Normandy with Kids: Allies, Abbeys and Alligators

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Or Alternatively,
Strolling the Beaches at Normandy: An American in "Village Famille Vacances"

Living in Paris in the summer is something that must be experienced to be understood. There is an ebb and flow to activities that have a predictable, almost seasonal, feel to them. At the beginning of the summer, there is the migration of the expats. This corresponds with the children being released from school for roughly 2 months. So, the expats use the opportunity to return home, or go on vacation. Anything to keep the kids entertained, and to get a bit of breathing room from constant and insistent parental responsibilities. So, the vast majority of the expat moms that I know left, at least for a good portion of the summer. Some went home. Some went on an extended vacation but all seemed to be gone during most of the summer. During July, the sales start...in order to catch the Parisian's' before they leave Paris at the beginning of August. By about the second week of August until September, most of the Parisienne's have left the city. On the positive side, the dog poop on the streets decreased to almost normal levels. On the negative side, most of the shops and activities are closed. So, if you plan to ignore the above migratory patterns, be prepared to feel like the bird that refused to fly south for the winter....out in the cold. In short, you will be left with almost nothing in terms of planned activities for your kids...short of taking them to "the park" or to amusement parks. There are limited options for summer school (all ending in July). All the kids activities in the museums have closed. The marie activities have closed. And by August there is absolutely nothing. So, one is left trying to figure out either childcare for 2 months, or entertainment for 2 months, or both. I had thought I had done a pretty good job with preparation for this as 1) Lucas got to go to a music summer school followed by the summer program at EABJM and 2) I had arranged for nannies. As it turns out, I hadn't done as good a job as I thought. The summer schools were great but they were over by the middle of July, and I ended up with a rotating nanny situation which is far from ideal for anyone.
So, after a bit of a harrowing summer on the kid front, I found myself at the end of August trying to plan a last minute family fling, as Julien had a few days he could take off. As usual, I was doing frantic internet research to find a place for the family to go that wouldn't be too painful on either the nerves or the bank account. (This seems like a theme, doesn't it?) A certain amount of expat loneliness had set in over the summer and brought with it no small amount of nostalgia. So, I was looking for some experience that would mirror my own vacation experiences growing up...in other words, a sandy beach with warm water. Living in Northern California and in Paris for the past few years has meant that I have had damn few opportunities to get into the ocean. I know. I know. There are people who go swimming in the arctic waters of Monterey and the surrounding environments, but to my way of thinking, those people are called masochists. Either that or they are really and truly desperate. As a result of this, my only forays into the ocean in the past few years has been in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and in Captiva, Florida (which is a fabulous vacation spot for those with young children). To find waters even close to this warm in Europe, one has to go to the Mediterranean and it has to be at certain times of the year. I had read about a place called Tikki Huttes ( a place apparently favored by the Depp- Paradis clan) , which rents small bungalows on the beach in Cote D'Azur... but they were completely booked. So was everything else in the south of France. Either that, or they required that you give your liver as a down payment toward the cost of your stay. However, in trolling the Internet I discovered an interesting phenomenon not really known in the U.S. It is the French tradition known as "Village Famille Vacances". This is one of those ways in which the French have gotten it right, and there is a business opportunity for someone to do the same in the U.S. So let me do a quick compare / contrast in general before I start discussing Normandy in specific.
The U.S. Family Vacation
In the U.S., when one is looking for a family vacation, one tends to have limited choices. The high end, the low end, and then what most people do. On the high priced end, you can drag your offspring to Disneyland or Disney World. Also on the high end, you can go to a family "all inclusive" resort like "Beaches" or "Club Med". For Club Med, you should probably refer back to that liver comment that I made earlier. They might be appeased by a kidney, but I wouldn't count on it. On the other extreme of price and experience is the "let's put the family in a car or RV and drive around" kind of vacation. In theory, this is supposed to be cheap but in practice...not so much. I think it often ends with a bunch of annoyed and stressed family members sharing a small and overly priced hotel room. I suppose for those people who like camping, roughing it and eating questionable food cooked over equally questionable kerosene grills, this could be a viable option. But I have a word for this type of person....childless. The notion of doing this with kids in tow, particularly young kids, is too horrendous to even contemplate. Just the normal amount of precautionary medication and kid accoutrements tend to take up the total trunk space of most cars. If you add in camping gear, food, emergency rescue equipment and a set of "jaws of life" (for the truly prepared) you have pretty much filled up an RV. Julien has mentioned, several times, that he would like to take an RV across the US with the kids. I love this man and married him because he is this kind of optimist. Perhaps I will try it one day and love it, but for now, suffice it to say that you will get me in an RV when you provide me with an IV... preferably a Demerol and valium mix.
