Brittany or Bust!

Our final adventure of the summer was the one we'd been looking forward to the longest, heading to France for the 2024 Olympics! Back in February 2023, Pete's email was chosen for the ticket lottery and we had the chance, just 3 days into ticket sales, to buy a maximum of 30-40 tickets (4 tickets max per event). I had spent a long time researching the events, the location of the venues, and the dates to have some rough ideas when ticket sales opened. Every event except the medal events had 24 euro cheap seat tickets available, which was my goal. 

I ended up buying a set of tickets for a men's qualifying futbol match in the Western city of Nantes, with the idea to spend a week back in Britany, an area we fell in love with during our visit 5 years ago. Then, I got tickets for beach volleyball, men's trampoline gymnastics final, and women's quarterfinal futbol tickets in Paris the following week. I tried to imagine what events the kids would either be really into or events where it would be ok if they were squirmy, noisy, etc. 

After the groups were determined for the men's and women's futbol, I bought another set of women's qualifying futbol tickets in Nantes to be able to see the World Cup winners, Spain, take on Japan. 

To cut down on the costs of the trip, I looked into camping in Nantes and found a vacation park that looked great with indoor/outdoor pools and a stone's throw from the beach. Then I considered that we would be driving our car into Paris and leaving it parked on the street for 4 nights filled to the brim with our dirty camping stuff and reconsidered. Luckily, the vacation park had another option- renting a safari tent with kitchen. A good balance of cost and convenience. 

We set off in the evening hours and drove outside Lille, France where we stayed the night to break up the drive. I was reading warnings about the traffic around Paris and wanted to get an early start the next day to try to beat it. We found an alternative route that didn't go through Paris and set off. As I do on road trips, I quickly fell asleep and when I awoke, Pete was pulling into a rest area to refuel. I imagined we were somewhere in Normandy based on how long we'd been driving so was a bit surprised to see the crowds. As we left the rest area, the Google Maps suddenly recalibrated and what had been a 4-hour remaining drive time, became 6 hours as we realized that we had somehow driven straight into Paris! Thankfully, traffic was minimal going around the ring road and the time recalibrated back to the original 4 hours. We were very relieved! And while we didn't intend to be anywhere near the city for a week, we did get to see some of the venues on our drive and build up our excitement! 

Gas station souvenirs

Stad de France- home of the Athletics competitions and the closing ceremonies.

It wouldn't be a summer road trip in France if we didn't pass a few gorgeous sunflower fields

Our usual McDonald's road trip spot got an upgrade in France- reusable containers and glasses! Bravo!

It was a beautiful warm day so as soon as we arrived at the vacation park, Camping Bel Air, we unpacked and then headed to the pool. Afterward, we couldn't resist the pizza vending machine. It was about as good as you'd expect pizza ready in 5 minutes from a machine would be! 

We got the evening sun on our deck

After dinner, we walked down the hill to check out the local beach. They had a kids club at the beach, where you paid for your kids to spend the morning or afternoon in the supervised play area. I thought we'd take advantage later in the week, but the kids weren't into it.

The little beach cafe was a hit though. 

Sunset was around 9:45pm each evening and we caught some good ones during the week. 

There was a dance party on the first night so we headed back up the hill to the entertainment center to check it out. Jude couldn't get enough and eventually, after dancing as much as I could, I left him there and told him to come home (around the corner to our tent from the hall), by midnight! The majority of the people at the resort were French and there were many songs that they loved that we had never heard of.