This winter I have been thinking about summer more than normal. Perhaps being at university, here in Cornwall, during the county’s wettest January on record has something to do with it. Or maybe it’s reaching that age – yes, it’s this adulthood thing again – where you may not automatically be included in family summer holiday plans, especially if you are a student short of money who should probably think of earning some in between school terms.
Every summer almost as far back as I can remember, our family holiday has begun early in August with the sight of St Peter Port shrinking into the distance aboard first the Condor Rapide and more recently Brittany Ferries’ Voyager. When I see that sight in my mind, I think of everyday routines being replaced by weeks of adventure in various parts of France, nearly always staying on campsites. Rarely have we upgraded much beyond tents or glamping for longer than a few nights, but that has been part of the magic of it all.
The harbours and ferries feel part of the holiday, in a way airports and planes never do in quite the same way. At the harbour, in our car, which mum has become quite the expert at loading to maximise space, we spend only a short time checking-in with staff who are always friendly, eat a snack together while waiting to board, and soon we’re choosing our seats to get a good view of the French coast once it comes into view an hour-and-a-half or so later. In the meantime, there are family games of Uno to play.
The girls in our family are prone to travel sickness, but on the southern route out of Guernsey the seas are rarely choppy enough to cause a problem. We’ve had some good meals aboard and the range and quality of food offered is always good. When you think about it, we are fortunate to be served by Brittany Ferries’ near-daily, and at the height of the season daily, sailings to St Malo, which give us access to the whole of Europe.
Arriving in St Malo is only the start but still one of my favourite moments of every holiday. Then it’s no longer something to look forward to – it’s actually happening. It takes only a short time to get off the boat and through passport control, even post-Brexit, and then we are back in France, which strangely feels familiar and different at the same time.
St Malo is a special place. Sheltered behind distinctive, imposing stone walls lies the beautiful, narrow streets of intra-muros, the walled city, steeped in history and endlessly intriguing. We try to spend some time there every year, even if it’s just a day or an evening, and often stay nearby for a couple of nights.
St Malo works brilliantly for families, as a place to stay, to visit if staying nearby, or to use as a base to explore the northern half of Brittany. No matter how long you are there, there is always something to do. Even if you’re not staying intra-muros, with a wide choice of hotels and Airbnbs nearby, getting inside the walls is easy, and beautiful if you’re walking along the seafront overlooking open sandy beaches.
We think St Malo also has the best restaurant in the world, Cafe de l’Ouest. Being there is one of the first things on my mind when I think of the joy of being on a family holiday in France. Its open layout, sheltered beneath a large canopy and spilling onto the cobbled entrance to the walled city creates a lively atmosphere. This is only enhanced by a seemingly ever-present accordion player dressed in traditional black-and-white Breton clothing.
Growing up, I learned to eat a lot of new – and what seemed like exotic – foods there which we wouldn’t normally have had at home. After dinner, it’s essential to stroll up to the top of the town for an ice cream, preferably at Le Glacier Sanchez if the queue is not too long. My youngest sister, Megan, wasn’t born when we started these family holidays, then would be fast asleep wrapped in blankets by the time we got to Sanchez, but now has more energy than the rest of us to enjoy moonlit walks back to wherever we are staying. These moments form some of my fondest holiday memories. The oldies in my family say St Malo is also among the best places in France to people-watch from cafes. It certainly always seems busy for its size.
I remember being in a hotel inside the walled city only once – a small bed and breakfast at the bottom of the steps next to Sanchez. But I’m told there was an earlier stay, possibly at the same hotel, when I was too young to remember clearly, even before my other sister, Millie, was born. I was walking, probably only just, with Mum and Dad when I tripped in one of the distinctively cobbled streets and fell flat on my face, rearranging some teeth as blood poured from my mouth. Poor parenting, in my view, possibly after one too many red wines or Jameson whiskies at Cafe de l’Ouest.
Our first few days in France each year are always accompanied by a reminder that we are again to be forced to put up with weeks of Dad’s questionable impersonations of people he insists are famous but most likely appeared briefly in an obscure documentary about British or Irish politics of the 1970s or 80s.
Actually, they can be quite funny, although they must long ago have earned him a place on the list of strange visitors maintained by campsite staff throughout the country. ‘Why on earth do we need to hear from Charlie Haughey and Tony Benn at the moment?’ says Mum, trying to concentrate on the sat-nav. She long ago banned Dad driving in and around cities, so bad is his sense of direction, although there is the suspicion that he has been purposely exaggerating his uselessness to strike a deal under which he drives for longer, easier periods on the open motorway while Mum battles with the greater challenges of cities and towns.
