With the summer in full swing, the sun shining (ok, not in London, but presumably elsewhere in Europe) the cocktails and the sun cream flowing in equal proportions, it’s time to focus on one thing….skiing.  That’s right…for those of us that are slaves to the school holiday calendar, it’s time to choose a ski resort and get accommodation booked before everything is full.  Think you’re going to come back from your summer holiday and find a place to stay…good luck with that!  

Our top choice this year is a ski resort that one doesn’t necessarily, but should, associate with family ski holidays…St Anton in Austria, where we skied last season.  Our first back-to-back repeat ski resort in a decade.  Synonymous with hard skiing and even harder apres-skiing, St. Anton is often overlooked as a family destination because of its party reputation…and it’s a reputation that is well deserved.  You can seamlessly transition from the snow covered pistes to dancing on the tabletops of mid-mountain Moosewirt…and after a few beers, a few jager bombs and maybe a few schnapps to even things out, strap on the skis for the final 3 minute descent to the base.  

Ok, wait where was I…oh yes, family and kids. Very important.  Aside from the alcohol-fuelled party spots in St. Anton, the resort is an incredible destination for kids.  Let’s start off with the local ski school which is amazing. Now you may ask how I know this, not having actually seen any actual ski instruction (gotta beat the other parents to the ski lift, right?).  

Happiest skier in St. Anton

Why don’t you come with me little boy….

Fair question.  Well to start my youngest Huxley was ripping up the slopes by the end of the week and, more importantly the instructors seemed to tolerate him despite his daily request at the beginning of each lesson, and usually once after lunch immediately after they had gotten the kids back in their ski gear, to pee.  Lessons last from 9:00 to 15:00 and include lunch, which, for my kids, meant schnitzel and fries for six straight days. 

Hot chocolate break

Can you see the energy draining out of him…me neither

For a more relaxing apres-ski alternative there is the Arlberg Wellness Centre, a short walk from the main lifts.  The heated indoor/outdoor pool keeps the kids occupied for hours while simultaneously draining them of the last remaining energy they have left after their long day of skiing.  At dinner the kids sit in exhausted silence, shovelling pieces of schnitzel (yes they have this for dinner as well) into their mouths and begin for bed.  Right, this last bit isn’t really true…especially the silence part…but you get the idea.  Family fun.  

The Wellness Centre also has a sauna and steam room for adults and massages by appointment for whichever parent doesn’t draw the short straw.  Admission for swimming only is a reasonably priced €4.50 for children and €4.50 to €8.00 for adults, depending on how late in the day you arrive. Oh yeah, they also have a gym…but if you ski all day and then go to a gym, we probably won’t be friends.  

Always be the best dressed at the party

Next up for the family is the nighttime toboggan run.  What’s better than that?  Last year we took Harry for the first time and I would say that 10 is the minimum age for them to start.  To be clear, this toboggan run is a British health and safety officers nightmare, but if you strap your helmets on and be smart, it’s a great time.  So here is how this works, you buy a ticket for the gondola and the toboggan rental.  From the top of the mountain you sled down this well lit (well, mostly well lit) trail.  Halfway down the mountain there is restaurant and the only way to get there is…you guessed it…toboggan.  So you can stop, have a hot chocolate (or schnapps), grab a bite to eat and continue to the bottom.  Pro tip: always buy the multi trip pass.  You may think that you only want to go once, but once you get to the bottom and your son starts having a temper tantrum because he wants to go again and you need to wait in line to buy another ticket, you’ll have wished you bought the multi-pass.  True story.

Moms having fun

I can talk about how the numerous restaurants are super family friendly, there’s schnitzel and fries at every restaurant and how you can quietly sip an aperol spritz at a piste side cafe as your kids sled down the beginner slopes….which are all great things about St. Anton. 

Cheese and noodles and beer…

But if you go to St. Anton and don’t take your kids, whatever their ages, to apres-ski at least once, you have failed as a parent (too harsh maybe…but not totally untrue).  

There is always room on every tabletop for a couple of kids to dance and kids make the perfect aprés-ski accoutrements.  So no need to compromise.  ​Grab the kids, it’s family time in St. Anton! 

Does your idea of our Driving Dad roadtrips include images of our family merrily driving along the motorway, admiring the views, creating lasting memories and happily munching on carrot sticks and organic, free-range, gluten-free kale chips while we sing  the theme song to Growing Pains?  If so, this revelation may a bit of a shock to you…sometimes driving really sucks.     

Ahhh, Christmas.  My favourite time of the year. For the past few Christmas seasons we have packed up the car and headed to the Christmas markets in Germany.  Christmas lights, gluhwein, gingerbread, singing and snow.  This year we had a relatively short drive of 3 hours and 45 minutes (from Calais, France) to Monschau, Germany, which is just over the Belgian border.  So we decided to make a quick, festive stop in Belgium on the way…somewhere that I thought would be fun for not just me, but the for entire family…a brewery.  The plan was to meet our friends at the Kerkom Brewery in the Flanders region of Belgium for dinner and a few Belgian beers.  Alas, the traffic Grinch was out to disrupt our trip from the outset.  The first snag came as we were leaving London…a traffic accident in the Blackwall Tunnel, our main route out of London, which resulted in a 45 minute standstill. Then, after a successful Eurotunnel crossing and with images of a nice, dark Belgian Dubbel and a plate of frites firmly etched in my subconscious, we hit what Catherine would describe as “ a bit of traffic” and what I would describe as “mind-numbingly painful, world-ending, tear-inducing rush hour traffic”.  In an attempt to re-route our course to avoid the traffic, chaos ensued… I vividly recall the discussion as follows:

