For the May half-term, we packed a week’s worth of clothes, got into the car and drove to France. Okay, there might have been more to this. Like spending weeks looking at which Eurocamp holiday parc would best suit our family and then researching what one needs for a Eurocamp holiday as well as what you need for driving in France. And obviously you have to book the ferry. If you try driving straight to France, you will literally be swimming with the fishes.
I must note that this was our first holiday abroad as a family of four. Dubz, who has just turned five, has always been quite crazy a handful. But he has calmed down in the past year and we got him his first passport in May. We also thought that travelling by ferry would be a good way to ease into a holiday (I reckon we will be brave enough for plane travel in a few months).
So anyway, after much deliberation, we chose La Garangeoire in the Vendee (on the west coast of central France). I had read that there is better weather there than the northern parts of France, plus it requires much less driving to than the south of France. And we were not disappointed. While it did drizzle a couple of mornings, the weather was mostly sunny and warm. We had an amazing week at La Garangeoire, and I wanted to show you what a holiday looks like when every member of the family proclaims it to be ‘the best holiday ever’.
Swimming
On our first day at La Garangeorire, it was 33C, which was hotter than necessary, but luckily a couple of hours in the pool kept us all sane. In fact, we spent every afternoon/early evening at the pool. When we first arrived, Dubz was quite nervous of the water (he hasn’t been swimming often as he has had a lot of problems with his ears/hearing). After a few minutes in his inflatable ring, Dubz was feeling confident and even tackling the slides. This meant that after the first visit to the pool, I was able to lie down on a deck chair tanning while the kids tired themselves out on the slides (don’t worry, there was a lifeguard on duty and I did occasionally glance at my children as I relaxed in the sun).
Another thing we liked was that there was a covered pool. This would be perfect if you wanted to give your children a break from the sun. My half-brown children did not need a break, but my very pale husband definitely did. He really enjoyed being able to keep cool in the pool while staying out of the sun. Dubz also created a new trend called pool yoga. I’m not sure where he got this from, but he was doing the cutest little meditation poses in the pool.