Île de Ré
I was in awe, once again, at how children do not tire as easily of what adults see as “the same”, because for them it is not, there is always a new pebble, a new nook to hide in, a new rock to climb, things that somewhere during the process of “growing up” we sadly stop seeing as objects of joy.
This was our second visit to the quaint island Île de Ré, off the south west coast of France. As so many of our French road trips go, we had logged into our GPS the starting point of a Terra Aventura, a geo-caching game with caches to find and villages to explore all over Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
The Terra Aventura was admittedly one of the worst we have ever done, with 3 hours spent traipsing the perimeter of the salt marshes, wonderful for the first 5mins, then rather monotonous for the next 175. It was one of the days where it was wonderful to be viewing life through a view finder, to be forced to find the beauty, the moments. I was in awe, once again, at how children do not tire as easily of what adults see as “the same”, because for them it is not, there is always a new pebble, a new nook to hide in, a new rock to climb, things that somewhere during the process of “growing up” we sadly stop seeing as objects of joy. But as I crouch down to get a photo of their latest treasure, I see a look in their eyes, one of freedom, of happiness, of the endless possibilities of a stony beach, of being in the moment… and I get a grip of myself, really there is no place I’d rather be than under the sun with my family.
I would highly recommend a trip to Île de Ré, we have been there twice and still not seen it all, (however, arguably too much of some of it), it is surprisingly large. Finishing our day off with a swim at Le Bois-Plage-en-Ré and wood fired take-away pizza from the beach shop totally made up for the fact there was an empty cache (no badges), at the end of that never ending salt marsh hike, (as usual, it was only me that seemed to be bothered!).
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