Our first stop on the two-week Easter holiday was a small village on the France side of the Luxemburg boarder. I’d tried to get accommodation in Luxemburg itself but learnt that it is one of the most expensive cities in Europe to stay in and also much more in to couple accommodation than a family of six.

 

The village, which ashamedly I can’t remember the name of, was nothing much to speak of but its surroundings were pretty, green rolling hills that looked even better the first morning we woke up when they were covered by the snow that had fallen through the night. The house was an unusual sort of house, not the type of house you would expect to find in a small provincial French village. It was set just on the outskirts on a big piece of land, maybe an acre. It looked like it had been put outside the village because it didn’t quite fit in with the other smaller, quainter houses. The house that was to be ours for two nights was a big modern concrete square with tall round columns framing the entry, more Gold Coast than France. Inside the front door marble tiles and a huge sweeping ‘Gone With the Wind’ staircase greeted us. There was piano, boxes of toys, banisters that the kids were eyeing off for sliding and a spa to finish off the day. The kids’ excitement bounced through the two story marble filled house and had us yelling ‘Be quiet!’ within ten minutes of arriving.

 

The house was owned by a guy from Malta and his wife. He was an ex flight controller who now worked in the training side of things and his wife was a lawyer, both of them worked in Luxemburg. Once they’d had their two kids it was too hard to do the forty-five minute drive to Luxemburg twice a day every day. So they decided to rent an apartment in Luxemburg and stay there during the weeks and comer down to the house on weekends where they could spread out and let the kids run outside in bare feet when the grass wasn’t covered in snow.

 

The next day we managed to find the city of Luxemburg without making any wrong turns, a bit of a record for us. The kids loved Luxemburg, the fact that the first thing we stumbled across was one of the best public parks we have ever been to helped. We sat there for an hour before we even thought about going into the city while the kids ran and jumped, swang and yahooed. There was a life sized pirate ship to explore, a slippery dip with a big sweeping curve, so steep that if you stopped mid slide you risked burn marks on your legs or arms. There were tyre swings in a circle for having make-believe fights on and a man made creek that cascaded down a slope with all sorts of activities for the kids to do. Although, because it was somewhere around zero degrees, the water wasn’t flowing. The kids were disappointed and wanted to know if we would be able to come back when it was warmer.

 

Apparently, our Maltese host told us, Luxemburg is the second biggest business district to London in Europe. It is also host to the European union. Sitting there in the park while the kids played we were given a good taste of the cities money as SAABS, Mercedes and BMWs drove past. Pete and I amused ourselves while the kids slid down the slides and swung on the tyres by seeing who could spot a Ford first, but it was a game that couldn’t be won. Fords, it appeared, were turned around at the border.

 

The city itself is set on either side of a huge ravine which features amazing parkland and a river that splashes along at the base of the gorge. High set bridges link the two sides. On the cliffs of the ravine outside the main city centre you can see the ruins of a castle. This castle the beginning of Luxemburg more than a thousand years ago. Most of the castle was destroyed with the Treaty of London between 1867 and 1883, but twenty-three kilometres of interwoven tunnels (The Bock Casemate) that ran underneath the castle remain. They were saved because their removal would have meant the collapse of the whole city above.

 

The kids had a ball in the tunnels, dragging us down every steep stairwell they could find, making us crawl through damp narrow passages and then jumping out from dark corners, laughing when I screamed.

 

It was a relief to get back into the fresh air and light. We spent the afternoon wandering through the city, ducking into shops or cafes when we were too cold or when the snow got too heavy. One time we stopped at Macca’s for a cheap coffee and a hot chocolate for the kids while the snow was falling heavy. There was a large group of teenage boys on the tables next to us. They were probably sixteen or seventeen years old and looked like they’d just walked off a Harry Potter set. They had big black capes wrapped around their shoulders made out of some finally woven wool, with hoods pulled up over their heads. No doubt they all went to some elite private school but our kids were convinced it was Hogwarts. They started a competition to see who could spot the first broomstick; Noah swore he saw one tucked under a cape.

