Tripping through France and the Benelux, Germany and back to France

We woke in Lesmont to a breakfast of croissants and home made jams, then we grabbed our bikes and set off for a long bike ride around the area of Lacs d'Orients. We pushed ourselves up every hill to see Lesmont and it's beautiful paddocks of grazing cattle and canola. We rode to the three lakes and rode around them. By the time we got home it was 5 o'clock - We rode 40 km all together! It was really fun. That night we drove to a close by town to go to dinner. I chose salmon salad for starters and then salmon with saffron sauce. Salmon is my new favourite. We had a cheese platter and a chocolate dessert. Very Yum!

In Holland, we drove to a big hotel with our whole family and I mean our whole family! We were going there because my great grandfather was turning 90!! They had rented out a hotel for about 40 people - all in my family!!

I played with my cousins, Lisa and Thijs. They are older than us, and Tein and Lise, they are younger than us. All together, we went to a zoo. We got split up into groups, I went with Thijs and Lisa. The first animals we saw were the penguins. They were very cute. We walked to the desert section and the bush section and the ocean section, then it started raining! So we ran to the cafeteria, ate lunch and headed back to the main entrance for 3 o'clock.
The next day we hopped on a horse and cart and headed towards and olden day museum. We had morning tea and looked at the museum and then played outside. We hopped on the horse and cart again and rode back to the hotel.

After the weekend, we arrived in Nurburg, Germany and signed into our hotel. The next morning we drove to Nurburg Ring. The Nurburg Ring is a famous racing car track. We went to the shop and then looked in the museum! We dropped Dad off at the race way but sadly, we were not allowed to watch him race. We came back and picked Dad up, he showed us the place where all the cars start on the race track. There were a lot of Porsches there, and we saw a big truck come in with PORSCHE written on it. We really wanted to see what was inside the truck but the men weren't opening the back.

The next day we drove back into France and stayed in a very small village, Villeferry and unpacked. Only 38 people live in Villeferry. The next morning we drove to Flavigny, a town where a movie called 'Chocolat' was filmed! It was a very sweet village and we went to see a sugar aniseed factory. We saw how they turn the aniseed in a barrel and how the sugar sprays the aniseed and after it turns in to a little sugar lolly with a little aniseed inside the sugar coating!

After we drove to an old abbey, it was called Abbey Fontaney. The Abbey was built by a very rich man who wanted to give up this rich life to live in poverty. We walked around the gardens and rooms. My favourite part was the dormetry. Nothing was fancy but it was very big. Apparently it had 200 monks living in it once upon a time!

The next day we drove home to Mormoiron which is where I am now.

The trip was great!

Au revoir!