Catherine: Oops, I forgot to tell you that we were meant to go left back there.
Me: Don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes sometimes *heart emoji*.
Catherine:  It looks like 35 minutes have been added to our journey…
Me: That’s just an extra 35 minutes we get to spend together as a family *two heart emojis*.  Can you pass the kale chips please?
Catherine: *starts singing* As long as we got each other, we got the world sittin’ right in our hands…
Entire family: *joins in singing*

However, deeply suppressed memories subsequently emerged in the following weeks reflecting a slightly different conversation…I’m still not sure which represents reality so choose your favourite:

Catherine: Oh no, I think we were meant to go left back there and 35 minutes have been added to our journey.
Me:  35 minutes! %$%^ &^& ()%$^ £$^&  *%^!!! brewery!!
Catherine: £$%^  (*& %$^^  ^$^^%& *&^!!!
Me: “£$% %^$£ (*&
Harry:  What does £$%^£$  %^^%$ mean?
Me and Catherine: ^%$ ^&* ^%$! Eat your Big Mac and stop asking questions!!

Inhale, exhale, repeat…We soon recovered and after a few deep breathing exercises, strategic, focussed GPS re-routing and the smooth sounds of Usher over the radio, we continued our journey to the brewery which, as Catherine correctly predicted would “still be standing and still be serving beer, even if we were a few minutes late.”

Kerkom Brewery itself was exactly as I had hoped: a red brick farmhouse brewery dating from 1878 that could not have been more welcoming on a frigid December night. There was a serious-looking, five foot high wood burning stove in the center of the pub area of the brewery that must have been as old as the brewery itself.  The menu consisted of  hearty winter fare and the waitress, who spoke only Flemish (well, to us at least), was openly unimpressed with our friend Dave’s fairly flawless French.  We ordered food – or rather the waitress told us in Flemish what we were going to have – as we sat there nodding in agreement to what sounded a bit like a minute of somebody clearing their throat. We were more assertive and successful in ordering the beer…mainly because there were pictures.  The beers themselves were great., particularly the seasonal Winterkoninkske (Winter King) Christmas beer which, at 8.5% alcohol, ruled me out of driving the last leg of the journey (thanks Catherine). Belgian cheese stuffed meatballs and a rich, meat stew arrived shortly after, a particularly pleasant surprise as I was convinced the waitress had signed us up for the chicken carpaccio tourist special.

At least Catherine was impressed with Dave’s french.

So all is well that ends well.  I drank the last bit of my beer, handed the car keys to Catherine with a look that said “I told you that being a bit late wasn’t a big deal” and we were on our way…another successful roadtrip pitstop.

Driving Dad is all about driving from our home in London to the rest of Europe; something that would be significantly more difficult without the existence of the Eurotunnel. Many people associate travel from London to the rest of Europe with low budget flights, not road trips.  And often when I am in America, we get puzzled looks when we explain we are driving to, for instance, France for the weekend.  That said, I have spoken to many people in Europe, including people in London, who don’t really understand how the Eurotunnel works.  Fair enough…before Driving Dad became a European driving sensation featured in the Wall Street Journal  (yes, shameless self-promotion) and before having three kids, I never really contemplated using the Eurotunnel. Most people incorrectly assume we take a car ferry across the English Channel or ship our car across on a train and then take the Eurostar, picking up our car on the other side of the Channel.  So below I have prepared a basic Eurotunnel tutorial, with pictures for those of you too lazy to read my blog.

This guy would not be out of place in a Monty Python movie

To begin, I must admit that I have a mixed relationship with the Eurotunnel. Kind of like the family dog that every once in a while chews up your favourite shoes: temporary frustration, but long-term love.  When things are running smoothly, which admittedly has been most of the time in my experience, I am the Eurotunnel’s biggest fan.  That said, we tend to travel at high peak times such as school holidays, when delays are inevitable.  But unlike with the airlines, I find it difficult to get too upset with Eurotunnel about the rare delay. First of all it’s confusing…who do you blame?  The French? I feel like they get unfairly blamed for too much already. The English?…probably easier to just blame the French, right.  My kids, on the other hand, welcome with joy any delay, as that typically means we have time to get Burger King at the Eurotunnel terminal (don’t judge me please).

Don’t worry, the lines aren’t always this long

Step 1 – Check in:  You arrive in at the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone from the M20 motorway and follow the road to a row of tollbooth-style check-in lines.  You pull up to the booth, insert the credit card (with which you bought your tickets) into the machine and your reservation appears on the screen. NOTE: You can also buy tickets upon arrival, but good luck doing that on the Thursday evening before Easter break.  You confirm your identity on the screen (your license plate is also scanned to confirm identity) and out comes a ticket with a letter that denotes your boarding group.  A boarding schedule is then shown on the large departure screens located in the parking area and in the terminal itself, just like in a train station or airport…simple so far.  My favourite part of checking in is what I call the Eurotunnel lottery…i.e., the opportunity Eurotunnel gives you, if you have arrived significantly in advance of your departure, to get on an earlier train.  That’s right, no additional fees, no hassle, just a message that pops up on the screen asking if you want an earlier departure…”ummmm, yes I do, thanks.”  This is virtually unheard of with airline travel.  Can you imagine Ryanair saying “Well since you are here early, we will be happy to put you on the earlier flight, at no charge.” Michael O’Leary would have a heart attack if he heard an employee utter that sentence.  My love for Eurotunnel is greatest when this happens and the memory of any previous train delays are completely erased from my mind.

