We got up at 6.00am, and found Chris’s foot to be a bit better. In our usual fashion left home late (after bidding good bye to John and thanking him for his wonderful hospitality – he even donated his bed! Nicest nephew ever!) and then panicked all the way to St Pancras to check back into the Eurostar.

The children were their usual, noisy, high spirited selves which really stands out among the Brits but stands out even more among the French. Chris and I feel like we are enacting a parody of National Lampoons European Vacation – our family is so boisterous, we must seem like total hill-billies to the locals.

We landed in Paris again, (God it was good to be back!) jumped onto the metro and headed out to the Citroen factory to pick up our brand new lease car! The hand over went very smoothly, we packed up the car (all the luggage fit easily into the boot) and off Chris drove into the wild Parisian traffic. Thank god he is driving! I have done this before (25 years ago) but every time we turned a corner my impulse was to turn into the left side of the road instead of the right. But Chris was confident and seamless and seemed absolutely delighted with himself (as he should be!). Part of his confidence was instilled by our GPS which we made sure our new car would have. Within a few minutes it became obvious however, that the GPS was on another planet or at least another city, as it directed us down non-existent streets and showed our progress driving across the city parks (I can assure you Chris stuck to the streets!). It became clear that if we didn’t do something, we would still be driving around Paris even now. Good old Apple. Is there anything that iPhone cannot do? We pulled ups the maps and giggled as we watched the two GPSs directing us completely opposite directions and eventually, by what seemed like a complete fluke, we ended up in Versailles. The plan had been to spend the afternoon here before driving onto Orleans, but one look at the crowds outside ( there would have literally been thousands of people lining up outside) we decided to grab a baguette for lunch (yah, back in the land of baguettes,) and keep driving. Hopefully we can return to Versailles at some stage in the next few weeks.

We arrived in Orleon a couple of hours later (no thanks to the car’s GPS), checked into our gorgeous French hotel and looked around the city. It is absolutely equisitite! (Look at the photos if you don’t believe me!). The architecture is beautiful and some of it dates back to the 1400s or before, it has trams but they’re colour coordinated with the buildings and the streets and buildings are completely pristine.

I begged the boys to not embarrass me (any further) in front of the polite and reserved French and the threatened them with iPod removal. Of course they completely ignored me while I was in a chemist which resulted in a street altercation (yes NLEV!!) and tears from Nick, which led to much discussion from mum and dad and finally an impromptu visit to the Joan of Arc gallery which in happened to be outside. Joan’s story inspired the boys and we went searching for more Joan paraphernalia around the city. We then came across a square where there were fountains……..and looked what happened next!

Yes my repressed little monkeys ran through the fountains screaming and yelling while the French looked on in amazement! (Nick even peeled his top off until I yelled at him to out it back on). But we all felt much better.

Dinner was at a French pub and it was lovely. I ordered the rump steak, medium rare, and it was served completely blue. I’m sure it doesn’t get more French than that. Chris and I had a Sancerre and a Rose and the kids had crepes for desert and we finished the day completely happy.