A family cycling holiday in France

 

Echologia, France. - Photo from Echologia

The Echologia site is another unusual industrial regeneration project. An old quarry has been transformed into an ecological glampsite, with yurts and teepees and goats. The pits have been filled with water, for fishing, and topped with floating cabins where families with children over 10 can stay.

We stayed in a whitewashed wooden cabin on a rocky ridge between two lakes. There is no electricity, but all guests are issued with a head torch to wear as they make their way back to their digs. We felt no overwhelming enthusiasm for the very ecological dry toilets system, but liked having breakfast delivered in a basket to our cabin, with coffee and hot chocolate in thermos flasks.

The very brief time we spent riding on roads at the beginning of the trip reminded me how stressful it is cycling with children in busy traffic. The dedicated cycle routes, when we got there, were a huge relief. 

The risk of falling into the Mayenne river from the towpaths was very slim, because there was a deep bank of wild flowers and mint between the track and the river. Rose, eight, picked the mint and held crushed bunches beneath her hot palms on the handlebars, trying to create scented minty trails for the rest of us to inhale.

We spent a day riding through the forest of Berce, which was beautiful but bumpy and much less flat. This was much harder work for the children.

The tourist office guide to the voies vertes advises: “Remember that it’s always nice to say bonjour.” This advice our daughter adopted with delight, greeting everyone she passed with a bellowed bonjour in her as-yet-unrefined French accent.

There was the occasional moment of protest – when tears popped into their eyes at the idea of getting on the bikes, and they proposed staying in the hotel room and watching cartoons in French. But most of the time I know they loved it, not because they said so but because of the rare absence of complaining.

Naturally the things they found most interesting were not the things we required them to find interesting. On the way from the ferry we took in the D-Day landings museum in Arromanches, the Bayeaux tapestry and the beautiful chateau at Sainte-Suzanne, all of which they observed politely with mild curiosity. The things they found truly fascinating were the plastic Nutella sachets, a silver, egg-shaped egg boiling machine at the breakfast buffet in Le Verte Galant hotel in La Fleche, and the monstrously noisy red fire-crackers we bought for a Euro in a bar in Le Lude.

 

D-Day landings museum in Arromanches, France. - Photo from Wiki Commons

Sleeping in a cabin on the ferry from Portsmouth was also a massive, unexpected highlight, recorded with such intense detail by seven-year-old William that he exhausted the battery on his new camera – taking around 400 photographs of the bunks and shower unit – and was unable to take any pictures in France.

As we dismounted on the last day, there was a note of regret from the children. “I was actually quite enjoying it,” William conceded.

But even if we had wanted to continue bicycling we couldn’t have, because of what happened as we drove through a low arch into a car park on the outskirts of La Fleche on our last evening. 

We registered looks of horror on the faces of several families returning to their cars seconds before we understood what was causing their alarm. There was a nasty metallic crunch as bicycles and roof rack were ripped to the ground.

For more information see tourisme-mayenne.com and voiesvertes.com. – Guardian News & Media