Step 2 – Immigration: similar to the Eurostar, you go through both UK and French immigration in the United Kingdom, so once you arrive in Calais, you drive off the train after the 35 minute journey and are on your way (thanks France!).  The immigration process is set up similar to the check-in, with an immigration officer in a booth.  Pre-registering your passengers and passports online greatly speeds up this process.  On the last few crossings our family has also been required to go through an advanced car inspection, no doubt fulfilling some internal quota requiring the search of people least likely to be involved in international criminal activities. To be fair though, my youngest son is fairly devious and may have criminal tendencies –  Me:  “What’s in your mouth.”  Huxley “Nothing.” Me: “What’s in your mouth?” Huxley: “Nothing.”  Me: “WHAT IS IN YOUR MOUTH!?!” Huxley “Legos” *spits legos into my hand.  Also, the last time we used Eurotunnel, our car was searched by a drug sniffing dog.  I can’t fault the Eurotunnel employee for thinking that somebody travelling for hours in a car with three young boys could (or should) be in possession of narcotics.  As it turned out,  the drug inspection was the highlight of the entire road trip for Huxley.  I can report that the dog conducted his inspection with absolute professionalism and was completely unperturbed by Huxley tearing at his car seat straps screaming “dog, dog…LET ME PET IT!”

No drugs in this car, but clearly this dog is eager to read my next blog post

Top level or bottom level; which way will we go?

Step 3 – Boarding the train:  This is where things really get fun.  Once the departures screen indicates that your group is boarding, you make your way to the train in your car, following signs “to France” (nice touch).  The train has two levels…yes two levels.  A car-train equivalent of a double decker bus; and who doesn’t love a double decker bus. One of the games we play is to guess whether we will be on the top level or the bottom level.  This is a highlight (yes…a highlight) of our Eurotunnel crossing, despite the fact that the kids that chose incorrectly typically wind up in tears resulting from the subsequent taunting and teasing.  Does this stop us from playing this game every single trip we take? No, of course not…that would be too sensible.  Once on the train, the cars are usually parked bumper to bumper with automatic doors partitioning off the individual carriages.  In a couple of rare instances, we have been the only car in the carriage, at which point we break out the football and start an intra-family match right in the carriage. So we have driven a car onto a train – that is speeding under the English Channel – while we are playing football – and the kids having an incredible time.  Seriously, who needs Disney World when you can ride on the Eurotunnel train.

Our VIP carriage football match

And there you have it.  Is there anybody left who would actually want to fly to the Continent from London?  If so, it would be great if you could take my three kids…and I will meet you there.  Beep beep!

There is a constant struggle when traveling with three young boys to, among other things, find excursions that are both fun for the adults (well, just me really) and fun for the kids.  Catherine says that I am too selfish to plan activities that are only appealing to the kids which is absolutely not true  sometimes true pretty accurate. But the medieval village of Civita di Bagnoregio, teetering on a crumbling hilltop perch in a wind-eroded valley, is a perfect example of a trip that is fun for everyone. And located only a 45 minute drive from the rustic stone house in Umbria where we were staying, it was an easy decision to go. The village is known as il paese che muore (the dying city), because the raised ground on which it is was built has been slowly disintegrating over the centuries, accelerated every few hundred years by a major earthquake (the last one was in 1695).  Having recited these facts to my sons, in the hope of expanding their knowledge and peaking their interest in the trip, their logical conclusion was that there must be dragons in this village.  So we set off in the car, the kids contemplating whether these dragons would be friendly or if we should bring them some pizza to win them over.

Selfie 21 of 34 -Kids getting antsy but wanting to get a good shot so they could move on

Driving Dad Tip: When arriving by car to Italian villages, always find parking just outside the old centre.  Narrow streets, constructed hundreds of years ago to accommodate the barely comfortable passage of two horses, are not meant for cars built to seat seven people. My early expeditions into these medieval hamlets always resulted in me reversing the car out of the village under the disconcertingly critical gaze of the local residents. However, my rule backfired on me in this instance.  Of course Civita di Bagnoregio is only accessible to pedestrians and the odd scooter via a footbridge, but the goal was to park as close to the entrance to the footbridge as possible, particularly given our three walking-adverse (or pro-piggyback) children. Instead, I chose a safe parking spot that, unbeknownst to me, was one kilometre away, automatically qualifying me for “least popular person in my family” status, an honour frequently passed around over the course of a roadtrip. Catherine, burdened by the weight of Hatcher on her shoulders, could barely contain her criticism as we passed the five other parking areas, each significantly closer to our destination than where I parked. But the views upon arrival quickly erased the groups’ collective frustration. And the kids, seemingly forgetting how tired they were for the last 15 minutes, scurried down the stairs to the footbridge.