While in Brittany, in some years we have headed to campsites with my grandparents to explore the region’s beautiful coastlines and villages.
Nothing says ‘France’ quite like a market day. Mum and Gran will be browsing the various, and often pungent, cheeses. Dad has been prone to wandering off with us kids in search of, depending on the latest fad, things such as fidget spinners or hair braids.
Dad invariably drifts into estate agents to admire French houses for sale, reporting back to share lengthy calculations about how we might just be able to buy a second home in France one day, if a whole series of unlikely permutations comes off. Then he’s off into a tabac to buy lottery tickets, which he soon decides are the most likely route.
Megan and Grandpa are often found on the merry-go-round, both wearing smiles so wide it’s hard to tell who is enjoying it more. As the markets close and we pile back into the car, we sometimes end the day at a bowling alley. Dad seems to win every year despite me and Grandpa being more skilled.
My favourite campsite in Brittany is called Milin Kerhe, near the small town of Pabu, about 4km from Guingamp, where there is a tabac which Dad insists has the most reliable selection of cheap-ish cigars in the country.
This rural campsite is bordered by a pristine river, home to otters who float on their backs, holding hands. It is the perfect place to slow down. After collecting firewood with Mum from the nearby forest, we spend our evenings playing Uno or reading, accompanied only by the sound of flowing water and a small number of other families on the small site. This was one of the first campsites we stayed at when we started these weeks-long adventures.
I remember one year when Millie and I befriended a boy called Omar, whose name my sister could only pronounce as Neymar, like the Brazilian footballer, while he knew her for some reason as Troll Blood, a name I have since tried to make stick. We have spent hours climbing trees and playing on tightropes. More recently, Dad and I went to watch Guingamp play in the French second division, winning 4-0 against Troyes. The atmosphere and stadium were brilliant for football at that level.
Eventually it is time to leave Brittany and head south. While these long drives numb your legs and leave you desperate to stretch, they can also be good fun, full of amusing stories and good music on Mum’s playlist we only hear in the car on holiday. Stepping out at service stations along the way, hour by hour you feel it getting warmer, an indication of the time in the sun we hope is to come. French service stations are often a lot more impressive than their British counterparts. Inside, we search for food that won’t upset Dad’s unreliable stomach, or at least that’s how he explains away emerging with Pringles and pasta while Mum insists the kids get lots of fruit and salad.
We have camped across France, from Brittany to the Cote d’Azur, from Loir-et-Cher and near Paris to the Swiss border in the east and the Atlantic coast in the south-west. The one place we return to without fail is a site near Villereal in the Lot-et-Garonne, 600km south of Brittany, not more than a day’s drive for a family sailing from Guernsey to St Malo. Previously known as La Parenthese and now, since Huttopia took it over, as Pays des Bastides, this peaceful site set around a small lake holds many of my strongest childhood memories. Memories of lazy afternoons, warm evenings, swimming, long walks, reading in the sun, forest adventures and French food and wine.
The towns of this part of the south-west, such as Monflanquin and Sarlat-la-Caneda, are something very special. Occasionally we have driven to Bordeaux, which is a bit of a trek west, but its breathtaking architecture and broad, stylish streets make it well worth the journey. This is where, over the years, we kids have had to deploy our most imaginative pleas to get Mum and Dad into toy shops and sport shops.
Other memorable excursions included a crocodile farm, which was great fun but possibly ill-advised on a day when the temperature was 41C outdoors and more than 50C indoors. We learned from this, and in later years opted for activities such as canoeing along the Dordogne, though last year this was not without incident after we accidentally went further than we were meant to and had to fight a serious current which for a while I feared might defeat us.
As August draws to a close, our holiday does too. After weeks of travelling, we pack up and head back to Brittany for the ferry home. This journey lacks the anticipation of departure, of course, but there are many worse places to return home than Guernsey. Before Castle Cornet and St Peter Port have come into view, Megan has started to ask Mum and Dad whether there will be a holiday the following year, and secretly Millie and I are thinking the same. There are many things exciting about growing up, having more independence and going to university, but will adulthood soon bring to an end these unforgettable family summers in France?