This leaves us with the quintessential U.S. family vacation, which is the rented "beach house" , "lake house", or "ski house....loops I meant chalet". The cost of it falls somewhere between the RV option and the Disney option. It also tends to take a lot of work in preparation, if one is not lucky enough to own something. Of course, even that takes a lot of planning and coordination...but with relatives. (Addie, chime in here if you like). My family took beach vacations yearly at Holden Beach, NC. Every year we had to rent the house, bring all the crap that one needs for the house, and when we got there, we had to buy groceries and do all the cooking and cleaning. I remember my mother telling me that she hated vacations because it wasn't a vacation for her. At the time I remember sort of rolling my eyes and thinking that Mom was being overly dramatic. Oh, how the nightly have fallen!! ( Mind you, I DON'T hate family vacations, but I do a lot more to mitigate the annoyance factor than my mother ever had the chance to do).
The French Family Vacation
The French seem to be more organized about their vacation time. Gasp! Yes, I said that the French are more organized about something than the U.S. When it comes to luxury items or vacation, the French are very serious and very organized. Thus, they have come up with the "village vacances famille". It is a sort of small group of apartments with everything you need to vacation with your family. According to Julien, these were somewhat cheesy when he was young...but not anymore. As the kids are always on vacation here, the French have refined this concept to an art. The idea is that they provide family friendly accommodations and often activities, in a variety of scenic locations. What differentiates these places from other vacation homes you can rent or hotels you can stay in are twofold. First, they are tailored to families, so they exist all throughout France and with a variety of "a la carte" options from which you can pick and choose. Second, the cost is incredibly reasonable, but I will get to that later. In truth, I actually didn't discover most of this information until after I had booked the vacation.
I actually discovered this concept through a company called Belambra (www.belambra.fr) on the internet that provided this sort of service in Normandy. I can't remember exactly how I stumbled across this but somehow I ended up on a website for the Colleville-Sur- Mer Belambra club. This club was situated at "Omaha Beach" in Normandy. I hadn't thought of Normandy as an option, but once I saw this..and the price...I reevaluated my plans. For a tenth of the price of staying in any of the hotels that I was looking at, we could rent a flat for 3 days. This flat came with 2 small bedrooms, a bathroom and an equipped kitchen. It also came with a meal plan and kid activities for the over 3 set. This was very intriguing.
Our family in Normandy
Once I abandoned my visions of me swimming in warm, aquamarine waters, it was fairly easy to see the appeal of going to Normandy for me and Julien. First, Omaha Beach was one of "the" beaches for D day, so I could get my dose of nostalgia...in a weird sort of way. Second, the area was close enough to Mont. St. Michel for us to be able to drive there in a couple of hours. As France ranks the highest of all countries for tourism, and Mont. St. Michel always ranks in the top 20 of things to see in France, I felt that this would be a good chance to see it. But the question remained, how can we entertain the boys for 3 days in Normandy? As it turns out, quite easily. First, there is the beach...and one can rarely go wrong with the beach + kids combo (unless one is in Tunisia...but that is another story). Second, there was Mont St. Michel, which does look like a Disney castle, so I thought Lucas would love it. I was only half right about this. Third, there were a surprising preponderance of kid themed activities in the region, which led us by happy circumstance to Alligator Bay.
The Village:
Belambra Colleville - Sur - Mer was right at the beach. It took less than 5 minutes to walk down to the water, and that is with the two wandering missiles that I call my sons. To add ease to a mother's nerves, there were no major roads or traffic. There were also several playgrounds both on the premises of the village and by the beach. When we arrived, we saw that we could sign Lucas up for supervised activities but chose not to take advantage of this since we were only there for 3 days.
Our particular unit of the Colleville - sur - Mer "village" was supposedly one of the better ones, and I can believe this. While the provisions were basic, the view of the beach was beautiful and we even had a little terrace where we could have breakfast and snacks. Two bedrooms meant that the boys could stay in one and we could stay in another...a must for any family vacation. Our unit also had a dishwasher and refrigerator. They provided all linens and one could buy things like dishwashing liquid at the desk.
A huge benefit was the meal plan. I added the dinner option when I booked online on a whim. And in truth, I wasn't expecting much. I assumed it would be an Embassy suites sort of dinner, but I was pleasantly surprised. Every night the onsite restaurant provided fresh local seafood and oh so French desserts. As an added bonus, Lucas loved the food and Seb (being under 3) ate for free. I think we got our money's worth on that element alone.
