish people here, some we’ve met on previous visits, and some we meet for the first time, but it’s lovely to have some comraderie, share aome stories and drinks in the evening,

    Our other favourite ‘activity’ here is relaxing at the beach bar, with a lovely relaxed atmosphere and friendly staff. They have live music and a very popular happy hour between 5-8 where you can get pretty tipsy for not very much moeny. Their Mojitos are something else..and very strong. The children always make lots of friends, enjoy dancing or watching the bands, playing in the sand, and they do great food. They are making great strides to become a sustainable venue too - with pasta straws, no platic cups, and locally sourced and homemade food. The only downside is Amelias much loved favourite of calamari is now off the menu as it can’t be sourced locally.

    We have a few evenings with new friends at the bar, visit our lovely friend from years ago who owns a mobile home pitch here and tteats is to a lovely supper, and we even get a few cheeky nights off when the children are in bed as there are so many lovely english speaking motorhomes next to ours.

    We get an extra special treat on this leg of ou trip as our good friends from home are camping just at the next viallge along. We arrange to meet them for a day in the town, so we show them the huge local market (one of the biggest in France) where we always enjoy some amazing local cuisine. Nic introduces them to the local oyster and wine offerings and we cool the children off with ice cream. It is such a scorcher if a day that we head down to the beach for a swim. It’s great to share our travel stories and hear all about what they’ve been up to, and we hope to fit another meet up in before we both leave the area.

    Nic enjoys being so close to the waves, when he wakes in the morning he can hear if there’s enough surf to jump up and grab a board while the rest of us sleep. Coen goes for a record lie in of the trip, waking after 10am on one of our final day. The weather has turned a little grey, with some rain and windy days, and there are some big messy waves to play in.

    By the end of our stay, we are suitably chilled and ready to hit the road for the final leg of our trip, although we decide a 20 minute detour to visit Matt and Mollys camp is called for...    Read more

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    Hourtin Plage to Royan

    August 14, 2019 in France ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    After saying fairwell to our friends at Montalivet, we head along for a short drive to Hourtin Plage where Matt & Molly are staying. They have got us a 2hr pass to their site which has a great pool complex with pirate ship.

    The kids are eager to see their pool and play with Layla and Chloe so we head straight to the pool, Matt warned us to put the children in wetsuits as it was a little chilly. They had a big pool area with the biggest pirate ship ever with slides coming from all directions; however it didn’t take Amelia long to see the huge bucket of water that poured down every few minutes from the very top, and even with the little warning bell that gives you time to get out of the way, she could not be convinced to go back on it (she’s still scarred from last year in Brean!). Coen had a great time on the slides with Nic and also went on some great rainbow slides that shot him down into the deep pools. Amelia and Laila had a whale of a time splashing, diving, and swimming through all of the pools, and also loved shooting down the rainbow slides!

    After a lovely but chilly swim, and a park play, we head back to their pitch and the kids enjoy playing in their huge tent while we have some lunch. We take the short walk along the town to the beach and watch some surfers in envy.

    We stop for ice cream with a choice of about 30 flavours which obviously causes conflict in the heads of the children who want ALL of them - Amelia adamant about mango and raspberry, but one lick in decides she wants to change, one lick of my chocolate and she’s back on the first choice. We grab a quick pizza, baguette and little ice cream for Coen who had now woken up, and said a final fairwell to the Byhams, then hit the road to see if we could make the last ferry.

    Luckily we pull up to Verdon just as the penultimate ferry was boarding, so we jump straight on. Coen was super excited to see the boat, and that we were actually getting on it. By the time we found a seat by the window, he could barely contain his excitement. Amelia now a seasoned traveller of this route, was a little more blasé and after a quick look at the sea, wanted to play hide and seek - the 30 minute crossing was over in a flash.

    We planned to stop at the aire just the other side of the ferry in Royan, as it was getting close to bedtime by now. Unfortunately the first aire we try is totally full; we even tried to get into the extra car park at the back where we’d noticed a few motorhomes parked up, but the entrance has a 2metre height barrier, and for the life of us we couldn’t figure out how they’d managed to get in.

