France trip 2 part 5

At Jo's house we had a couple of days of rest while we caught up with them, them we went to the pool with a family that Jo knows who were originally English but have children who are very french. They have three children, a 9 year old boy and two girls aged 12 and 16.We had a lovely time with them at the pool and at their house for a BBQ. I enjoyed talking with the girl called Heloise who is my age about the differences between life in France and life in Australia. While we were there we also went on a few nice day trips.

One of the day trips I enjoyed was the trip to San beach where we strolled through the town looking in little shops.  A shop we stopped in was a two story pirate themed lollies shop that had barrels of all kinds of lollies, I bought some chilli flavoured ones. The town had some lovely old French buildings, it was very picturesque.  The beach was not as full as the Mediterranean but was considerably colder. We swam out to a big diving platform and had some fun jumping/diving off.

Another day we went to see a big citadel on a hill it was still very intact and had a school built in the middle with basketball courts in the long dry moat. I had fun imagining I was defending it from an attacking kingdom.  We walked around it and chatted about what strategies the attackers would have used.

The last big day trip was to a playwright's house. When he had made his fortune he had himself built his dream house. The house is painted in traditional bask style but is very luxurious inside. 

Bask is the name of a group of people who live in the south west of France. They do not have their own country but speak a different language. They traditionally live in and white houses with red or dark green shutters, even today almost every house is painted in this style.

We drove through lots of Bask country and another feature of their house that I noticed was that they tend to have long sloping rooves on one side.

Me in the pirate theme lolly shop

Dad made me change on the beach!

Imagining defending the Citadel

In the middle of the citadel there was a school, they had a basket ball court in the moat!

The playwrights house

The garden at the playwrights house was magnificent.

Buying lunch in a small cafe

Red and white are the traditional colors for houses in bask country

My 2 year old cousin Henry loved siting on our motor bike

A long sloping roof on a bask house

We drove through Spain to catch a ferry back to England. This was the end of our time in France. I loved France and can't wait till I am old enough to spend a year or more living there. But first I need to improve my French!