 The crossing to the old city was uneventful and several dozen selfies later we passed though the main stone entryway and onto a street that funneled visitors into the main piazza. The perimeter of the piazza featured a striking church that started life as an Etruscan temple hundreds of years ago, and several weathered stone buildings. A few cafes dotted the perimeter of the piazza – which made this an ideal location for a sneaky coffee and, most importantly, for the kids to run around hunting for dragons. Fortunately the city was not inundated with tourists as it is reputed to be in the summer months.  Which is good because the tourists that were there weren’t particularly impressed by our boys’ wild screams and shrieks.  “Guys, can you use your indoor voices?”  “But dad we’re outside.”  “Uh, yeah, ok hmmm good point”.  So we implemented Plan B (one of our favourites) and simply pretended that these weren’t our children. To support this illusion, every once in a while I glanced their way, muttering “where are those boys’ parents” in a disapproving tone while watching the nearby tourists nod their heads in silent agreement. Unfortunately, this plan backfired when Hatcher ran up to me yelling “dad, I have to wee, where’s the toilet!”

Lunchtime – can you spot the ancient Etruscan blackberry (cutting edge technology at the time)

For a tiny village, with only seven permanent residents, there were plenty of restaurant options – at least a one-to-one restaurant to resident ratio in fact – which was certainly convenient if you didn’t want to dine with  any of your neighbours. We were a bit dubious given that these places clearly catered to the tourist crowd and picked Osteria al Forno di Agnese, a restaurant with rustic, outdoor garden seating and a tolerant looking waiter, the rationale being that at least we would be in a nice setting, even if the food wasn’t perfect.  Like most restaurants in Italy, they accommodated our request for plain pasta and butter for our culinarily unsophisticated children.  Catherine and I ordered a local cheese and meat plate and some classic Italian pasta dishes.  As it turned out, the food was great, if not slightly overpriced, however given the hassle of getting food into the city, the higher price seemed fair enough.

The boys were trying to figure out how to collect all the coins at the bottom of the well

After lunch I promised the boys gelato.  In fact I had been promising the boys gelato all day…I think “bribing them with the promise of gelato” is the correct phrase. I was relieved to see a quaint café carved into a rock wall, which peaked my interest because their gelato was ricotta cheese-based. It sounded amazing (to me) and I ordered four small chocolate cups of gelato…or at least that is what I thought I was ordering. It turns out it wasn’t gelato at all, but actual room temperature ricotta cheese covered in chocolate sauce, a fact my rudimentary Italian did not pick up.  My enthusiastic pitch to the kids didn’t work. I even got them to try it:  Huxley deemed it “disgustin’”, Hatcher, the best eater of the bunch, just said no thanks, and Harry said nothing but I assumed from the gagging that he didn’t want another bite. Even Catherine didn’t like it. So fortified by 4 bowls of chocolate sauce-covered ricotta cheese and Hatcher on my shoulders, I began my descent to the main town and the long, slow walk to the car.

A champagne bar in a treehouse.  Paying attention now, aren’t you?  I’m hoping I’m not the only person who didn’t know that tucked beside the vineyards of Champagne, just minutes off the motorway, is a champagne bar…in a treehouse. I’ll admit that I hesitated to publish this post, worried that I would be doing the travel equivalent of a dad dance by not knowing about this hidden treasure. To be fair, I don’t know everything I don’t always know everything, despite what my two year old thinks and despite what I tell my wife.  But something as interesting as the existence of a treehouse champagne bar seems like a fact that would have come to my attention at some point in our travels.

Treehouse toasting

The vineyards of Verzy

The name of the bar is the Perching Bar and it is in the Forêt de Brise-Charrettes (just saying that makes me feel French…Forêt de Brise-Charrettes…go ahead…grab a baguette and say it again), which is part of the national park.  La Montagne de Reims.  Let me summarise…a champagne bar…in a treehouse…in a forest…in France. Things just keep getting better. The bar is located in the outskirts of the village of Verzy, lesser known than the major Champagne towns of Reims and Epernay, but one of only 17 grand cru villages in Champagne (the more you know…). Verzy is just south of Reims and right off the A4 motorway, which means we have passed within kilometres of this town on our numerous European roadtrips, making it even more egregious that I was unaware of its existence.

As it happened, Catherine and I were planning the return journey of our child-free, weekend roadtrip to Burgundy and I was scouting places in Champagne to stop for lunch on the way back to London (via Calais).  A few clicks later and I was directed to this blog post (thanks guys!), at which point eating became a secondary priority.  That said, I was not completely convinced that the Perching Bar was real or, if it was, that it would be open, however we thought we would try our luck. After driving through the center of Verzy, we took a sharp turn onto a rough dirt road that ran along the top edge of one of the vineyards. A few turns deeper into the forest later, and we had reached a dead-end, open space that suggested a parking area, but was ominously still. There was only one car, that looked like it hadn’t been driven in months, parked nearby and a hand-painted, red sign pointing us in the direction (I hoped) of the bar. If someone needed to bury a body, this location would have worked well. I checked the sign to the bar to confirm that it was paint (and not blood) and, like a gentleman, let Catherine go first up the forest path.

