This week's guest blogger is Claire, one of our fab team of mums; she shares with us her recent adventures in France with her young family.
Claire spent a glorious week in the Loire, followed by a second week a short drive away in the idyllic Charente region, and here tells us why her two centre break really hit the spot for her family...
"Having spent a whirlwind week at the beautiful child friendly Cognac Gites last year, we were determined to make the long car journey really worth our while this year with a 2 week family break. But unable to decide on a favourite destination, we opted to try out a two centre holiday...et voilà! The perfect family friendly holiday!
Living in Yorkshire, we always have a hefty journey ahead of us before we even reach the ferry ports, we broke it down with a restorative 'cappuccino and cake break' at a lovely little craft village on the A5, Heart of the Shires (a welcome change for motorway services - highly recommended to anyone travelling down the M1). Suitably revived, we motored on to Portsmouth for an overnight stay (and a highly excitable visit to the cinema at Port Solent marina for the opening night of Pixar's Cars 2, long awaited by Charlie, aged 5, less so by 3 year old Emily...)
Taking the early Portsmouth-Caen ferry the following morning, we arrived at our gite in the beautiful Loire Valley within just a few hours.
It became a family joke that first week just how many times we said 'I can't believe we did this for only 1 week last year...', such was our relief that we could forget about travelling any distance for a while; knowing we had a very different 'beach week' still to come, we were able to enjoy visiting the local chateaux and wineries without feeling we were overdoing the activities, and we still had plenty of time for late afternoon fun in the pool and leisurely suppers with little more than the sound of the crickets and the children laughing with their new found friends to disturb us.
At the end of our first week, with only a 3 hour journey ahead of us, we felt under no pressure to hit the road early, and the day's journey became a part of our adventure, rather than a necessary evil.
To 'hurrays' from the back seat, we arrived at our second family friendly holiday home - the wonderfully family friendly gites at L'Ancienne Ferme, near the Charente coast - in no time. Though we hadn't travelled far, the scenery had subtly shifted from orchards and cornfields to vineyards and sunflowers and the warmth of the sun had jumped a clearly discernable few degrees. We felt like we were beginning an entirely new holiday and were delighted to have a whole week to enjoy some downtime, in contrast to our slightly more active first week.
Then followed a week of lie-ins (even the children's body clocks had by now adjusted to the slower pace), games in the gardens, visits to the beach and card games before a late supper; having already done our winding down, we sank immediately into the leisurely pace of life, with just an occasional burst of energy to cycle to the nearby village for fresh baguettes and pains au chocolat.
I can't sing the praises of our two centre holiday enough - it truly did feel like two holidays in one and gave us the most genuinely relaxing family friendly holiday we've had for some time."
Here at Tots Towers, we often have families ask for our help in planning their own two centre holidays - if you like the idea of having your own double bubble break, why not drop us a line on enquiries@totstotravel.co.uk or call us on 0845 26 941 26 and we'll be happy to help you match up the most suitable properties and destinations for your family?
What a great idea to have a two centre holiday. The change gives the kids the variety they need in a holiday, while you continue relaxing. I'm sure with the change of place it really does make it feel like a longer holiday too. I like it!
Posted by: Clare | August 27, 2011 at 06:23 PM