 

After a quick shivering play at the park late in the afternoon while Pete and I tried to see if we could link into the cities free WIFI, we headed back to our ‘Gone With the Wind’ house to defrost in the warmth of the central heating and spa bath.

 

The next day Pete and I waited anxiously while the guy that owned the house did an inspection, ‘Just to make sure nothing is broken,’ he had assured us it was standard practise France, ‘and then I’ll give you your five hundred euro deposit back, OK?’ Yep fine with us, our kids are little angels, never jumped on a couch or kick a soccer ball in a house and we’re sure they really didn’t break those three lamps in that place in Italy.

 

But he was a nice man and luckily, by some miracle or other, we’d managed not to break anything or run a permanent marker along any walls. He gave us our five hundred euro back, ensuring we had enough money for Paris, and also a Maltese chocolate Easter log cake. The kids were impressed. We made sure they were out of the house though before they dug their fingers in not wanting to risk any chocolate smears down the white, white walls.

 

We headed off to Belgium. We were getting a whole lot better at this map thing, mainly because Pete had given up asking me for directions. After three hours in the car we found where we were staying without getting lost once.

 

The house in Belgium was much more our style, old, a bit run down, heaps of dark nooks and crannies to explore and quite quirky with the owners paintings of out of proportion cats all over the walls, prices you could purchase them for stuck on the frames. The best part though was the billiard table in the room up stairs at the back of the house. The competition began on our first night.

 

Belgium was different to Switzerland and Luxemburg.  In the small town that we were staying there were no suits or SAABS, the cars were of the second hand rundown model and there were more daggy tracky-dacks and sandals with socks (although you can spot the occasional sandal sock wearer in Switzerland) than we’d seen in a long while.

 

Our new French teacher grew up in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium. She told us that the country was split between its Flemish speakers and French speakers so much so that it was impossible for the country as a whole to make a decision.  The rift between the Flemish and French over the years has caused a lot of political turmoil, many calling for the country to become two separate countries, split along its language boarder. All of this has wreaked havoc with Belgium’s government. Our teacher’s advice to us was that if we went up into the Flemish speaking part of the country we shouldn’t bother trying out our fledgling French skills, she said we would receive a much warmer welcome if we stuck to English.

 

The plan was to visit Brussels the first day and then either Antwerp or Bruges (the Flemish area) on the next day. If I could get my way we would go to both Antwerp and Bruges on the second day, but Pete was insisting it was too far. I wasn’t giving in though, not until we’d been to Brussels anyway, and seen how far it was for ourselves, how could you tell just off a map?

 

So the next day we piled into the car. It was close to zero and drizzle was falling that was threatening to turn into sleet or snow. Our six jackets were stacked up behind the back seats while we warmed ourselves with the car heater blasting.

 

Finding our way around Belgium proved to be easy. The country was flattish (well compared to Switzerland nearly anywhere is flat) with endless grass planes that Pete, who had been reading war books since we arrived in Europe, said he could imagine armies from the world wars fighting on. The one thing that did take us by surprise was the endless line of trucks on the highway filling both outside lanes. No one had told us that Belgium has the biggest and busiest port in Europe. No one had told us that every country in Europe funnels their loaded trucks through the highways in Belgium, heading them towards the port. As a consequence the trip that I’d thought would take us forty minutes took just over two hours. Many lollipops and a lot of whinging later we found our way into an underground car park right in the middle of Brussels.

 

Brussels is a big busy city which I took an instant liking to. It reminded me of Sydney, not in the way it looked, there was no harbour or opera house and the buildings in Brussels obviously dated back centuries and centuries further than those in Sydney, but the similarity seemed to be in the people and the feel of the city. The city was very multicultural and the people seemed to have more of a sense of freedom about them, lacking the conservatism we’d seen in a lot of the places around Europe. There were punks and emos, bright colours and suits. Brussels seemed like a place where you could be yourself and no one would look twice.

 

We spent the morning wandering through a cartoon museum. Belgium is famous for it’s cartoons; it is home to the likes of Tin-Tin, Asterix and Smurfs. The kids loved wandering around the framed strips on the walls, trying to decipher the French in the bubble speech.