As we continued deeper into the forest, promising signs of infrastructure slowly emerged: a wooden bridge, some stairs built into a hill, a bright pink wine barrel with a champagne house logo and finally a small wooden hut manned by a French hobbit (just kidding, but that would have been AMAZING…and not at all out of place). For the fairly steep price of €16 each (glass of champagne included, though), we were admitted to a series of suspension bridges leading to our ultimate destination, the treehouse bar. Shortly after our arrival, we were given a 2 minute instructional talk by the resident champagne expert about the champagnes on offer that day, and settled on a Louis de Sacy champagne from Verzy.  The champagne was great…I won’t to digress into some pretentious diatribe about the size of the champagne bubbles or how the finish had hints of freshly mowed grass and under-ripe gooseberries.  And honestly, sitting outside on a stool overlooking the vineyards and surrounding forest, I could have been drinking warm mayonnaise and still felt completely content.

Champagne swinging

But hold on…it gets better.  I know you are thinking, Driving Dad, how could this possibly get better? I am drinking champagne in a treehouse with incredible views. Well let me tell you. In addition to a treehouse champagne bar, located in the forest (or, as I say, the Forêt de Brise-Charrettes), there is an outdoor adventure park,  with rope courses, zip lines and suspension bridges. So while you are happily  sipping your champagne, you can watch your children soar above the forest canopy on a zip wire; the one thing protecting them from a fall and inevitable broken bones being a safety cord, the quality of which is subject only to dubious French health and safety regulations.  But at that point you aren’t worried because you are on your third glass of champagne. Santé!

TRAVEL STATISTICS:

Champagne to Calais: 2.5 hours (1 stop for gas)
Eurotunnel Crossing: 6:06pm (35 minutes, no delays!)
Folkestone to London: 1 hour 50 minutes thanks to weekend traffic
Number of screaming children in the car: 0
Number of children in the car: 0

“Yeah, I’m just going surfing this weekend,” I said nonchalantly to my colleague, hoping to subtly insinuate that not only do I surf all the time, but that I’m really good at it. I could see the wheels spinning; “Do you surf a lot,” he asked skeptically, eyeing the large chocolate muffin in my hand. I nodded my head in a way that could have been interpreted as a yes, but could also be played off as an involuntary twitch if pressed further on the subject. “Nice one, well have a great trip,” he said, and walked away thinking Kelly Slater when, from a surfing standpoint, Kelly Clarkson was probably closer to the truth.

I was off for a surf weekend though – a road trip to Cornwall with my oldest son Harry and my friend Mark and his two sons. This was going to be the highlight of early Autumn; a boys’ weekend…a couple of days surfing,  a little sunshine and a few beers on the beach. I couldn’t wait! Sadly my enthusiasm for surfing is only distantly related (3rd cousins) to my ability to actually surf, having started less than three years ago. However, I felt no need to advertise that minor fact, preferring instead to have my friends and colleagues greatly overestimate my athletic prowess.

If there isn’t traffic, the drive to Cornwall can take as little as 4 1/2 hours from central London. But if I’m honest, that’s a bit like saying, “if it doesn’t get dark at night I don’t have to turn on the lights.” There is always traffic. But I think everyone who has driven from London to Cornwall numerous times has had one experience where they’ve made it there in under five hours. Therefore it can happen again, right?  But no, it never does. Maybe because that sub-five hour drive was made at 3am…on a Wednesday…in January. But naively hopeful, we grabbed our wetsuits, beach gear and roughly six grocery bags of food, my wife Catherine having confused “surf weekend” with “six-month Antarctic excursion.”

The two dads were in the front (with Mark generously offering to drive), two boys in the back and one in the way back. Still three kids in the car as per our usual family road trips, but two of them were not mine and all of them were over the age of 7. Jackpot! Absent was the endless teasing, the glass-shattering shrieks, the tears, the dirty nappies and the fighting over what to watch on the iPad and who gets to hold it. This drive, compared to our usual road trips, was like the difference between a hot oil massage on a beach in the Maldives and getting hit directly in the nuts by a Lionel Messi free kick from 10 yards out. Having experienced neither of these things, this comparison is a bit speculative, however my point (if you’ve missed it) is that the latter is significantly less preferable…I guess unless you’re a huge Messi fan or are contemplating cheaper vasectomy alternatives.

The drive flew by. All six and a half hours of it (“you know I’ve done this drive in 4.5 hours once?“… “yeah me too.“). Catherine called me en route and asked if I was critiquing Mark’s driving. No. Was I yelling at him when he took a wrong turn. No. Was I telling him to speed up? slow down? change lanes? No, no and no. “Well, I’m glad that you are controlling yourself,” said Catherine, in a very not glad tone.  “Or maybe Mark is just a better driver than you,” I didn’t say out loud. The thought of a nice cold Cornish brew got us through the last hour of the drive and at 7:15pm we pulled into the parking lot of the Cornish Arms in St Merryn. While the kids ran around outside, we made a beeline to the bar, grabbed some drinks and caught the last few minutes of light while sipping our beers in the garden, a world away from London.