The Beach: Mission "Omaha"
While there were multiple opportunities to take D-day sorts of tours in this area, we skipped out on all of that. The boys are a little young to be too interested in the details of historic military operations. (Unless costumes and crypts are included- see Invalides). But the beach itself was surprisingly charming. The sand was an unusual mixture of "real" sand and stones. This made it easy and pleasant to walk on the beach, but also provided the boys with an endless procession of interesting rocks and stones, in a variety of colors. I have come to be amazed that a handful of rocks can provide little boys with, literally, hours of entertainment.
This beach had a few other unique features. First, the sand looks almost pink. A darkish pink, but still pink. Second, the semidiurnal range of the tides seems quite large. At high tide, most of the beach is covered. At low tide, it took quite a trek to make it to the water line. In fact, it was so far out that it made one mildly concerned about what one might find...in a creepy, Lovecraftian, Dagon kind of way. But having such a differential between high and low tide made for some super cool sand banks that became little islands as the tide was coming back in. Nothing too extreme or dangerous but being carried back over them gave both Lucas and Seb quite a thrill. It also meant that, during low tide, there were multiple little tidal pools that could be explored for shrimp, fish and other crawlies...much the same as nearby Brittany. On the down side, the water was Monterey cold, and the only one of us who really ventured into it much was Julien. But it was tolerable to play in and to get one's feet wet.
In the evenings, we got to tell some interesting stories. Lucas is smart enough to have picked up on the general meaning of some of the monument sites. So, we were put in that interesting parental conundrum of how to explain war. At least we started with an easier one, with more clear cut "good" and "bad" elements than some of our more recent wars. In the end, we made it into a story and he was riveted. This was a bit nostalgic for both me (as my father fought in WW2) and for Julien (who's grandfathers both spent time as prisoners of war). For the adults, we were able to share some very moving stories from both of our pasts, which somehow made the whole experience richer.
On the more shallow side, the days provide photo ops galore here and I got some priceless videos of the boys, including Seb (in a camouflage bathing suit no less) checking out the girls on the sand. In truth, we could have spent the entire 3 days here happily, and actually did spend two of the three days there...but as there were sights to be seen, we set out on the second day for Mont. St. Michel.
Mont Saint Michel:
The drive up to Mont Saint Michel was really inspiring and, although I know this will offend people, that was pretty much where inspiration ended. I had done a bit of research before coming and had found that this place had an interesting history above and beyond its current role as a working Abbey. Some think it has ties to Arthurian mythology as well as Celtic mythology. I discovered that Claude Debussy had frequently visited here because he associated it with the mythical city of Ys. My expectation, given all of this, was that I would be going into a place with some sort of spiritual or mystical feel. What I have discovered, and should know by now, is that any place over run by tourists will fail to evoke any sort of mystical or religious feelings...at least for me. And this place was OVER RUN by tourists. Even if I had been by myself, or just with Julien, I would have felt claustrophobic by the crush of human upon human. As it was, I was in the mob of sweltering flesh with husband, 4 year old and 21 month old.
A word of advice: this is NOT the place for toddlers. It is super crowded, even on slow days. And the streets are narrow which makes that even worse. In short, you CANNOT put your toddler down. It was even a bit nerve wracking to have Lucas on his own feet as it was really easy to get lost in the crowd. In desperation, we chose to take some nice little side stairs to get out of the way of the crowd of tourists and sale of tourist paraphernalia. The good news: much fewer people. The bad news: 4 million stairs. Lucas had no trouble with this but after about the 8th set of stairs, I found myself having religious feelings after all. I was praying that everyone would lose interest. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt this way, because Sebastien had entered into a full fledge category 5 toddler tantrum by the time we left. Having to be on Julien's back for most of this adventure was too much for him, and he had resorted to the crying and flailing that are a toddlers main form of protest. I am surprised that Julien didn't get a slipped disc from all this, but I swear the man seems impervious to this sort of thing.
Another interesting factoid: Mont Saint Michel is surrounded by a sandy, marshy type area that is known for quicksand. Yep, quicksand. There are some people who hire guides to lead them through this for some reason that utterly confounds me. I mean, there is a perfectly good road that runs through it and takes you right to the foot of the Abbey. The need to go trucking through a wilderness that requires a guide to keep you from dying reminds me of the whole extreme sport stuff...or the people who crucify themselves in the name of something or other. If you really must try to torture or kill yourself to experience the thrill of living then I suggest you are in need of chemical intervention. Either that or having a few kids, who will suck all the energy for that foolishness right on out of you. Sleeping will take on an aura of nirvana, but you get the drift. I mention all this to let you know that taking your kids outside for a while will not decrease the stress level. While the quicksand itself apparently is confined to areas further from the abbey, trust me when I tell you that there are just as many "attractive nuisances" outside as inside the abbey, including running water just deep and swift enough to carry a toddler off and surly horses who are annoyed at having to carry one of the aforementioned thrill seekers through the marshes and are looking for someone to kick...and you will do nicely. In the end, I was really relieved to make our escape.