 

The afternoon was shared between a bookshop that sold only English books, absolute heaven, and sight seeing. The kids were allowed to choose one book each. They were so overwhelmed by the amount of choice they had after not seeing a new English book since Italy that it took them forever to pick one. In the end I told them I was going to count and if they hadn’t chosen I would choose for them. Everyone managed to get their act together except for Kai who can never make a decision when it comes to something he is going to be allowed to take home. So I chose a book for him but there was so much protesting that in the end I said he would have to go without. Then of course there were the tears and hysterics as we walked along the cold Belgium streets, all the other kids with a book and him without one. I ended up having to console him with the fact that I was sure we would come across another English bookshop somewhere, if not today and then maybe tomorrow. But I told him he would have to choose or other wise I would end up choosing for him again. Many sniffles later and with the consolation of being told by Poppy that he could share her book we made out way to the Grand Place.

 

The Grand Place was, I imagine, by normal standards empty. It was freezing cold, snowing and off-season. But even with our teeth chattering and our hands wedged deep in our pockets we couldn’t help but be impressed by the building facades that towered above us. They were probably the most spectacular we’d seen so far, the small band of buskers huddled up against a wall, plucking away at string instruments I couldn’t name, only added to it all. The cold though didn’t let us stay too long, just long enough for an oooh and an ahhh and of course the obligatory snaps that would help us remember the amazing buildings when we were back home.

 

We thought the drive back to our house with its pool table and out of proportion cat paintings might be faster because we were going away from the port, but of course trucks have to bring stuff back from the boats not just to them. So we encountered the same long lines of trucks in the outside lanes that we had on the way there. By the time we got home every one was not only bored, but starving and complaining that the books we’d bought them were making them carsick. Antwerp tomorrow was looking like a challenge and Bruges impossible. Maps might be able to tell you the number of kilometres but they hadn’t figured out yet how to get across the number of trucks that used the road at any given time.

 

After the long car trip the kids were soothed by many games of pool. I stayed up late that night practising in the hope of beating Pete in our champion of champions competition the following night, but I didn’t like my chances.

 

I’d calculated the drive to Antwerp would take us an hour and a half at the most. But that was before I knew about the trucks. With the trucks we were in the car for three and a half hours. Crazy. We were driving further than I normally would drive for a long weekend. The kids though, on the way there were pretty good, maybe starting to get used to the fact that this was just the way it was, that there was no point in complaining. They also seemed to have decided that they could read without feeling carsick, so the English books paid there way many times over.

 

When we finally arrived at Antwerp we headed straight towards the ocean to smell the salt and seaweed, to smell the summers of back home. The ocean at Antwerp though was nothing like what we were used to. It was artic cold, and that was without putting a toe in it, and windblown with salt water whipping through the air mixing with the rain. We were the only ones walking along the promenade. By the time we got to the other end one of our umbrellas was a flapping mess of metal spokes and black material.

 

Antwerp had a different feel to Brussels. More alternative. There were juice bars, health food shops and cafés that sold organic food. We found a café that sold bowls of warm soup with whole meal bread. There was a kid’s corner with a huge chalkboard making it easy to stay until we were warm right down to our little toes.

 

The main street of Antwerp was impressive in the way that Brussels had been, building facades that made you want to look up, statues and sculptures that made you twist your head as you walked by. We didn’t buy any diamonds or lace or Belgium beer, the things that Belgium is famous for, but we did indulge in waffles with cream, getting photos of the kids with big creamy smiles. And the Easter bunny decided that while in Belgium you should do as the Belgic’s (what do you call them) do. So he bought yummy, expensive Belgium chocolate bunnies which by all accounts, the next morning when they were found and gobbled, were way too small.

 

That night there was no pool competition, we were all too exhausted. The drive home had been so long that I’d ended up reading out loud to Pete to keep him entertained on the slow crawl along side the trucks. We finished the last third of ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ a book Pete had found in the house we were staying. I balled while I read and Pete kept having to ask me to repeat myself. When I finished reading the book I cried for a good ten minutes before I could speak, Pete had to tell the kids I was fine, that it was just a sad story.

