We just got back from our big tour of France. France is a bit bigger than it needs to be, there’s a lot of boring nothingness in the middle that no one would really miss if they got rid of it and added it to somewhere that could do with spreading out a bit like Tokyo. We’ve got a scratch map of France and we’ve really done most of the best bits now:
This is only places we’ve stayed overnight. Stripes means not all 4 of us have been there, it was before one or both the boys were born.
I mentioned last time that we won a weekend in Paris and that we turned it into a longer trip to see Dan’s family and my French exchange partner from the year 2000! And we just visited some new bits of France. By a weird timing coincidence, or maybe just the fact that people go on trips when they have a 2 week February half term, Dan’s cousin and family came to stay with us just before we left. They were on their own road trip in the opposite direction. They came from the west, from one of the pointless empty departments of France called Ger,s and were heading to Marseille, so we were a handy stop off.
Dan’s cousin Patricia is the same age as us and also has 2 boys a similar age to our boys. Last time we saw them was a big party they had for their 10th wedding anniversary when we hadn’t been in France long and apart from Dan none of us could really speak French. This time the boys were all chatting away in French and Patricia commented on how their accent was 100% french. Obviously mine is still only about 7% French but I could follow conversation well and say some stuff badly. They slept over and we had a lovely meal together, they’re a nice family and we have a good amount in common. And it was great to hang out.
They left on Monday morning for Marseille, and we left to Bordeaux. It about 4 and a half hours drive. I drove for around an hour of that and there were no major incidents. I followed the sat nav fine and didn’t bash into anything. It’s important to note that for later.
For this trip we were staying in a selection of the worst rooms Airbnb has to offer, so I was actually presently surprised by how nice a garden shed on the outskirts of Bordeaux was. We got there late afternoon and then headed out on the tram to explore the city. We didn’t have time to see a lot but from what I saw it seemed nice. They had a shop selling Pokémon cards so the boys were happy. For tea we had our pie left overs from the night before in the glorified garden shed. That’s the great thing about having a car in Europe, if you had flown for a city break from London I bet you wouldn’t take your pie leftovers.
The next Day we went further north to La Rochelle. It’s only about 2 hours so we had more time to explore and enjoy it. Or we would have had chance to enjoy it if it wasn’t for our whining children who do not enjoy wandering round places with no purpose, or eating mussels despite the fact one of them ordered moule frites. They cheered up a bit when we went to a beach on the Île-de-Re. It’s an island you can get to by bridge. It’s 4 euros on and free to get off, but if I worked for their council as a fundraiser I’d make it free to get on and 100 euros to leave. We saw people with kite buggies which was really fun. Then we went to sleep in a holiday park mobile home.
The next part of the trip was all going to plan. It was maybe 3 hours 30 to Dan’s Auntie’s house in Vitré. This auntie is the mum of cousin Patricia. We also saw Dan’s Grandma, she loved seeing her great grandchildren talking fluently in French. Her own daughter (Dan’s mum) left France as an 18 year old and became very English, so it feels like a nice kind of completing of a cycle that her great grandchildren are currently very French.
On the way Dan had been driving for a while so I took over for a bit, but just after a little picnic stop in Nantes I hit a curb and completely flattened a tyre. Annoyingly we had a spare full-sized tyre in our front yard at home that Dan considered bringing but decided against it. Dan put on what the French call a galette (pancake) the thin spare tyre that you’re not meant to have already driven hundreds of miles on. We could drive on it but only to get to a garage where they could get us a new tyre. Except they wanted to get us 2 new front tyres and do some kind of an alignment thing for safety. This came to more than the entire cost of fuel we used for this 2300 km trip. And added 2 hours to our journey time. The guy did say they have big curbs in Nantes, so not my fault!
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Vitré |
Dan’s auntie has a cool house with a loft room that’s like a sixth form common room of dreams. The boys loved playing pool and table football, and we enjoyed incredible French cooking and 4 course meals that take hours. We caught up with another of Dan’s cousins and explored a bit of Vitré.
Next we were off to Paris, to see my French bestie Flick who made us an Eiffel Tower themed lunch! We had this incredible pink meringue topped with fruit and cream and sprinkles followed by an Eiffel Tower making competition.
It was a lot of fun catching up. We then drove right through the centre of Paris including what must be the worlds most stressful roundabout the Arc de Triomphe which has 12 exits. I mean it wasn’t stressful for me, I was just filming it for TikTok videos, but Dan did a great job and didn’t even hit any curbs.
Saturday was our only full day in Paris and we were going to climb the 670 steps up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. But just to make sure we were really tired by the end of the day, we missed our bus from the campsite to the train station and had to walk 30 minutes to begin the day.
If you asked Percy he would say he kept us all going on the boring walk by telling us exciting facts about the Eiffel Tower that he’s been learning at school. If you asked me I would say that we tolerated listening to facts because they were distracting him from complaining about the walk. We then were on various forms of public transport for a really long time before we began the climb. This is my 3rd time up and I doubt I’d go again, 3 is enough for a life time. The new thing they had this time was a netted bridge that goes diagonally between the corners very high up so you can look down and feel a bit wobbly.
After that we met up with Flick again and went to see some modern art,. I loved the massive colourful piece by Raoul Duffy that you could sit in the middle of. We all talked about which panel we would take home if we could. We mucked around a bit, and got some snooty looks from the security guard.
I love art, but I hate looking at stuff without touching it, in silence, in pretentious buildings. I’ve always thought art galleries and swimming pools should combine. There’s nothing to look at if you’re swimming lengths in a boring pool, and then galleries there’s stuff to look at but nothing to do with your body. In the afternoon we went to look round the lego shop and then went out for pizza. We were so tired, but unfortunately our bus to the campsite was cancelled so we had to walk again. At the end of the day Dan’s watch said he had done 20,000 steps!
On Sunday we packed up our stuff and had a little wander round a local park before going to visit my friend Morgane. She was my French exchange partner from the year 2000, when I was 14. Other people called it the French exchange, for me it was more like a mime workshop. First we were pen pals. I actually swapped for her, my friend was given the info sheet about her and she looked more interesting than the one I had. I said to my friend, “your one looks fun” and she said, “you can have her” it’s weird how that little swap lead to me eating a delicious raclette in the outskirts of paris 25 years later.
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Me and Morgane in the brace gerbil days. That bit of head in the corner is now taller than me. |
I had met her one other time since then, in 2013. Me and Dan were on our big trip and I was still awful at French, but he could translate for me now, so through Dan we were able to have loads of conversations that we couldn’t have back in the early 2000s. It was a fun meet up then and since moving here I’ve thought I would love to see Morgane again and be fluent at French and for my kids to meet her kids. Unfortunately I’m not fluent at French yet, but I am pretty good at understanding it and I can speak it badly. Next time, maybe in another 13 or so years, we can meet again and maybe I will be fluent. It seems unlikely, given that I recently asked a sales assistant for a box of oasis instead of a bottle.
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Me and Morgane 2025 |
We travelled back to Perpignan via a village near Clermont-Ferrand. I wonder if anyone has been to that city to actually see it, or if everyone there is just half way between Paris and an interesting southern city. I imagine that everyone who has ever moved there just had one nights stay over there and met someone they liked there, I can’t see any other reason you would go. A bit like Coventry where I’m from. My Dad moved there for a job, my Mum moved there for uni, they never intended to get stuck there for most of their lives.
We finally arrived home on Monday, I drove for 90 minutes of the journey and nothing bad happened. The 66 region welcomed us back with a beautiful sunset.