We spent roughly 2 hours actually inside Mont. St. Michel, which was 1.5 hours too long for me. Yes, it is beautiful to the point of being inspiring on the outside, and the drive up to it alone is worth doing once. But, that being said, if I ever went again, I doubt I would even try to go inside. In truth, I doubt I would make the drive again.

Activities for Children in Normandy
I was surprised at the plethora of activities for children that exist in the Mont. St. Michel region alone, let alone in all of Normandy. Fairly close to the abbey, one can find microlight flights, horseback riding around the bay (and not in the aforementioned quicksand), the beaches on the island of Tombelaine, a decent sized amusement park at the Ange Michel Leisure Park, typical fishy stuff at Roc Aquarium, lions at Champrépus Zoo, and various reptiles at Alligator Bay. I had planned to try to do something like this on our way back from Mont. St. Michel but by the time we left, we were all so tired and irritable that I had decided that we would just go straight back to our little village. But my children had other plans. Both of them apparently felt cheated out of opportunities to injure themselves at the abbey and had no intention of settling down into a sleepy or even quiet ride back. So when I saw the sign pointing to Alligator Bay, I swerved into the parking lot. This emergency stop brought us to one of the better reptile parks I have ever seen (and I have seen a few)...much to the joy and delight of both boys.
Alligator Bay:
Advertised as a mere five minutes from Mont Saint Michel, the Alligator Bay Reptilarium is a rather unexpected attraction but more than worthy of any trip with kids. Home to more than 200 different alligators and crocodiles in all shapes and sizes, Alligator Bay also features tortoises and turtles, giant pythons, various lizards, and a tropical greenhouse. You can walk around the alligator enclosures by using a series of trails and wooden bridges. At first, I thought the alligator enclosure was the extent of the park, which reminded me a bit of "Gatorland" in Florida. It was also a little smelly, dank and claustrophobic....although given our previous activities I might have just been unusually susceptible to claustrophobia. However, once you get outside of the alligator enclosures, there are a wealth of other animal areas that are far more intriguing.
Most of the outside grounds seemed to be dedicated to tortoises....of all shapes and varieties. And...once again... they seemed to be perpetually randy. Go figure. I mean, I witnessed the disturbing site of "tortoise love" on Corsica a few months back, but thought it was just a fluke. Apparently it was not. Just like on Corsica, there were two or three turtle porn shows on display. And, once again, it seemed to be the older ones at it. Perhaps they should change the saying from "*&$%^&* like bunnies" to "*&^*()(^ like turtles". Surprisingly, the boys were just as oblivious to this as they had been the first time they witnessed it. The teenagers present were enjoying themselves though.
Given all this, there was still a really nice, family kind of atmosphere here. There was an area where children could actually go and interact with the smaller tortoises and watch them eating. It was extremely hard to get Sebastien away from this area, and in the end, Lucas and Dad had to go ahead. Seb stayed behind with me to poke, lean on and otherwise mistreat the turtles for a bit longer. At the end of the turtle area, there was a area for snacks (?!?!) followed by a snake and lizard house. This had an original arrangement. There were all sorts of ways to crawl above, below and even through the exhibits.
In the end, I think we actually spent more time here than in Mont St. Michel...and more pleasurably. Our drive back to our village was peaceful and serene, with both boys sleeping in their respective car seats.
Future Vacations in the "village famille vacances" style?
Absolutely. While we were by no means in a luxury digs, it was great and designed with families in mind. And, to be honest, can you ever really relax in a super expensive place with kids?!?! They are almost destined to break, stain or otherwise destroy something. Better to be in a place that understands this and prepares for it. I was so impressed with Belambra that I got a catalogue upon leaving (which was in French but organized and designed impeccably). It seems that they have places all around France, both on the coasts and in the mountains. I am actually thinking of planning another long weekend in October if anything is open then.
This summer also taught me that it is really hard to be the single bird obstinately refusing to migrate. If I want to hang on to my American-ness as it pertains to vacations, then I should vacation in American...or an American equivalent (see any of my Disney posts). If I plan to remain in France during vacations, then I should learn from the French....and as I said, the French are very serious about luxury and vacations. Therefore, next summer, if we are in France, I hope to be better prepared. I will sort out childcare earlier. I will plan for a longer vacation in August or a trip home. And, if we take a longer vacation, then I now know ways to do it more reasonably. Yes, I will do these things! No, really.
In the meantime, the siren call of a warm sea still beckons. Maybe I can find a Belambra that is open in Corsica. After all, they have warm water. And beaches. And turtles. The kids should love it.

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