 

The next day the drive from Belgium to Paris was uneventful, the kids were still behaving well with their new books and Kai made do with an old one from Australia. Pete had been the one in charge of the accommodation in Paris. The only thing I knew about where we were staying was that it was a small house with a tiny yard, thirty minutes out of the city. The signs on the road were good enough for us to not have to look at a map until we arrived at the suburb we were staying in. Then, even with a map, we had no chance of finding our way through the twisting narrow roads that often ended up in a dead end. So we found a parking lot and called the real estate agent who was managing the house.

 

Pete spoke on the mobile, the was reception bad, in broken French, while the guy talked back in broken English, saying ‘I come with a maroon manteau.’ We knew manteau was coat and figured the colour maroon couldn’t be too bigger a leap from the maroon in English, perhaps a purple or a red. When a man came striding down the steep steps from above the car park both Pete and I hesitated to move towards him. The oversized jacket he was wearing was somewhere between a caramel and beige colour, no maroon in sight. But then Jack piped up from the back seat informing us that we were dummies and maroon was actually brown.

 

The house we were staying in was gorgeous, small and understated, full of natural timber and whites with lots of French doors to let the light in. There was an open fire place in one corner to snuggle up in front of but the best part was the huge deck that looked out over the never ending lights of Paris, way in the distance you could spot the Eiffel Tower it’s point jutting up above the flatness of the city.

 

The suburb reminded me of Vaucluse back home, but much smaller and more village like. The people were beautiful and immaculate, gliding instead of walking from their BMW’s to the patisserie door; the houses often big but not garish, always oozing style, surrounded by big yards with gardens that rambled but weren’t out of control. The small village at the centre of the suburb consisted of a railway station, an old stone church, a park that had a waterfall cascading down the centre of it, a divine French patisserie, out the front of which there was a day long queue, a small butcher and the obligatory grab what you need grocery store. It was all within walking distance of our little house and I really felt like I could have forgotten the looming presence of Paris in the distance and just spent the week reclusing, sleeping, reading, eating and practising my French with the local shop keepers who were surprisingly friendly and patient.

 

Pete dispelled any ideas though of lazy days lying in bed reading. On our first afternoon there, a Sunday afternoon, he decided it was the perfect day to go into town and get acquainted with Paris and the metro. He thought it would be quieter than usual, and therefore make it easier find our way around with the four kids in tow.

 

So we headed down to the train station in the car knowing that it would be late by the time we got back. We didn’t want to have to drag tired kids back up the steep hill in the dark. Parking we assumed would be a cinch, it wasn’t as if we were in Paris and it was a Sunday. But no, the word cinch just can not be coupled together with the word parking in Europe. After a frustrating fifteen minutes of searching for a spot we gave up and took the car back to our house on the hill. Then we grabbed the back pack, camera, umbrellas and four kids and headed back down the hill, this time walking, telling the kids to make sure they didn’t slip in the mud on the steep slope above the steps.

 

It really wasn’t that far, well in the light and going down hill anyway. It was possible that I could disagree completely on the way back when it was dark and everybody was overtired and cold.

 

We got to the train station with ten minutes to spare before the next train arrived. I took the kids up over the railway line to the platform on the other side while Pete tackled the ticket machine. The idea was that we would buy a carnet of tickets for the week, much cheaper than buying individual tickets. I sat all the kids down on the benches and told them not to go near the edge of the platform. Already in the short time we’d been there two trains had whipped past at what seemed like the speed of light, well at least the speed of sound. Kai had told me with big wide eyes about the possibility of being sucked in front of the train and killed. It was a shame they didn’t supply seatbelts on the platform.

 

 From where we sat we could see Pete trying to get the ticket machine to work. I couldn’t hear him cursing but I could tell by the way he was leaning with one hand on the machine, the other punching in numbers that he wasn’t happy. A group of people came up behind him and waited to use the ticket machine. Pete stopped and moved to the side letting them go before him. When they were finished he started with the machine again. We were now down to a few minutes before the train arrived.

 

‘How you going?’ I called out to him across the railway line doing my best to ignore the indiscreet stares of the other passengers waiting on the platform.

 

Pete didn’t turn around and all I got back was a ‘grrrrr.’