    We drive another 10 minutes to the next one, and luckily find the last space (although not technically a space) and we wake up early to avoid the parking man, after a night of thinking every engine we hear is the parking man coming to tell us off).

    A quick food and fuel shop, breakfast on the road, and we head to Nantes. We had been recommended Les Machines by a couple of people so thought we better check it out.    Read more

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    La Roche Bernard via Nantes

    August 15, 2019 in France ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    After a straightforward journey into Nantes, (except for the fuss Coen makes as he has now decided he doesn’t just hate his car seat, he can no longer sit in it) we try to find somewhere to park close by Les Machines, even though we know the nearest motorhome car park is just 15 minutes walk away, but we find a Lidl where Nic sees it says it’s only 5euros after the first 1.5hrs which are free, and only a few minutes down the road (more on that later), so we have lunch on the go and head over to the exhibition.

    We walk through to check out what’s about, there are different parts to the attraction and we really wanted to see the giant elephant walking around it’s route, but unfortunately one of the workers informs us the elephant has died (it’s a machine, not a real one!) so we get to see it standing still instead, possibly not quite as impressive as when moving but still amazing to see. We spot the smaller carousel and give the children a go on that.

    They choose their machines - no surprise that Amelia is on the unicorn (more of a mythical Greek horse) and Coen chooses the thing with the most wheels, and they absolutely love going around and around, and finding all the moving parts on their chosen machines.

    We find a park (of course, always the highlight of their days) on the way to the big carousel, try not to stay too long here as it’s a bank holiday and things are getting busy, so we head over to the big carousel, which is an impressive Multi tiered affair.
    There are Sea animals, creatures, and boats across three storeys and you can choose which level you take a ride on.

    After a long-ish queue we head up to the top and choose our rides on this level with great panoramic views of Nantes. The machines are each so unique and amazingly built, sea creatures, boats, mythical animals, a wonderful and bizarre collection. We all get in the sailing boat which tips us from end to end as the ride gets into full swing.

    Each level has different types of carousel ride with the middle level (which Coen would not be allowed on being too small) suspended in the air. Each ‘machine’ has moving parts that make them life-like, some controlled by the rider and some by the carousel moving - with tentacles that wave, eyes that move, wings, mouths and all kinds of other detail.

    We head back across the big pedestrian plaza with the children on their scooters, Amelia heads straight back to the zip line in the park, and Coen gets totally distracted as he sees something zoom passed him on the ground. He drops his scooter and starts running.

    There is a man with a big, very fast 4-wheel drive, remote control car bombing it about the place. I have never see Coen run so fast or so far as he sprints after this car from one end of the plaza to the other, desperately wanting to ‘catch it’. Eventually he starts to tire and looks at me in disappointment, I crouch down with him on my knee and the controller brings the car to us a few times and stops so that Coen can see it. But really, he wants to touch it, lucky the car is pretty speedy.

    Children stand with their legs wide wanting the driver to drive to through their legs, and they are all excited when he does (including Coen who we have to lift to let the car through as it’s so big).

    We decide not to do the gallery today as it involves a guided tour (of the large animals that they have created including a spider, a humming bird, and the Heron tree) though we will definitely come back another year to see the elephant moving and maybe the gallery as the children get older.

    We head back to the car (after an urban nature wee from Amelia who declares she needs a wee when we are just far enough away from the attraction where all the toilets were). As we walk into the car park I notice the sign Nic had seen about parking...and see the bit that he must have missed. Of course it’s written in French but I can make out that the parking is not in fact just 5euros (what a bargain that would be by the way, and why on earth would a city centre car park be empty, just down the road from its major attraction, if it only charged 5e for parking?!?! The things you think of after the event!), it is actually 5euro per 15 minutes...so now we are in for a 45euro parking charge, which even beats our current Dubrovnik ‘we got done’ record! Luckily Nic manages to confuse the man on the intercom who speaks just a little English, so as we pull up to the barrier to our utter amazement he just opens the barrier. We drive off pretty quickly.

    We have done another classic pin point on the map to find our overnight stop over, so head out of Nantes as always apprehensive of what we’ll find.

