Our first proper French breakfast of the holiday, bread, croissants and coffee, lots and lots of coffee! Lovely!

We got ready and headed up the road to the amazing park! First there was the grown ups against the kids on the wipe out style inflatable…. penny got stuck on it and had to be rescued from between 2 big balls…. we had a pedalo race and then had a lovely play with some miniature goats! We all had a good bash at a goat selfie with differing degrees of success! There was a maze, and horses….. as well as a giant swing!

We had a picnic and then got on our bikes and headed off for a winery! What's not to love! We cycled along the river to a local co op wine seller and tasted the full range of wines of the Loire!

After making purchases of a selection of wine for the evening, we headed back to camp, let the kids into the pool and sat and watched them playing whilst we enjoyed a bottle of cremant and had a good chat!

A BBQ is now stretching in the evening…. ahhh live France!

This morning dawned with slightly heavy heads from a fun evening with our camping neighbours!

We packed up slowly, showered and headed off in the direction of Angers… it was such a beautiful drive we put the 'Allo 'Allo theme tune on!!

After a pit stop to get supplies (more wine needed hence the headache!!) we headed to the campsite. Hastily booked when all was going wrong.

It's a int he grounds of a large country house and everything is aimed at the children, from the sports dotted around with everything you need, to a great park and pools.

For an extra fee you can have access to the retro fun park… which was quite simply amazing! It's like paultons park before the rollercoaster. It's brilliantly lacking in health and safety!

Half way along a rope bridge over the lake we read the sign which said teenagers and adults only… as we realised that the children were half way across the river!

A BBQ dinner and into bed for all the children and a quiet glass of wine before an earlier night for us!

So, after an early night, we woke up well rested and looked out to see a slightly damp Loire Valley… not heavy rain, just a bit of light drizzle.  It soon brightened up, and Stew put his PE kit on to go out for a run and I set about making a coffee.

What happened next was disastrous for both of us, in a first world problems sort of a way! So… I remembered that I had thrown the kettle out at the end of last years holiday, and this rendered the adamsons kettle less…. I improvised and boiled a pan of water and hung my head in shame at the terrible planning… meanwhile Stews run took a sinister turn when the muck spreader started…. it was a race to the end of the field! He arrived back sweaty with spots of pooh all over him traumatised by the whole situation.

We recovered, and met our neighbours… who have the most awesome camp kitchen! I’ve included the pictures as I do think that the Lealans need to see it!

We had decided to try out my back on a long bike ride… and loaded up the bikes, smothered us in suncream and headed off down the huge hill to find the town.  Directly out the site is a huge hill down to the river, and along the river is a cycle path, and it links into the Loire cycle network, though further investigation would have been good as we ended up a bit lost!  We had a pit stop at Decathlon to buy the children drink bottles and new cycle hats as their heads have grown!

We cycled on through the city and followed a sign to the castle, which was up particularly brutal hill… but we were rewarded with a spectacular view and a well positioned restaurant for lunch.  Hargreaves…. Stew wants you to know that he had a croque monsieur and is pleased to report that he enjoyed it!  Whilst we were sitting eating our lunch the couple beside us started chatting to us and it turned out that they are the Hargraves neighbours in West end… and that they had been looking after their chickens the week before! 

After lunch we headed off back down the hill, and had a look through the town centre… another classic french town with beautiful maintained buildings…. back past the military part of town, past the dancing horses and then on to our next stop, the wine caves of Saumur… sadly we were half an hour too late for the tour, but the building itself was beautiful, and I would love to return.

Back for swimming and a lovely evening with our neighbours…. who are going to a campsite we are at later in the hols too! 

Loving French France and all it offers!

What a short night sleep! We woke up in our little cabin to the melodic Brittany ferries musical alarm…. anyone who has ever been on a Brittany ferry (except Stew who loves it, and has tried to download it for his home alarm more than once) will have detected the slight hint of sarcasm! 5:30am!!!! Do they not know we are on holiday?

For our first stop we are headed to Saumur…. I'm a little anxious because, firstly it's away from the sea and I like to hug the coast in France, and secondly literally all of the campsites in the area were booked except this one, and it has dubious reviews! Still how bad can it be?! We have our own beds, and we will have a good explore!

We have borrowed a gizmo… I'm going to call if the beep beep gizmo which means that the tolls are going to be very simple… just beep beep and then mum and dad pay the tolls!! Highly recommended (though I'm not sure my mum and dad have realised that it's so much fun we will be zooming through France exclusively on toll roads now, slowing down all the cars who thought they could zoom about on the fast roads). Thought it was worth a mention as it makes it simpler if anyone's planning a long journey! https://www.saneftolling.co.uk/

Friends off to France…. don't forget a French adaptor plug for your cabin if you want to charge devices too!

We arrived in Saumur around lunch time and headed to the shops for cheese, meat, bread and wine… that's the menu for the next few weeks.

We decided to give the mushroom museum a swerve en route. We got everything set up whilst the kids went for an explore, then headed to the pool.

Meanwhile I read an unwelcome email from one of the campsite we booked threatened to overshadow the afternoon…. one of the sites we booked for 5 nights had over booked and cancelled… it was the second time we had experienced this and this left us with a weeks hole in the middle of our plans.
My pigeon French and some desperate phone calls have resolved our issues and I can't recommend "camping huttopia" highly enough. We now have ended up with the perfect itinerary and we are all sorted!

We are all exhausted! A busy couple of weeks and a long drive has accumulated in an early night, after a lovely BBQ and a game of crazy gold down the side of the beautiful Loire Valley.

The campsite is spot on…. chilled, simple and clean, with a stunning panoramic view of the the Loire valley…. tomorrow we will cycle the 9km into town for a good look and maybe a wine tasting! There are some dancing horses here so who knows what the day will bring!