 

‘The train, will be here in a minute.’

 

‘I know,’ was given to me through gritted teeth.

 

After a few seconds Pete turned around, ‘My card won’t work, have you got your card.’ A train had just gone past and Pete’s words got lost in its slipstream.

 

‘What?’ I called back.

 

Jack, sitting next to me, was cringing at the attention we were getting. ‘Go over there and talk to him mum, everyone’s watching.’

 

‘So?’ I said, and then immediately wondered who was the teenager.

 

‘Mum.’

 

‘OK, OK, everyone stay sitting here, don’t move and definitely don’t get on a train if it stops.’

 

I got up and walked back over to the other platform.

 

‘What’s up?’ I asked Pete coming up behind him.

 

‘My card won’t work, have you got our other card, I don’t have mine in my wallet.’

 

I fished in my bag and pulled out the other VISA but it didn’t make any difference. The machine wasn’t interested in our cards.

 

‘What do we do now?’ Pete said. Being a Sunday the ticket office was closed. The ticket machine was our only option for entering the metro.

 

‘We could drive in?’

 

‘You reckon?’

 

‘Well maybe, it is a Sunday, might be quite.’

 

Both Pete and I stood looking at the kids on the opposite platform and then I heard a train approaching fast. The train we were supposed to be taking into Paris. I ran up the stairs and across the over pass to make sure no one had the urge to get on the train without us.

 

In the end we decided on a quite afternoon just hanging out and an early night. Probably the best thing we could have done after the rush of Belgium, the kids needed a break. Needed time to muck around on their scooters, draw, play soft toys and just be kids instead of tourists.

 

The next day, Easter Monday, we tried again, hoping that the ticket booth might be open, but of course, being one of the biggest public holidays in the year it was closed. I’d been into the grocery shop earlier in the morning and had spoken to the woman there, telling her we were thinking of going to Paris for the day. She’d told me it would be a good day to visit Paris, ‘Ce sera plus tranquille en Paris aujourd’hui, parce que de vacances de Paques.’ So when we discovered that the ticket booth was closed I made the suggestion again that we drive in.

 

‘You reckon?’ Pete said, still not convinced.

 

‘We could give it a go and if it’s too horrendous just turn around and come back.’

 

‘Yeah, guess, why not.’

 

So we packed everything and everyone in the car again and this time headed straight into to Paris. It was easy to find our way, all signs and all roads led to Paris. The roads were quite, hopefully a good sign for what we were going to find in the centre of the city.

 

The competition was on in the car to see who could spot the Eiffel Tower first. I know you should be a generous parent, and let your kids win, but, well, I guess I was a bit excited and besides, I saw it first. I mean I would have waited until one of them did, but they were all looking in the wrong direction and it was going to take forever, and then there would have been a fight over who really saw it first so it was just easier to say, ‘I win,’ and point it out to the kids. The kids squealed and bounced when they saw the Eiffel Tower through the window too excited to care who had spotted it first. The Eiffel Tower, along with Euro Disney, was one of the kids ‘must sees’ in Europe.

 

Driving along the Seine we spotted the mini statue of liberty. The fabled traffic of Paris still hadn’t appeared, there was no sign of a traffic jam, no horns blasting and no fists being shaken out windows. Paris traffic had nothing on Rome. We still hadn’t had to use map, we were just keeping our eyes on the Eiffel Tower and heading towards it. I’d read somewhere, probably in The Lonely Planet next to the sentence that said you’re mad if you even think about driving into Paris, that on certain public holidays you can park in Paris for free. On these days all the parking meters are turned off. My plan was, seeing it was Easter Monday, that we would park underneath the Eiffel Tower all day for free.

 

We found our way to the Eiffel Tower as easy as we find our way to the ocean back home. There was a small section of off street parking along the road that ran right alongside the big square that the Eiffel Tower stretched up to the sky from. We had to do a couple of laps first and then have a fight with an Italian guy who thought we hadn’t squashed up close enough to the car parked in front of us, but we got our spot in the end and we got it for free. The Lonely Planet had got it right, we had a whole days parking for free in Paris.