    We are pleasantly surprised as we pull into the little port town, La Roche-Bernard, where the aire we’ve chosen is actually a campsite with showers and everything! We decide there’s a good chance of finding mussels (again, ahem!) and are in luck, also in the menu, more Saint Jaques, this time on a crepe. Although Coen insists that he’s hungry the whole time until he food arrives, once he has had two bites, he couldn’t be less interested and decides it’s more fun to make friends with other diners instead. Amelia and Nic enjoy the mussels and we are pleased with our chosen spot for the night!

    After an eventful night of wet beds (wee, milk...and that was just from Nic!!), we climb to the top of the view point where there are some cannons for the children to sit on and look out over the beautiful port and rivers beyond, lined with boats and also a spectacular suspension bridge, which we drive over on our way out.

    Our journey continues north further into beautiful Brittany...    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    Brittany coast - overnight in Cancarneau

    August 16, 2019 in England ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    We take a couple of recommendations for today’s visits, but the first, to a little boulangerie for some lunch, leaves us a bit hungry as I go in to find some food and pretty much everything on offer is teeming with wasps due to a high sugar content! We drive on to find an amazing viewpoint out over the big bay and out to the Atlantic at St Rhyus de Gilda.

    Amelia spots some blackberries so we manage to pick so good ones, but most are just out of reach...off Amelia goes back to the Moho and returns with the kitchen tongs; she's rewarded for her initiative with lots more which her and Coen both love.

    We then travel back along the Toute De Passage, which runs alongside the tidal bay and head north to Cancarneau. It’s been a bit of a day of driving, and by the time we arrive it’s raining, everyone is a bit tired out, but we’ve made good progress so that we can reach our friends house in north west Brittany for the weekend!    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    Visiting friends in Le Trehou

    August 17, 2019 in France ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    We’re up early to make good time up towards Brest to the little village of Le Tréhou to visit friends we met in St Girons.

    It’s so lovely to be welcomed into their home, for the children to run around and play with the toys and dogs, and it’s also a bonus to see Coen hasn’t forgotten what a staircase is and how to climb one!! A lovely french lunch and a walk down to the river followed by an amazing bbq, which almost ended in disaster as Coen stuck his finger into Yann’s (the music-lover) prized speakers - luckily the little dent that he made soon popped back out as we were all trying to figure out how it could be fixed!

    They also have a new pet parrot, which Amelia loved to stroke and feed and we taught them to say ‘who’s a pretty boy then?’ to it which they found hilarious. Sophie teaches me how to make quiche for our beach trip, and Nic and Yann talk about surfing, while Amelia watches a film with Lili-Rose and Coen just generally causes chaos around the house...time for bed!    Read more

  • Scudamores On Tour

    Crozon - beach day with our friends!

    August 18, 2019 in France ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    After a lovely breakfast, our hosts take us to one of their favourite beaches, Crozon, in the morning in the hope of surf, and it is a stunningly beautiful beach, but the tide is not quite right for surf and the sun is shining so we spend a lovely day at the beach...a huge stretch of sand when the tide is out, surrounded by rocks and tons of rock pools for us to find sea life in. There are a fair few kite surfers to make Nic envious once more.

    The children love splashing about, and playing with Lili-Rose once more, although Coen’s fear of seaweed has grown and isn’t helped by everyone chasing him with it! They both even get a little surf as the tide comes in. We say a fond farewell to our hosts as they head home and we head across the car park to the little cafe...more Moules Frites for Nic, Amelia settles for a lemon crepe this time!

    We settle down for the night in one of our most picturesque spots, literally a stones throw from the beach looking out to the beautiful bay so that we are able to watch the tide rolling in and out, as the sunsets...a little bit of magic to start out final week of our trip.

    In the morning the children get to play on the beach the minute they wake up, and watch the fishing boats come in (no fish though!) before we take a walk around the headland, it is beautiful and also very much like home, with the shrubs, flowers and trees all reminding us of our own coastlines and forests. Amelia and Coen find more Blackberrys for breakfast - what a great spot!

    We have to head to the north coast next so that we don’t have long drives to reach our ferry, Coen is seriously starting to detest his car seat, lucky we’re nearly home!!    Read more

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