Saturday morning: we were all up early and ready to hit the waves, despite the cloudy skies. But first we had to get kitted out in our  wetsuits. Getting on Harry’s wetsuit is never fun. I would describe it simply as the opposite of fun. There is a lot of lifting and pulling, whining and accusations of intentional pinching, until the process is complete and we are both left mentally and physically drained. But getting on Harry’s wetsuit is relatively enjoyable compared to getting on my own wetsuit (think OJ and the glove). I find it hard to squeeze into skinny  straight leg jeans without injuring myself, so imagine (well, maybe not if you’re eating) the difficulty I experience when trying to put on a skin tight body suit. In ten minutes I had sweated out two kilos of water weight and was ready for a nap, not for surfing…and I’d only gotten the right leg on.  “Seems like my wetsuit shrunk,” I muttered as Mark came over to help me. Did he just pinch me on purpose?

Wetsuits on, we walked down to the beach where we were all taking a surf lesson at the Harlyn Surf School. We met our two instructors, who looked like they probably didn’t have any trouble getting on their wetsuits that morning (or ever), and after a little stretching and a few safety tips, we were in the water. The instructors were encouraging, giving out advice like “bend your knees” and “you’re too far forward on the board“, but I knew they were silently thinking “maybe skip dessert once in awhile” and “go for a run“, while promising themselves that they would never let their twenty-something bodies deteriorate to my physical condition.

Post-surf hot chocolate

When the lesson was over, I summoned my last bit of strength to carry the surfboard back to the surf school, a significant distance given that the tide had gone out. Despite being physically crushed, I did feel pretty confident in my wetsuit with my belly sucked in and  the surfboard tucked snugly under my arm like in the movies. I walked up the beach feeling like a pro, vaguely aware that my wetsuit made me look like the illegitimate son of the Michelin man and a sea lion, but pushing that realization to the far reaches of my subconscious where it was replaced with visions of Johnny Utah.  And I was definitely getting some looks from the ladies…the fact that they were all over 65 didn’t make me feel less special.

Padstow Harbour

With morning surfing over, we headed into Padstow for lunch. We decided on Rick Stein’s fish and chip restaurant because, well Rick Stein. For those who don’t know him, he is an English celebrity chef (no, not Jamie Oliver…no, not Gordon Ramsey either…fine, just google him) who dominates Padstow with his restaurants, cafe, store and cooking school. It’s hard not to admire the guy…he has his name on everything including wine, beer, sea salt, cheese and plates. Some people judge success by wealth or power, however I’ll know that I’ve made it when my signature is boldly etched into savoury oat biscuits.

Success

Mark and I motivated to surf in the afternoon, possibly refreshed by a “light and healthy” meal of fish, chips and mayo and the promises of slipping on the cold, damp wetsuits waiting back for us at the house.  After another two plus hour surf session in the water, I resigned myself to the fact that I might be sleeping in my wetsuit, potentially on the beach, in lieu of the five minute walk to the house I was convinced I simply could not make.  Bedtime (which was 8:30pm for kids and adults) could not have come sooner.

The best pasties in Cornwall

We managed one last surf session on Sunday morning, having been energised by a breakfast consisting of the ubiquitous Cornish pasties bought at Chough Bakery in Padstow, a store that, over the years, is partly responsible for the difficulties I experience in getting on my wetsuit. Showered and packed, with four bags of unused provisions in the back seat, we made our way to London.  I arrived home completely spent, but still considerate enough to ask my lovely wife how her “weekend off” was. “Surfing is exhausting,” I said as crawled into bed…still wearing my wetsuit.

TRAVEL STATISTICS:

London to Cornwall: 6.5 hours (0 stops)
Cornwall to London: 6.5 hours (2 stops – 1 emergency bathroom break, 1 petrol stop)
Getting lost/wrong turns: 0
Car sickness: (0, but with one false alarm)

“Wildcard trip”: A side trip, typically spontaneous, that deviates from the planned itinerary.

With early evening approaching and over six hours left until our Eurotunnel crossing back to the UK at 10:20pm, it was decision time.  We could continue our tour of Bruges and eat another three kilos of frites washed down with some strong Belgian beer while the kids devoured their purchases from the Chocolate Museum.  Or, alternatively, we could head to the seaside town of De Haan, which was a manageable 25 minute drive.  Tiring out the kids at the beach was an appealing prospect but it was, as I sagely pointed out, nothing that a couple of spoonfuls of NyQuil could not also accomplish, and in significantly less time.  Surely an extra beer or two at a rustic canal-side café would be as equally as enjoyable for the kids as for the adults?  But having a late-night drive back to London to consider and the fact that our friends thought I was joking about the NyQuil (I wasn’t), responsible parenting prevailed over fun (i.e., reality triumphed over fantasy) and we opted for the De Haan excursion.  So with an indifferent “sure, I’m good with whatever” masking my crushing disappointment, we headed to the car.

However, with the sun breaking through the grey clouds that had dominated the Bruges skies all day, I had to acknowledge that the beach trip might not be a bad idea.  That said, nothing required me to acknowledge this out loud, thereby preserving my ability to complain at a later time.

The drive from Bruges was a short, but picturesque one, and with enough grazing cattle and sheep to keep Huxley fully entertained for the entirety of the trip.  You would think he had spotted Peppa Pig herself the way he shrieked with delight every 30 seconds as we passed another grassy green field filled with livestock.  We rolled into De Haan at around 5:45pm, found some convenient beach-side parking and piled out of the car.  Harry, Hatcher and the other kids made a beeline to the pirate ship playground on the beach and Catherine made a beeline to the store for a few cans of Jupiler beer; everyone having their priorities in order.

