A few weeks ago, I promised I would report back on our journey to France and let you know how it really went. The good, the bad and the ugly, I promised you it all.

If I’m honest I was a little bit terrified at the prospect of the journey and accused Husband of romanticising the whole idea. Whilst he insisted it would be exciting, I had visions of children suffering from travel sickness, me vomiting on the ferry and lots of winging, bored and bad behaviour. Well we do have three small children and I’m not very good on boats either.

However, I’m pleased to share that my vision couldn’t have been further from the truth and on this (rare) occasion Husband might have been right!

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The journey started with us waking them all up and putting them in the car at around 3.30am. We had of course prepared them for this and Poppy especially was quite excited about the whole thing. It was a few hours to Dover for us but thankfully they did drift off back to sleep after the novelty of being up in the dark wore off, waking up just as we reached the ferry queue.

We gave them all a travel sickness pill then and told them it was a vitamin. They didn’t complain or query and we had no sickness thank goodness (I took two)!

The ferry crossing was smooth and we had breakfast to fill the time and fill them up. There was plenty of choice from a fat boys breakfast that I must admit didn’t look great to porridge and fruit. The sit down restaurant was fully booked quickly so if thats your intention I would head straight there.

By the time we arrived it was goodbye England and bonjour France. We were all very excited despite the prospect of the long journey ahead. The girls had dvds to keep them entertained, books, music, an iPod filled with kids stuff and a Nintendo DS. I had a supply of drinks and snacks to keep them going too. There might even have been a sneaky bag of Harribo for when they were getting really fidgety.

The French roads were almost empty and totally unlike England with no road words or traffic jams. Husband was most impressed. The toll roads in particular were really good with fantastic rest areas for families like us. There were picnic areas, play parks and toilet facilities outside and really good restaurants inside. We didn’t feel ripped off either when we brought drinks and food and felt rested before continuing with the journey.

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We took our time and reached Vendee in about 8 hours from Calais. It would have taken 6.5 without any stops but we stopped quite a few times on the way there as we weren’t in a rush. We couldn’t book into our accommodation until 3pm.

It was quicker on the way back as we only stopped briefly twice to swap drivers and once for a proper dinner. The girls particularly enjoyed that stop, they all enjoyed a meal, drink and an ice lolly each and received a goody bag which included a puree apple and a little pack of pencils, pad and sharpener.

There was a jetty out to a lake with fish in it to explore, a play park and a viewpoint you could climb up to. We could have stayed much longer but had a ferry to catch. However, we were all feeling rested when we got back in the car and were happy to continue with the journey:

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The girls were amazingly well behaved and only had one period each way when they were beginning to get a bit silly, fidgety and fed up. We managed to distract them with music and or stopping for a break and then they were fine again. I was really surprised and pleased with how well they did. Here’s a little video clip of one of those moments:

Would we do it all again? Yes we definitely would!!

Next time we would try the channel tunnel and hopefully go further south but other than that we would be much more confident about the whole thing. There would be no reservations, we would jump at the chance to go again. If you are considering it but nervous like I was, I would say just do it. You will have a fantastic time I’m sure.

I think with a family of five and having to take holidays in school holiday time, it could become a regular thing for us.

Karen x