Our French adventure

A complete break from college stuff as my daughter and her two children and myself headed off to France for an adventure. For the girls it was the first time on an plane and it was pretty amazing, little legs was totally entranced by the whole experience, she soon got over the disappointment that nana wasn't driving and spent the whole time sat on my knee spotting her house - nanas house ( I wish ....we were over Jersey at this point) - there were actual boats but I wondered whether the 'whales ' she spotted were real...

Then a serious rip off taxi ride to the camping Chateaux de Galinee in north Brittany, the same price for 20 mins 10 mile as an adult plane fare!! And the next bit of adventure - a caravan - which little legs thinks is called an airport!! and best of all a huge HEATED swimming area with wave machines Jacuzzi jets, and water slides - heaven for our water babies!!!! I totally renegaded on my promise to go on the water slides but no one seemed to care - the girls just loved them...

unpacked and ready for sunshine

The camping was a really nice space spacious leafy pretty - but sadly we were given a lot of misinformation about the site so there was no kids club, no wifi, no shop, nowhere to buy ice creams or coffee but this didn't matter as the water park made up for it all .... not that mum and I wouldn't have said no to the odd coffee or beer pool side! It was quite busy so its a lost opportunity for the site. Difficult for us as we had no transport and had to rely on the very weird selection of food we had stuffed in the suitcase until a friend who lives locally came and rescued us and took us to the supermarket for supplies!!

long legs using them effectively

There were very good play ground facilities for when the pool was closed and we made good use of them most evenings trying our best to wear out the very excited and seemingly endlessly energetic children!!

We spent some evenings sat outside wrapped in blankets determined to be on holiday - even when the rain got very heavy we persevered until we just had admit defeat and retire indoors.. it only rained torrential one night and was forecast to do the same all day but someone was smiling on us cos the weather broke the sun came out and we all got sunburnt!!!! We managed an average of 6 hours a day in the various pools - well the mermaids did I did a lot of reading and some sewing... it was still very tiring and we all slept like logs having to set the alarm as bread had to be picked up by the very unsocial time of 10.00 am!!!

little legs ready for all eventualities!

We had a great holiday I think every one really enjoyed themselves - It was lovely to see the girls confidence in the water grow, Long legs diving in, somersaults in the water and little legs jumping in totally fearlessly wasn't long before she gave up on all swimming aids... both girls loved the slides even though you had to be 10 to go on them - our naughty little sister just took off and there was no stopping her - didn't take her long to realise fastest way to avoid anyone trying to stop her would be down the slides!! No tantrums from Nana or anyone - lots of swimming, clean air and exercise - countered in the grown ups case by plenty of nice food and wine.... I look forward to doing it all again sometime in the not too distant future.

Amazing girls

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop. More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained. The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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