Slow Down and Carry Snacks: Traveling with Kids
We are looking forward to traveling around Europe during the many (many, many, many) school holidays. For the fall break, we decided to explore Provence. There are a lot of amazing things to see just a short drive from where we are staying, so we set off to find them.
These day trips were (mostly) great – but it was always enlightening to hear the kid version of what we had just seen. Some days it was like they had been in a totally different places than JM and I had.
We visited Vaison la Romaine, a town with a bridge built two thousand years ago by the Romans (it withstood a recent flood that wiped out all the modern bridges) and a fabulous Roman amphitheater. But for the girls, the best part was the old Roman toilets “all in a row”.
Adult Pick: 1st Century Bridge at Vaison la Romain
Kid Pick: Roman Toilets at Vaison la Romaine
We visited a beautiful and historic stone overhang thing (not quite a cave) where a famous author used to write letters. That night, the kids couldn’t stop talking about the very HUGE mushroom they saw beside the parking lot.
Kid Pick: Cool Mushroom
We went to the Grotte de la Cocalière, a truly amazing cave with incredible stalactites and stalagmites reflected in perfectly still water. The next day they wrote a letter to their cousin in Oregon and it was all about the little train that took us back to the parking lot at the end of the cave walk.
Adult Pick: Stalactites and Stalagmites
Kid Pick: The train at the end of the cave tour
It is nice that when things don’t go as planned, the kids can find something to else to do very easily. We planned to visit a Troglodyte Village in Bollene. The Routard recommended it for children – and how can you not love cavemen houses? But when we got there we found out that it was temporarily closed for safety reasons. So we wandered around the medieval part of town and the girls found a pile of leaves to jump in and had a fantastic time. (JM liked the 11th-century church behind the leaf pile.)
Kid Pick: Pile of Leaves. Adult Pick: 11th Century Church in Background
More pictures from our fall day-trips in Provence are posted on the Kids and Castles Facebook page.
That’s great — kids find great things to remember, and they aren’t always quite what we’d remember …. but, alas, we also find Roman toilets memorable — here’s some of my family in Ephesus this summer:
http://gwyneth.butera.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/img-100706-67.jpg
That is a GREAT picture @travelgoon!!! Thanks for sharing.
I was not all that surprised that “roman toilets” would come out as a search word leading to your blog, because the subject is most interesting. “How to pronounce reconnaissance” is more surprising. I don’t get it. Does it go on the number of times reconnaissance is mentioned? On the number of occurrences of “reconnaissance ” ? Mind you, your blog on life in Provence for a young Canadian couple with two kids formerly living in the USA spending a whole year in Provence is fascinating, and it does deserve “reconnaissance”, but who care how it is pronounced. Reconnaissance, any pronunciation notwithstanding, is well deserved. So you have all my reconnaissance and thanks foryour blog that we just love to follow. And although you don’t hear it, I pronounce it “à la française”. Vous avez toute ma reconnaissance parce que vous continuez à alimenter ce merveilleux blog. Merci.