I was rudely awoken by church bells ringing declaring it was 7am. Way too early for a holiday so decided to close my eyes and await the 8am bells. When I next checked the watch it was 9.30! Oh well guess everyone needed the sleep, the kids woke up shortly after and Al went to check out the bakery and came back with pain au chocolat (the kids were delighted to split mine since I'm not a pastry person). I told them they could go play on the park one they'd eaten and got dressed so they zoomed about quicker than usual.

The plan today was supposed to be to go into Nantes and last night we'd looked up what to visit and hot to make best use of any city pass. As I've previously mentioned going on the tolls when we're classed as a bus due to our height is proving expensive but not using them can nearly double the driving.

We were supposed to be closer to Nantes but we're over an hour away and then need to drive another 90 minutes this evening to get to Angers. We therefore decide to bin off Nantes and instead find a random French town half way between here and Angers that let's us use the back roads. Cholet looks to have a few museums, some impressive buildings and most importantly a nice park for the kids so we'll spend a few hours mooching around without having to try pack too much in.

Our first stop post lunch is a park very near to where we've park at first the kids aren't impressed as they say it's just a park of flowers but a few more minutes and we're at the play park.

After 15 minutes we head to the tourist office to collect a map, mark our home location on their map and then visit the grand menhir.

The menhir is a prism made of local granite which is 3.6m in height although 70cm are buried.

Its also referred to as the Vinegar Stone which comes from the custom of pouring wine on the stone.

Behind the menhir was another park so the kids got another 15 minutes to play as I'm not sure there's going to be much this town has to offer.

We decide to head to the cathedral and we're in luck as someone is playing the organ so we sit and listen for a while. The kids light candles for, as Robert puts it, all the Stockdill and Mander ancestors.

We wander about for another 30 minutes to find most of the shops are closed on Mondays and the best this place has to offer is a supermarket where Robert and Al find their favourite peanut crisps and I find some chocolate marshmallow bears that I discovered a few years ago in Norway. We get back to the car and head onwards towards Angers.

We stop in a tiny village called Saint Lambert du Lattay where Al finds a public piece of land that has been marked on his app as moho friendly. When we arrive there is one other van but within 30 mins it's left and we have the place to ourselves.

The kids kick around the football then decide to have a competition as to who can draw the best secret base! I'll let you decide as I said it was a draw, although they weren't happy with that answer and after a random choice with Al having both drawings behind his back and me choosing one, Robert was declared the winner (which Liliya was surprisingly ok with). We're going to attempt an earlier night for the two of them but I suspect it will fail badly.

Tomorrow afternoon I've booked us a tour of the Cointreau factory followed by cocktail tasting. I can't wait!