Dawn near Talybont-on-Usk
Mid September to early October saw us on holidays in France and the UK. Flying with Qantas from Sydney to Singapore we taxied into Changi, passing Qantas’ first Airbus A380. The aeroplane was on its ferry flight from Europe to Sydney. So we saw this historic aeroplane before it landed in Australia – that was cool.
We then changed flights to an Air France Boeing 777-300ER for the flight to Charles de Gaulle. Both kids were really good on these flights – it’s helped that this is David’s third long haul flight to the Europe (all before he was 5 years old) and Chelsea has been to New Zealand and Perth. Landing in Paris we picked up our hire car (a Peugot 407 – all our luggage just squeaked in). We had a villa booked at a Marriott resort next to Disneyland Paris. Luckily the villa was ready for us, so after a quick shower and change we drove into Paris. Parking near Parc du Champs de Mars we walked up to the Eiffel tower. We then queued for well over an hour and finally headed up to the second level. After some photos we finally made it to the top. Next day – Disneyland Paris – the kids loved it (that’s the most positive thing I have to say!). Leaving the area the next day we headed down to our second destination via the relatively new Millau Bridge – an amazing feat of engineering. We had a house booked in the little village of Poilhes in Languedoc – right next to the Canal du Midi. While down in this part of the world Dave and I visited the Airbus A380 facility at Toulouse Blagnac airport. We saw several A380’s in construction – including the soon to be finished second A380 for Qantas. We also visited Carcassone and the ruined chateaux at Peyrepertuse. We only had 4 nights in Poilhes (which was OK as the place was nosiy – even if it was a small village – it was harvest time and tractors and trucks roamed the roads and the village church rang its bells on the hour and half hour all day and all night – twice!).
Our next destination was Simiane La Rotonde – a small village in northern Provence. We had a beautiful villa in a beautiful little village. From here we visited Mont Ventoux, Avignon, Arles, Gordes and generally drove around the local region a fair bit. A lot of fuss has been made over Provence – some people likening it to some sort of nirvanic (is that a word?) heaven on earth. Well… I beg to differ. It’s certainly a nice part of the world, very pretty, but there’s not a great deal to do there (especially with young kids) and just simple things like buying groceries is a hassle (as we often find in France). So while we enjoyed Provence I don’t think we’d rush back.
We left France via Marseille airport, flying to Gatwick. From Gatwick we picked up our next hire car – a crummy Vauxhall Safira (even though we’d booked a VW Passat). I drove us in the driving rain (and darkness) down to our next destination – a cottage we had rented in a small spot called Talybont-on-Usk in the Brecon Beacons. We had a great 5 days here – visiting Mary and Danny and Mary and Mostyn, going shopping to Cardiff without the kids (we usually only going shopping sans petit enfants biennially in Cardiff – on the other side of the planet!). Our final stop was with Caroline’s cousin Linda in London. We took the kids to the Tower of London and as it was David’s 5th birthday that week we took him to the mega toy shop Hamleys.
The flight back was again a piece of cake – which is amazing considering we were traveling with two small kids. On reflection it was a lovely holiday – in many respects I wish it had been longer – there were so many things we didn’t get to do as time was short. However spending 3 weeks away from home, doing a lot of driving, and living in various different locations is hard work on young kids so by the end of the holiday we were all ready to come home again.
