Within the mornings Andrew and I ate poached eggs and salt-crusted potatoes at an outside desk going through the central allée of the formal gardens whereas the boys plumbed the mazelike field hedges, in search of frogs the dimensions of pennies. On a decrease tier of land, the jardin exotique—planted with roses, crocosmia, and delphiniums—is dominated by a scene-stealing round swimming pool that’s rimmed by a thick garden and blue-and-white-striped umbrellas. There’s a closet close by, full of froth noodles and inflatable internal tubes, and as soon as the boys sussed that out, most of my concepts for excursions have been sunk. I’d say our trip at that time was 15% tradition and 85% cannonballs.
The children dominated the roost simply as a lot at our subsequent cease, Domaine des Etangs Auberge within the jap reaches of the Charente countryside. Within the attic of this fairy-book fort, we discovered a wood-beamed recreation room with dress-up packing containers, Foosball, and a billiards desk. A classy outside playground, full with trampolines and a zipper line, is subsequent to the potager backyard, inside shouting distance of oldsters sitting at dinner tables. The marshmallow roasting made it really feel as if we have been bunking at an unthinkably upscale summer season camp. This impression was solely strengthened after we took the children to an area lakeside seaside, Plage de la Guerlie, the place you’ll be able to hire canoes by the hour and loll within the sand.
It was apparent by then that this vacation wouldn’t embody museums, as mine and Andrew’s had years in the past. We went sightseeing in Crestet and Séguret and took the boys to see the lavender fields on the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque. We ate omelets on the terrace at Hotel Crillon le Brave and artisanal ice lotions at Léone in Vaison-la-Romaine. Overwhelmingly, although, we performed checkers on the lodge and ate room service croque monsieurs on the balcony. Each single morning the 4 of us have been the primary individuals to reach on the Crillon’s pool, pitched on the aspect of a hill with cypress timber.
The second-to-last cease, earlier than a number of closing days of downtime on the Île de Ré off the western coast, was a compromise. The can-do journey company Abercrombie & Kent was working with a fine-tooth comb to unearth a villa rental for us within the Côte d’Azur, however the locations we favored have been booked. Our agent despatched one left-field possibility in a unique location, which she thought was uncommon sufficient to advantage some rejigging: a newly renovated farmhouse east of Bordeaux, Maison Dubreuil. As we sped nearer, over hillsides braided with vines, we ate ham sandwiches we’d picked up from Fortiche Club in Bordeaux. This was the one vacation spot that we hadn’t deliberately chosen, and I used to be unprepared for the panorama sliding previous: It was formed by the wine trade but in addition verdant and big-skied. Later we’d discover the terrain even simpler to understand from a bicycle—slopes and woodland, limestone villages, slender trails that sliced by way of the vineyards, pop-up markets in parking heaps promoting rotisserie chickens and drippings-roasted potatoes.
