Wombats

We received such great advice and feedback to my pre-holiday questions, I wanted to come back with a trip report which might help other families travelling in France and Spain.

I’ll provide a brief overview of what we did and if anyone has questions, I’m happy to check back to provide more detail.

Firstly, we are two adults with three kids (5,5,2 years old). We had a five week holiday over Easter (March – April), equally split between France and Spain.

We used the French car lease back scheme and drove a Citroen Picasso Grande between cities and utilised public transport within cities. We travelled with our own car seats, travel baby cot, five weeks’ worth of nappies etc. And while we actually had a lot of luggage,we found it fairly seamless, arriving at the airport, being met by the Citroen Rep, clicking our car seats in and away we went. With the use of a GPS, and despite the horror stories from others, we found the driving easy. We understand others find the driving distances vast, but perhaps coming from Australia and having kids who are used to driving holidays, we weren’t bothered by this at all.

Accommodation wise, we either used AirBnB or booked apartments on Booking.com. We stayed exclusively in fully equipped, family apartments with secure off street car parks. Lots of the places we stayed at either had heated pools, big yards and/or toys for children.

Our itinerary turned out as follows. We had 10 days in the middle, which we booked on the road, allowing for some flexibility. The rest we pre-booked before we left. The towns listed below are where we slept each night. Major activities during that day are listed next. Most days also included a play at a park somewhere. Daylight savings started while we were in Paris and it was light until 8/9pm at night.

1 Arrive Paris
2 Paris – Lourve, Les Colonnes de Buren Square
3 Paris – Eiffle Tower, Sacre Coeur, Montmarte
4 Paris – Musee de L’Orangerie, Champ de Elysee, Laduree, Arc de Triumph (Hop on hop off bus)
5 Paris (Easter Sunday) – Notre Dame, Batobus Tour, Parc des Buttes Chaumont
6 Paris – Luxembourg Gardens
7 Mont St Michel – Depart Paris in early morning. Drive to Versailles. Depart after late lunch and drive to Mont St Michel.
8 Mont St Michel
9 Loire Valley – Depart early. Visit Azay-le-Rideau. It was torrential rain, so we skipped Villandry.
10 Loire Valley – Da Vinci House (Chateau du Close Luce, Parc Leonardo da Vinci), Amboise (Friday morning market).
11 Loire Valley – Chenonceau, Chambord
12 Orange – Depart early. Drive to Puy de Dome. Visit Vulcania amusement park. Drive to Orange. We actually stayed in a country farm house 20 minutes outside of Orange, perfect for kids.
13 Orange – Pont du Gard, Uzes
14 Orange – Caverne du Pont D’Arc, Aven d’Orgnac,
15 Orange –Gordes, Abbaye Notre-Dame de Senanque, Roussillon, Sault, Mont Venoux.
16 Orange – Fontaine de Vaucluse, L’Isle sur la Sorgue, Chocolaterie Castelain (Kids’ chocolate cooking class), Teatre de Orange
17 Arles - Chateau des Baux de Provence, Carrieres de Lumineres. Drive to Arles.
18 Aigues Mortes/Camargue – Arles Saturday market. Drive to Aigues Mortes after lunch.
19 Aigues Mortes / Camargue – Parc Ornithologique de Pont de Gau, Salin de Bardon
20 Barcelona – Drive to Barcelona
21 Barcelona – Sagrada Familia, Picasso Gallery
22 Barcelona - Park Guell, La Boqueria food market, Las Ramblas
23 Valencia – Drive to Valencia.
24 Valencia – Oceanografic Aquarium, Gulliver’s Park
25 Granada – Drive to Granada
26 Granada – Alhambra (highly recommend the kid’s sticker book for keeping kids engaged as you walk around)
27 Granada - Sierra Nevada (build a snowman), Flamenco show.
28 Granada – I got up early and did the Lonely Planet El Nino Graffiti walk, Albayzin.
29 Cordoba – Drive to Cordoba. Stop at El Tornillo del Torcal National Park for a day walk.
30 Cordoba - Mezquita
31 Madrid – Drive to Madrid
32 Madrid –Reina Sofia, Chocolateria de San Gines, Plaza Mayor.
33 Madrid - Parque del Buen Retiro, Mercado de San Miguel.
34 Madrid – I went shopping by myself (Antigua Casa Talavera, Casa Hernanz, Monastery of Corpus Christi, Monasterio de la Visitacion), while hubby took the kids to the excellent Madrid Rio Park. Depart 10pm

What we would have done differently – We had terrible weather in Loire Valley. I think we would have dropped a night here and added a stop over in Puy de Dome. The kids loved Vulcania and, instead of just 4 hours, we could easily have spent the whole day.

