Les grandes réalisations

We are steadily making our way through the list of things to do before we leave France. Last week we revisited the Ardeche, this time with Lily's friend Maya who was over from Whitley Bay for the week. Luke came extremely close to ruining the whole trip by crying for the first twenty hours (recovering from another unidentified virus), but was soon forgiven as he started flashing his gummy smiles again. As always.

On Sunday I headed off with the neighbours to conquer the Croix du Nivolet - the big cross on the mountain that we have spent so many hours looking at from our balcony.

It was a tiring four hour trek, which included scaling a crevasse on some dodgy looking ladders but we were rewarded with some spectacular views and a Savoyard picnic at the top.

We have also ticked off the Funiculaire de Saint Hilare du Touvet, the little train that goes up the side of the mountain that we tried to go up for Max's birthday back in November (but it was shut).

Quite steep really

The boys absolutely LOVED this. But perhaps not as much as they loved the tractor collection of one of the neighbours' friends that we were invited to visit:

So quite a busy past week and a half here in France!