Vive la France! Our closest neighbour. I can, in fact, travel to Paris or Brittany quicker than reaching my parents in Norh Yorkshire. But I haven’t’ always wanted to….
When my boys were young, family holidays consisted of long car journeys and unremarkable Eurocamps. “Beyond Eurocamp” was actually my original working title for this blog. We had all become jaded with France. In fact, my older boy had developed a vehement hatred of the country. This followed a Brittany trip where, as a vegetarian, he ate more pizza than he ever had in Italy due to the complete lack of other alternatives. Memorably we spent 15 minutes rifling through the fridges at a motorway service station trying to find any sandwich that was vegetarian. Even egg came with a unnecessary slice of jambon (ham)!
Happy memories
After a few years of cold turkey, I started to miss France. One of the best years of my life was spent living in the Parisian suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne as part of my languages degree. I shared a flat with a German girl and made unremarkable attempts at teaching English to French teenagers. After 3 course lunches with cheese and wine in the school staff canteen (yes really!), I would spend my evenings and weekends exploring the city of light / drinking more wine.
My hubby and I had enjoyed road trips around the sunny south (think NIce, Cannes, Antibes), gastronomic breaks in Bordeaux and Marseille (oh the bouillabaisse!), skiing and summer hiking in the mountains, and city stays in Lille, Strasbourg and Rouen. France wasn’t all bad, in fact it was generally pretty damn good. It was just the young kid / excess use of meat which had tainted it. We therefore decided to jump back in with a 6-day break to Paris.
Read on to find out more about our Paris break and our other French adventures. You might also consider a short hop over to France’s near cousin, Belgium. Click here to read my review of the best things to do in Brussels with older kids.