A day in Vannes

On our return from Cantal, we kept the rental car for a couple of days and headed to Vannes to return it. Despite 35 years of going to Quiberon and a rather short distance (30 miles), I had never even been there. It's a shame, because it's a very picturesque city. Now the wrong has been righted.

And Frank Sinatra's got nothing on this kid...

Sunny Sailing

There are beautiful days to go sailing in Brittany...

Then there are days like these...

In Bretagne

We arrived in Brittany the second week in August. 

Lucie had not been sleeping very well during the first half of our trip. So we ignored all the parenting books' advice and bribed her with a bowl of chocolate milk for breakfast if she would please, please, PLEASE not wake us up during the night. It's amazing how quickly the promise of chocolate milk can drive away nightmares, spiders, thirst and what have you. Here she is proudly with her bowl.

While Lucie was busy not sleeping, Malo was also not sleeping. He learned to roll from his back onto his belly during the beginning of our vacation.

Everyone came to see his new trick.

 

Even his rabbit was impressed.

He also practiced sitting, but this is something he is much less interested in learning.

 

 

On the way to Bretagne

After a week in Auvergne, we headed towards Brittany. We decided to break up the 9-hour drive by stopping on route. Our first stop was in Uzerche, were we visited the old city. It's a very beautiful old town.

 

Of course, being with Lucie, we had to go see the church as well.

It's a bit of a family tradition that we let little kids crawl on the floor of churches...

We stopped at a Chambres d'Hôtes in Usson-du-Poitou. Lucie was beat. Thankfully, faithful George was there.

Malo played, having slept most of the trip.

In the morning, we visited the grounds of the farm. The farmers are retired, but they now raise super-shaggy donkeys, among which a big herd of baudets du Poitou (and not "de Poitou" as the English-language wikipedia would have you believe) (in French here). Apparently, there is a market for these in the US, where they've got an act as a Bob Marley cover bands on weekends.

Lucie managed to convince one of the farmers' grand-daughters to take her up close and personal with the dwarf donkeys.

On road trips, Lucie's mostly very good. She watches movies and listens to her music, using the trusted "da-di-da" (headphones).

Here is a map of the whole trip.

Plomb du Cantal - Super Lioran

The Massif Central, which are the mountains where Auvergne is located, has a few ski stations, which are small but family-oriented. In the summer, the slopes are open to hiking and mountain biking. We went to the Plomb du Cantal, at the Super-Lioran ski station, where we rode a gondola to the top of the mountain and walked down.

Prior to riding up, Malo got a meal on the go.

The gondola... Lucie thought it was great to ride above the mountain, but she was glad when we reached the top.

From the top of the gondola, it was a short walk to the top of the mountain.

 We all had "gouter" at the top and a bit of a rest before the long walk down.

The view from the top, where the mountains that we see are what remains of a single, enormous volcano that collapsed prior to the last ice age.

 Lucie and Adele discussed the latest geological theories related to this amazing site.

On the slopes, you can find gentiane flowers, whose enormous roots (think several feet long) are used to make alcohol.

We walked down along a path that's a ski slope in the winter, thinking it'd be easier for the kids. It turned out to be a 3 hour walk.

 

It's a well-known fact that on mountainsides, dads carry babies...

At the bottom of the hill, after a long walk, the kids somehow still had energy to play on the bouncy castle.

And Malo played with bouncy dad.

 

On the ride back (20 minutes), we had to keep Lucie awake so that she would be able to sleep that night, she spent the entire time screaming at us that we were not nice for not letting her nap...

On vacation - more pics from Thiezac

While in Thiezac, we took advantage of some of the surrounding "cultural" and natural offerings. We went for a hike in the Gorges de la Jordanne, where Lucie proved once again to be quite the natural hiker.

 

The weather was really awful, but we were sheltered by the trees and deep gorges (nearly 60 meters in places). As always, Lucie asked lots of questions, which we dutifully, if a bit wearily, tried to answer. It was a really lovely walk, and quite easy for a 3 year old.

On another day, we took Lucie to what we thought was going to be a medieval-themed educational experience. It turned out to be a very lame Renaissance fair (in the US sense of that word). Still Lucie had fun visiting the castle.

 There were horsemanship displays

and Lucie-ship displays.

 Sometimes, walking with Lucie's just a blur...

What!? if you fed me properly, this wouldn't have to happen to Mr. Hippo...