 

The Eiffel Tower was everything I thought it would be, as impressive in real life as it was in the movies. The kids were enraptured with the bronze steel which seemed to have been put together in a very similar way to which you screw meccano together. The lift wasn’t an option, the kids couldn’t wait to sprint up the thousands of stairs and count them on their way. I think they would have gone straight past level two and all the way to the tippy-top if they had of been allowed and then hung off the steel with one hand yahooing. But the second level was way high enough for me.

 

The kids were more interested in the stairs than the view. When they realised they couldn’t go any higher it wasn’t long before they wanted to go down again. Noah, when I asked him what he thought of Paris gave his now famous comment, ‘Yeah, it’s alright, exactly the same as Brisbane though,’ and this was with a light snow dusting falling down on the city. I didn’t ask anyone else after that.

 

For me Paris was a surprise. I didn’t know it was so flat, didn’t know there was only one slight hill. It was like an ocean on a still day with one tiny wave out the back that never comes in. But it was the colour of Paris that kept me staring. There was no green, any trees I could spot were brown and bare, and the grass, contending with the cold that was blowing in on us at the top of the Eiffel Tower was somewhere between yellow green and yellow brown. The buildings were like the beach on a steel grey stormy day. The walls the colour of washed out sand and the rooves the colour you find inside a Pipi shell that’s been washed clean.

 

I could have walked round and round the second level of the Eiffel Tower staring at the endless grey rooves, the height which would have usually made me feel sick, not worrying me at all, but the kids were anxious to find out if it was easier to walk down the hundreds of stairs than up, so we had to go.

 

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the empty city taking full advantage of our all day free parking. By the time we got back to the car it was late, our legs were sore, our feet throbbing and we were convinced of one thing, Paris was a big city.

 

We came back to Paris for one more day, on a day that the ticket booth at our local train station was open. We had a confusing French conversation with the lady behind the counter who smiled a lot and spoke very fast. When I asked her if she could speak slower, she said ‘Oui, oui,’ nodding her head and then increased her speed by about three fold, as if I’d asked her to speak as fast as she possibly could. We worked it out in the end though and managed to buy the carnet of tickets that would get us around Paris.

 

Pete, like a mother hen, led us through the twisting turning tunnels of the metro past the echoing music of buskers and up endless stairs that felt like they must reach as high as the Eiffel Tower. We would pop out into the light, look at one or two things and then descend back down into the dark tunnels of Paris; Pete leading the way, Poppy’s hand in one of his and a map of the metro in the other.

 

We did all the sites, The Arc de Triomphe, The Champs-Elysees, The Seine, Mont Marte, Notre Dame and The Louvre. There were thousands of little galleries and cafes Pete and I would have loved to stroll through or sit and have a slow coffee in but we’d almost got to the point where we had trained our eyes to look the other way, knowing four kids in a confined area wasn’t worth the coffee or the close up of the painting. We did stop though on the island next to Notre Dame and buy the kids an ice cream. Paris wasn’t the same as Rome, there wasn’t Gelati on every corner but the ice cream was just as good, if not better

 

The kids, when I asked them later what their favourite thing in Paris was besides the Eiffel Tower said the painting that was in the Mr Bean movie. This was of course the Mona Lisa. By the time we found it in the Louvre which was over heated and over crowded late on Wednesday night, everyone was thirsty and grumpy, wanting to go home. There was a huge crowd in front of the small painting, Mona, used to the attention, was smiling out at everyone. I thought the kids would go, ‘Yeah, so what? Can we get a drink now?’ But they didn’t, they pushed their way up to the front, ignoring the flashes that were going off around them and stood there mesmerised at the woman that was smiling back at them. Later when they were all telling me they couldn’t believe they’d seen ‘that’ painting, I couldn’t figure out if it was because it was the Mona Lisa, or because it was the painting that had been in the Mister Bean movie.

 

We only spent two days out of our week in Paris. We had a couple of what we now knew were obligatory rest days and the other two days were divided between Euro Disney and the palace at Versailles.

