Tuesday 4th March : Passais and Domfront

Punch buggy!
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Packing day – meant to leave Passais today for the Loire Valley, but we didn’t get organised enough. Stayed another night and went to a couple of interesting sites within five minutes of the town. There is the “Devils’ Table”. Moira was not able to tell us why it is called this. It has two rows of massive rocks with another lot of rocks over the top of them forming some sort of table. I think it is a similar date as Stonehenge in England. There is also a Menhir nearby. It is in someone’s garden and we went to see it. The kids are a bit obsessed with Obelix and his menhirs so they were convinced he put it there.

Inside a punch buggy.
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We also visited the medieval city of Domfront. It is one of those amazing towns with tiny winding cobblestone streets. We froze – it was 4 degrees celcius but as we looked around the ruins the wind just whistled through our jackets and made us very thankful for all the mod cons – especially the heating. It was a fantastic ruined castle perched up on a cliff. And it was a bit scary how much they let you climb all over it.

We bought Isaac an early birthday present of a Coolpix camera – Kate has his old camera and we bought a cheap digital for Michael (again both early birthday presents) so now they all have one. The younger kids kept wanting to take photos of things with our camera – not a good plan. We realised that they are very visual and that we would like to give them a chance to record what they think is important. So we are discovering the trip through their eyes (remarkably different in many cases – but it is pretty cool to have ten photos of those strung together balls that they use instead of cones on the French motorways) and also teaching them to be responsible to recharge their own batteries.

See how it is shaped like a fist?
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NOTE: I wanted to tell you about small cars that kids call “punch-buggies” They are tiny smart cars that we first saw wedged into miniscule car parking spots in Paris. The kids think they are the shape of a fist and whenever they see one they shout out “Punch buggy” and they punch someone. There were also some things that they call “tickle bikes” which are a motorbike with a clear Perspex hood protecting the driver from the rain. We don’t see so many of these but if they are about we are sure to hear the shout “Tickle bike” … and then they tickle someone. Have a look at the photos to see Davey and Moira’s little Punch Buggy. So cute.