Family travel blog

In the Yveline department, on Vallle de Chevreuse, one hour from Paris, lays one of the most magical castles in France- Chateau de Breteuil, known as Charles Perrault Castle. The gardens are great for kids exploring, containing a maze, a pond, a playground underneeth secular trees and many small buildings( pavilions) where you can watch and hear scenes from Charles Perrault stories: Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Cinderella. There is even the room of the Sleeping Beauty. In the main building you can visit the ancient kitchens with wax characters. In the pigeons's house you can admire scenes from everyday life in medieval times, with small wax characters, that actually represents the 3D representation of well known peintures. Next time we will visit the castle, where at certain hours there are live shows inspired by C. Perrault stories. A beautiful place that definitely worth a visit! At return we stopped in a small village -Dampierre , where the catstle with the same name is...

We spent 5 days in the amazing island of Madeira, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, close to African West coast. The volcanic island belongs to Portugal, together its much smaller sister-Porto Santo. It's hard to imagine a place more colourful, green and vivid than Madeira. With a population of 240.000 inhabitants in the whole island and 98.000 in Funchal, Madeira is mainly visited by French and English retired persons, arriving by direct flights from Paris ( 5 hours from Orly) or by luxurious cruise ships that stop during evenings in Funchal harbour. Being so close to Africa, the climate is subtropical, with abundent vegetation, different species of cactus, many exotic fruits ( banana, mango, passion fruit) and wineyards. Madeira knew how to cleverly use European funds to built impressive roads, bridges across the mountains and even the highest skywalk in Europe-Cabo Girao, at 580m, from where you can admire the Atlantic Ocean, Funchal Amphiteatre and abrupt coast. We stayed i...

45 minutes from Clamart A charming small town where Jean Racine had lived and studied Chateau de la Madeleine( built around 1000) offers a splendid view over Vallee de Chevreuse- open in the afternoon! Promenade des petits ponts is a road across a channel, with old houses and bridges decorated with flowers, very pitoresque. Big forest to be explored next time

 This year for the summer vacation we have decided to swith from the formula " sea,sand,hot" to a softer and healtier one : "lakes, mountain, warm". The place that fits perfect with our needs is district lake, northern Italy.   Italy has 3 major lakes, located in the north part of the country: Garda (the biggest oneMaggiore ( shared with Switzerland) and Como.   We spent first week of our summer holiday at Como Lake and the next one at Maggiore Lake. Analysing these two experiences now, I cannot decide which lake I like the most, as they are so unique, diverse  and full of places to explore and experiences to try.    Leaving Lichtenstein ( our first stop from Paris-see article Lichtenstein) it took about 3 hours to arrive in Carate Urio (as small mountain resort close to Como city) -a perfect place to explore the lake by road or by boat.   What we have liked most about those lakes is that you can benefit from swimming and beaches in a not-so-hot ...