Trip highlights – Mont St Michel, Chenonceau, Alhambra, Sierra Nevada, Vulcania, Sagrada Familia, Caverne du Pont D’Arc, Camargue’s pink flamingos

Overall, we had a fabulous trip. We saw a lot, but still went slowly enough to allow for lots of croissants, carousels and ice-cream. Instead of fabulous restaurants, we visited many, many local parks along the way. Being able to cook our own breakfast and dinner each night was perfect for keeping the kids relaxed, saved a lot of money eating out and let us experience lots of local produce bought at the local farmer’s markets along the way. With respect to galleries, we were very targeted, only visiting our most wanted and prepping the kids before hand with kid's books about Picasso, Mona Lisa etc.

It was our first overseas holiday with kids and while it was a totally different experience to travelling before children, we would do it again.

Cheers

thursdaysd

Sounds like a great trip. Thanks for the TR.

kimhe

<Being able to cook our own breakfast and dinner each night was perfect for keeping the kids relaxed, saved a lot of money eating out and let us experience lots of local produce bought at the local farmer’s markets along the way>

Excellent tip, and the way our parents used to do it back in the 70's when they took me and my younger brother on several car holidays through Great Britain and continental Europe.

bilboburgler

thanks for reporting back

progol

Enjoyed your report - sounds like a wonderful trip! I'm impressed by how well your trip works for both adults and kids -- you saw a lot but also provided great kid-time in your travels. Thanks for writing this up.

indyhiker

What a great trip! It sounds like it was a great experience for all involved.

How easy did your find your day trips from Orange? Was traffic and/or the roads easy to navigate? We're eyeing a base in Uzes a couple years from now (next year is Spain!) and you visited many of the places from Orange that we'd like to visit as well.

kerouac

I am a bit bemused by the concept of arriving with 5 weeks worth of nappies. France and Spain are not exactly South Sudan.

I am just between Orange and Avignon as I read this report.

Wombats

Re the nappies

Our daughter has sensitive skin and only one brand of wipes and nappies don't give her a rash. The change in tap water upset her tummy. I'm so glad we had the right nappies from home. A baby with nappy rash is best avoided while on the road.

We accidentally forgot our nappy bag while out in Paris one day and we did have a hard time finding a supermarket that sold nappies, as the pharmacy we tried didn't. And they were expensive!

We also brought certain snacks and five weeks worth of weatbix for my extremely fussy/ sensory issues son.

We had the space, bringing things from home that helped our kids be comfortable was a big part of our successful trip.

Wombats

The day trips from Orange were great. For us the advantage of a lovely farm house for five days, complete with toys and a yard, outweighed the extra travel time. We also tried to group day trips into circuits, si we rarely drove the same roads twice.

If we didn't have kids, we would do it differently.

indyhiker

Thanks for answering my question! Out of curiosity, how would you do it without kids (we don't have any)?

Wombats

Without kids you don't really need to try to create a base for them and it's easy to stay 2 nights here and there without worrying about adjusting. So we would choose a few little towns and stay 2 nights here and there and reduce drive time. But there are thousands of suggestions of itineraries for couples doing just this - you don't need my two cents! ��

Wombats

And I should add, with our GPS, we found the driving easy. French road rules are pretty straight forward, no trouble driving on the opposite side of the road and the roads were good. There are a lot of tolls and Via Michelin was great for working out routes.

Happy travels

Adelaidean

Travelling anywhere with 3 young children is challenging, well done on your planning. A great experience for you all.
Am currently in Italy with teens, and even they prefer bases, rather than 1 or 2 nighters.

indyhiker

Thanks for your perspective. In years past, we have tended to do spoke and wheel itineraries, with one base for a week or so. We like to rent apartments and they often require longer stays. But this coming year, we're doing something closer to what you suggest with shorter stays in more places--mostly because Andalucia doesn't lend itself to one base. So we!ll get to test which style we prefer.

kerouac

It's funny, as a small child I absolutely loved changing hotels and cities every day (at age 6 then at age 10 then at age 14). Everybody is different.

At age 17 I was touring Europe alone and independently.

kimhe

<Andalucia doesn't lend itself to one base> Understand what you mean, but Málaga city could work fine. 50 minutes to Córdoba (AVE Train), 90 minutes to Granada (bus), less than two hours to Sevilla (train) and some 40 minutes to Antequera, the so called heart or crossroads of Andalucía.
http://www.spain.info/en/que-quieres...antequera.html
http://wild-about-travel.com/2011/07...ing-antequera/

indyhiker

Fair enough, Kimhe, but in planning the trip, I took note of how many people mentioned how different the towns can be after day trippers leave. So, we opted to have shorter stays in several places rather than a single base. Plus, each of the places we're visiting warrant more time it would seem than a single day trip would allow.