Our unplanned England adventure in May was cut short by a surprisingly efficient UK Passport Service. I had my new UK passport in my hands just 2 weeks after I submitted the application.
We had been making our way over to Wales but the weather had turned so unusually cold that we were all a bit miserable.
Without the right clothes to be out in the cold weather day after day it wasn’t a lot of fun riding or walking around in cool, wet and windy weather with the kids.
From chilly England to sunny France
So we made a snap decision to leave England and head over to France. Our first stop was Paris – where we spent three gorgeous days exploring the city.
Visiting Paris in a campervan
Paris is such a beautiful city and I was very excited to return. Sunny (the campervan) is a large vehicle and the thought of driving him into large cities is a little daunting.
While it isn’t quite the same as renting an apartment or staying in a family-friendly hostel in the city, we found a great campsite west of the city in Maisson-Lafitte. Our site was on the River Seine and we caught the train straight into the heart of Paris each day.
Exploring Paris
Cities are expensive places to visit. As Matt and I visited Paris many years ago we felt less pressure to visit every major site. Our view is that the kids will most likely visit Europe as adults, so we don’t need to cover off every landmark. Despite that we still ended up having three very busy days as there is just so much to do in Paris.
We tried to have a mix of activities each day to keep the kids engaged and not tire them out too quickly. In between wandering the streets, admiring the views and eating wonderful food, some of our highlights were:
Notre Dame
We visited Notre Dame on our first day. I thought the kids would enjoy being up close to the gargoyles leaping out from the rooftops. I had read about the queues in Paris but I figured it wasn’t peak season so they shouldn’t be too bad. I was so wrong! We arrived at around 10.30 and queued for over 1.5 hours to take the walk up the towers to the rooftop and belfry. I was amazed the kids stuck it out.
When we finally got to the front of the queue everyone enjoyed the dizzying walk up a gorgeous circular stone staircase. The views are spectacular. Once we had soaked up the city views we ventured out to explore the nearby city.
Eiffel Tower
We learned our lesson from the queues at Notre Dame and made sure to get up early for our visit to the Eiffel Tower. For as long as I can remember, Amelie has been telling me how much she wants to visit Paris and the Eiffel Tower, so it was a pretty exciting day.