The tide was out and the beach was dotted with sandy tide pools stretching for hundreds of feet.  The sun was shining brightly and the temperature had risen enough that I shed my sweater. Things were looking good.  After a while, the six kids, either detecting adult contentment or growing bored with dry land, surged towards the tidal pools like the Serengeti wildebeest migration.  What started as tentative toe dipping turned into more confident wading (with trousers rolled up…sort of) and quickly culminated in a fully clothed free-for-all soaking where no child was left dry.

With the kids all happily playing in the distance, the adults were left in peace to reflect on the day as the sun slowly dipped behind the English Channel.  For all the chaos of the day we were rewarded with an incredible sunset at the beach on a warm Autumn evening and 90 minutes of kid-free conversation. “We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the Lords of all Creation“ –  Red

There must be a term for when something really good happens and erases the memory of all of the bad things that happened immediately prior. Selective amnesia maybe? Whatever that term is, that is what happened this evening.

“Did any of the kids even cry today?…I don’t think so”
“And nobody misbehaved as far as I can remember”
“The kids must be so energetic because of the healthy lunch they ate”
“Matt you look really slim in those jeans, are you sure you ate three orders of fries at lunch?”
“See, I told you guys the beach was a great idea”

And in my mind I HAD told them…and I was right.

Posing or huddling together for warmth?

But just like that the calmness was shattered as the kids, with moans and whines echoing from De Haan to Dover, let us know they were simultaneously cold, hungry, wet, dry, sandy, tired and thirsty.  Oh well. After we changed them into the extra sets of dry clothes Catherine had sensibly packed (nice one Catherine!) we only had time for a quick dinner.  So we chose a simple looking Friterie right off the beach, just in case our kids had forgotten what fried food tasted like in the last six hours.  We were the only group sitting at the outside tables and may have been the only people to ever sit at this Friterie …or eat at this place sober.  While it’s hard to go wrong with fries, I would guess this establishment was a at least couple years out from achieving its first Michelin star.  Although their burgers were very Michelin-esque in the sense that  they tasted like rubber.  But “the kids were happy” which really seems to be the gold standard of multi-child family travel.

Well, I broke my leg and punctured a lung, but the kids were happy, so overall a great trip.

We ordered a few baskets of frites for the table and what the waiter claimed to be chicken fingers, but really could have been actual fingers or some types of edible or non-edible deep fried animal parts.  The kids ate them and are still alive today, so I guess it worked out.  We thanked the waiter for the wonderful meal, paid and headed to the car, readying the car sickness bags in anticipation of retribution from our gourmet fried dinner.

The beach, salt air, exercise and the heavy fried food worked its magic, with the kids passing out within minutes of departing De Haan.  With the kids sound asleep, we were unfazed by our one hour delay at the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais and chatted about how easy it was to do a day trip to Belgium.  “Do we have a free day next weekend? Day trip to Spain next?”  We made it back to London before midnight and seamlessly transferred our exhausted children into their awaiting beds, reveling in our successful trip.  And to anyone who asked what we did over the weekend we told them “oh not too much…we went to Belgium…for the day”.  

Travel Statistics:

Bruges to De Haan: 25 minutes (0 stops)
De Haan to Calais: 1 hour 15 minutes (0 stops)
Eurotunnel crossing  10:20pm: 35 minutes (1 hour delay):
Folkestone to London: 1 hour 25 minutes
Getting lost: 0
Car sickness: 0

When we first moved to the UK, kid and care free, a time when any discussion about an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep did not begin with the phrase “Remember when…”, we talked about how London’s proximity to the Continent would allow us to zip over to Paris for the day, enjoy some fine French cuisine and make it back to London  before the Eurostar turned into a pumpkin.  Regrettably and unfathomably, we squandered our opportunity to execute such a trip, and over a decade and three kids later, I can barely go to the toilet without a child joining me, let alone Paris.

But wait! Could there be a family-friendly trip equivalent to compensate for the missed opportunities of our pre-child days?!  Well, no, of course not.  So instead we packed up the car and headed to Belgium for the day…a somewhat aggressive endeavor and a poor substitute for steak tartare and a few bottles of Burgundy sans enfants.  But a driving day trip to Bruges, Belgium with three kids…so much family fun to be had! Uh..right?

My first misgiving hit me as soon as my alarm went off at 5:30am. “I could still be sleeping. I’ve voluntarily woken myself up. Why have I done this?” I consoled myself with the fact that our friends, who also have three children and were driving to Belgium as well, lived further away from the Eurotunnel in Folkestone and were likely feeling even more miserable than I was, having gotten 20 minutes less of sleep (I hoped). Ha! I had cheered myself up. And as my head cleared and the caffeine from my first cup of coffee kicked in, I was starting to get excited about the drive ahead.  We bundled our three groggy kids into the back seat of the car (our road trip clearly an exception to the cardinal rule of “never wake a sleeping child”), stuffed buttered toast into their mouths and off we went!

