Ispahan, Millefeuille Fraise, Fraisier, Macaron Divin......... So many cake choices, so hard to choose! We arrived for our afternoon tea booking at Laduree and were seated in the middle of a wonderful room which took us back to the days when Chinoiserie was all the rage in Paris. The furniture, painted walls and ferns all combined to make it very special - and that was before they brought the cake! We were very impressed - even the bottles of lemonade were re-branded to match the crockery. Frank decided that he needed to try one of the ice-cream sundaes on the menu, and I've never seen anything so huge - he definitely needed some help to eat it. I chose the Ispahan - rose flavoured macaron with fresh raspberries - and it was perfection. Hugo still rates ... read more

I don't know how we will go past L'Orangerie as our favourite so far - this gallery is such a gem, and perfect with kids as it is so small and peaceful. We hopped on our trusty velibs and rodein the sunshine through the Tuileries gardens this morning on our way there. The avenues of trees are truly beautiful. I ignored the fact that the restaurant in the gardens is a tourist trap, and took my time enjoying a cafe-au-lait and watching the people go past. With our Paris passes we skipped the queue at L'Orangerie and were admitted very quickly to the gallery, which only allows a small number of people to enter at a time. I had no idea that L'Orangerie had been built expressly to house Monet's paintings. The beautiful colours of the ... read more

The funniest thing about our drive to Paris this morning was the stop at the roadhouse. It was almost our first rainy day of the trip (How well timed was that!) and we set off a little sadly from our lovely Tamnies house with the skies heavy and grey. We puttered our way through lovely little towns on our way to the main road, and then it was 5 hours of boring highway driving. At lunch time we pulled into a huge roadhouse to re-fuel the car and us. Imagine our delight at finding the imagined fast food disaster was actually a Paul patisserie - complete with quiche, baquettes and macaroons! If only roadside eating in Australia looked like this...... Today was also the day we said good-bye to our faithful Peugeot. After all this time ... read more

We got organised and packed a picnic today rather than picking up food on the way - potato salad, jambon, all sorts of tapenades and dips, magnificent terrine (Oh, and the potato chips which were the highlight for certain children!). The orange label in the fridge was also flashing invitingly, so we took along an esky and the bottle of Veuve Cliquot we had bought in Alassio. Our destination was the "Hanging Gardens of Marqueysacc", set high on a clifftop at Vesac. It was another pretty and easy drive South, through Sarlat (Framboisiere time) and over some gentle hills. When we got there, we discovered that as it was Thursday, if we waited a couple of hours, we could enter the gardens after normal closing time for a special "Candlelight walk". That sounded too exciting to ... read more

We can't seem to wake up early here - partly because it is light enough to read a book outside at 10pm, and the best part of the evening seems to be after 7pm so we don't go to bed until well after midnight. I can't remember the last time I slept until after 10am. Today the girls were keen to cook, so they looked up a recipe for a true French omelette and went for it. I was a little sceptical about the combination of red and green peppers, porcini mushrooms and parmesan, but I had to eat my words when I tasted the end result! It was magnificent, and looked as good as it tasted. I am so impressed by their 11-year-old culinary skill. As it is taking Frank and I so long to ... read more