Paris to Bordeaux

We woke up to a rainy day in Paris and an amazing buffet breakfast - crepes, croissants, waffles, baguettes, bacon and eggs and some healthy stuff that our kids completely ignored! Novotel will need to increase their room rate after they realise they were running at a loss that day because breakfast was included. All 30 of us found our way to the train station and made the train on time- no mean feat as we took ages to find our carriages which were at the very far end of the train. A 3 hour trip to Bordeaux and we collected our 9 seater hire cars. I had to laugh when we pointed out to the kids they were manual, we had to drive on the 'wrong' side of the road, and from the 'wrong side' of the car and Alice looked at Damian and said, "Mum, can you please drive!!!??"
We had a very successful drive for about half an hour (Damian driving!) and found our way to Chateau La Gorce - an absolutely amazing building dating back to 15th century. Some parts of the tower walls are 1.2m thick!  I have to say we've settled in very nicely though I think I should have packed some ball gowns to walk down the grand staircase just to arrive at breakfast. I'll attach photos when I can (Internet connection is really slow here so photos are taking ages - be patient, this place is amazing!). The kids are having a ball - the swimming pool is enormous and there are huge grounds with lakes to explore. It's so lovely to see the kids playing together. We are so lucky Peggy (Damian's Mum) chose such a fabulous and generous way to celebrate her 70th birthday. Thanks Peggy/ Grandma! I have to say there's not much here that reminds me about my backpacking days except for eating baguettes!!