15 minutes later

Catherine:  “We forgot the stroller.”
Me:  “WE forgot the stroller or YOU forget the stroller?”
Catherine: “Don’t be a dick.  You could have packed it.”
Hatcher: “Mom, what’s a dick? Why is dad a dick?”
Me: “I’m not, mom is just angry that she forgot the stroller…and please don’t use that word.”
Catherine: *eye roll
Hatcher: “Dick dick dick dick dick”

Almost everyone is happy to be in Bruges

With the London streets absent of cars, most people having had enough sense (or beer) to remain in bed at such an early hour on a Saturday morning, we made it to the Eurotunnel in just over an hour.  We checked in, drove onto the train (typically the highlight of our kids’ day) and were whisked under the English Channel for the 35 minute journey to Calais.  An equally uneventful and traffic-free morning in France and Belgium facilitated an arrival in Bruges, our first destination, in less than 1.5 hours.  After connecting with our friends, the group wandered Bruges’ meandering medieval streets (stroller-less, of course), the kids oblivious to their magnificent architectural surroundings and the parents only sporadically able to appreciate them, between tracking the kids and taking bets on which child was most likely to get hit by a bicycle first. When the children’s cheerful yelps mutated into whines and tears, we knew it was time for lunch.

A rare quiet lunch moment

Now choosing a restaurant with 10 people, six of whom are kids under the age of nine, presents strategic challenges that do not exist when only adults eat out.  First, the list of requirements is much longer with six children and almost always includes an informal assessment of whether the group will even be welcome at the chosen restaurant.  After a quick recon of the area, made quicker by the increasingly loud groans of “I’m soooo hungry”, we narrowed our unsuspecting target down to a casual looking bistro called Beethoven on a square a few streets off the Grote Markt, with only a few occupied tables. After confirming, with a somewhat apprehensive waitress, that we could completely re-arrange their outdoor seating to cobble together, in tetris-like fashion, a table that could seat 10, we herded the kids to their seats.  I furtively  made eye contact with a patron seated nearby, the apologetic look on my face silently confirming the fact that we were about to ruin his peaceful lunch, and his return glare conveying a complete absence of empathy.

Dick.

The lunch itself was a chaotic blur, but I recall that the food was surprisingly good; good food not being a top priority when “dining” with six children.  Harry and Hatcher both tried a mussel from my order of moules frites, Harry assuring me he loved it  with an enthusiastic thumbs up, while simultaneously gagging as he struggled to swallow. Huxley seemed content alternating between dipping his frites into ketchup and mayo, a meal I therefore considered to involve more than one of the four food groups.  No glasses were broken, no drinks were spilled and nobody was stabbed with a utensil.

Following lunch, in an act of supreme selflessness, the dads volunteered to patiently wait at a canal-side café in Jan van Eyck Platz with a couple of Trappist beers, while the moms took the six kids to the Chocolate Museum.  In my opinion a win-win situation for everyone although a bit unfair that the moms got to go to the Chocolate Museum.  We agreed that they should make it up to us later as we happily snacked on the chocolate that they had bought.

Thus ended our day in Bruges, and I couldn’t help but think, as I was contentedly pushing my youngest son in the stroller carrying the dead weight of my dozing youngest son in my arms, that the day had been a success.

But our day in Belgium wasn’t over, and we piled into the car and headed out to our next Belgian destination- the beach town of of De Haan.

TRAVEL STATISTICS:

London to Folkestone: 1 hour 15 minutes (0 stops)
Eurotunnel crossing-8:20am (Folkestone to Calais): 35 minutes with a slight delay
Eurotunnel ticket (Short Stay Saver): £56
Calais to Bruges: 1 hour 25 minutes (0 stops)
Getting lost/wrong turns: 0
Car sickness: 0

HARRY

Age: 10
Road trip quote: “Cool kids don’t smile”
Type of eater: Very picky; but will try food for money
Music preference: Top 40
Bladder control: 8/10 (strong)
Car sickness probability: 2/10 (low)
Favourite country: Spain
Pros: Eats his crusts

HATCHER

Age: 5
Road trip quote: “I’m soooo hungry”
Type of eater: Will try anything once; loves oysters
Music preference: Whatever Harry likes
Bladder control: 8/10 (strong)
Car sickness probability: 9/10 (high)
Favourite country: France
Pros: Can fall asleep anywhere

HUXLEY

Age: 4
Quote: “That’s disgustin’”
Type of eater:    Cheerios, milk, french fries, pasta, ice cream
Music preference: Could listen to “Hello” by Adele for 5 hours straight
Bladder control: 1/10 (weak)
Car sickness control: 6/10 (medium)
Favourite country: TBD
Pros: Good at spotting animals from the back seat of the car

CATHERINE

Age: Beauty is ageless
Road trip quote: “Here’s the ipad” or “I just need a little nap“
Type of eater: Hesitantly adventurous; no fish
Music preference: Any music that drowns out the screams of our children
Bladder control: 10/10 (perfect…like all moms)
Car sickness control: 10/10 (perfect)
Favourite country: France
Pros: Keen directional sense; and ability to change a nappy at 75mph

MATT (aka DRIVING DAD)

Age: Above driving age
Road trip quote: “No, you may not watch the ipad, just enjoy the scenery”
Type of eater: Will eat anything, local delicacies preferred
Music preference: Anything but “Hello” by Adele
Bladder control: 9.5/10 (strong…but you never know)
Car sickness control: 10/10 (perfect…so far)
Favourite country: Italy
Pros: Late night driving; restaurant selection; can yell at children while changing lanes