 

I think the palace at Versailles was the first palace I’ve been too. That is if you don’t count St Peters, which you can’t really because even though it looks like a palace it’s meant to be a church. There was no missing this palace though, it was huge, acres and acres of gardens and parklands with fountains and gold statues, a big lake for rowing on and tracks for galloping your majestic steed. The palace itself was a conglomeration of ostentatious buildings that seemed big enough to house the whole of the Swiss population. Apparently it had been built as a hunting retreat for one of the kings. Then when his son took over he liked the place so much that he decided it was going to be head quarters for France. Thus everything was relocated and made fit for a king and his courtiers. The palace at Versailles if nothing else gave us a good understanding of where the French revolution might have got its impetus. And the kids did have a ball rowing around the lake calling out things like, ‘Oh waiter, over here boy, yes over here in the middle of the water. What do you mean you can’t swim? I want an apple juice and I want it now, you’d better get your floaties on.’

 

And then there was Euro Disney. We chose a freezing cold day with the weather report promising rain and possibly snow. We packed umbrellas and snow jackets not caring how cold it got as long as it meant a large chunk of the awful crowd that we’d heard frequented the place, stayed away.

 

When we first got there we thought we’d made mistake, we thought Euro Disney wasn’t a theme park after all but actually a car park. Thankfully a huge, relatively empty car park but a car park all the same. Imagine the car park at sea world and then times it by fifteen, that was about the size of the one we found ourselves in following a line of other cars waiting to be told where to park. You couldn’t even see the entrance to Euro Disney from where we left our car and got on the travelators. Poppy and Kai, who’d found it hard to sleep the night before because they were so excited, were thrilled to be running up and down the travelators. They offered as much excitement as any ride might and were a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

It took us five travelators and a walk before we found the front gates. We’d gone past hundreds of parked cars, enough to make my stomach churn, the only consolation being that the cars only filled about a tenth of the car park, so we hoped that meant Euro Disney was relatively empty.

 

Euro Disney was everything the kids had dreamt it would be. Right down to Mickey Mouse singing welcome songs as we went through the front gate. The streets were clean and tidy with neatly paved bricks. The make believe villages were like something you might find at the top of the Far Away Tree. Right in the middle of the park was the Disneyland castle. Jack was so impressed that he kept saying, ‘Can you believe they made that? It’s so good, can you believe it?’ I couldn’t see what he was seeing through my eyes, but I guess mine are too old to understand how a fabricated pink and purple castle can be more impressive than the century old relics that we’d been wandering through.

 

The rides were as good as any you’d find in your top class theme park although often seemed short, but then again that could be an age thing too? The kids though loved every part of it. We told them at the beginning of the day that it was their day, that they could choose where we went and what we did. They all had maps and plotted out a direction and loved being the ones that dragged us around instead of the other way. Pete particularly enjoyed the fact that he didn’t have to look at a map all day, didn’t have to think about what direction we were heading in next.

 

The average we had to wait at any ride was ten to fifteen minutes. At one stage we thought we’d got clever and worked out the fast pass thing they had happening, thought we could book up all the rides in advance, but of course they’ve got a way of sorting out smart arses like us. You can only use one fast pass at a time, so by the time you come back at the allotted time for the ride that the fast pass gives you, a couple of hours later, it means you can only book in about two or three rides for the day.  It wasn’t worth it when the queues were so short.

 

The worst queue was for the Peter Pan ride. It was billed as one of the best rides in the park. We queued half an hour in the rain.  When we finally got on the ride it was fantastic, took me straight back to the storybooks of my childhood as we flew over London and Never Never Land watching Pirates fight and mermaids swim. But it was all over in about thirty seconds, or could it have been that I was just having too much fun? Not according to Jack and Noah, they couldn’t believe what a rip off it was after waiting half an hour in the rain. Poppy loved it though.

 

As we were leaving we got to watch Minnie and Mickey Mouse sing happy fifteenth birthday to themselves (apparently that’s how long Euro Disney has been there for) and the little kids ooh’d and aaahed as the light went on on the Disney castle.

 

We have never got so many ‘thank yous’ and ‘you’re the best’ and ‘I love you so much’ as we did on the way back to our suburban Paris home. It was good to know that one day of theme park fun could easily make up for all the forced galleries, museums, churches and castles. 

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Switzerland Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.