Our last blog entry was for the full day we spent in Venice. The following day was a bit of a challenging one. When we woke up, it was clear that Jamie was quite ill - with the same mystery illness that's been plaguing him for weeks. He was a bit nauseous and very headachy with a sore tummy - and just generally a bit fragile. Venice had laid on a particularly high tide - complete with rain - and our first challenge was to find a way to the vaporettos with all our suitcases in tow and a succession of flooded streets. We did make it to one, but Natasha's shoes and socks were completely soaked through.
We headed to the laundrette we had scoped the day before and spent the morning doing a huge load of washing.
After lunch we took our suitcases to the station and left them there, and then went by vaporetto to Murano. We had a lovely time there, watching glass being blown and admiring the beautiful glassware shops.
In the early evening we headed back to the train station where we caught our overnight train for Paris. The whole couchette experience is not one that Janet and Peter are keen to repeat, although the kids in the top bunks (of 3) had plenty of room and the best deal. For the adults it was definitely a claustrophobic experience.
The morning of the 31st was the most challenging yet. Jamie was still unwell and our train was half an hour late getting into Paris. This meant that we had less than an hour to transfer to another train station to catch our TGV to Vannes. We dashed to the metro station only to find a huge crowd of people trying to get through the single gate that was working. We eventually managed that and hurled ourselves onto a metro train which promptly broke down - between stations! It finally got us to a station but there was an announcement to say that the signal system had failed on the whole line. We now had very little time to get to our next train, and so decided not to wait for the signals to be fixed. We managed to find a taxi and got to the train with seconds to spare.
The TGV trip to Vannes, in Brittany, was considerably more comfortable than our overnight journey from Italy. We were greeted at Vannes station by our friend, David Mauffret who accompanied us to our hotel and later showed us round Vannes with his wife, Paula, and daughter, Elsa.
In the evening we were treated to a New Year's Eve shellfish dinner by David and Paula. Janet had her first oyster - and enjoyed it until Paula told her that it was alive! It was a real privilege to spend the evening with David, Paula and Elsa - and an authentic Breton cultural experience eating so much seafood in one sitting!
At 12pm the next day, we met up with David, Paula and Elsa again, and set off to explore the Golfe de Morbihan - a stunningly beautiful gulf with lots of gorgeous towns and villages which we stopped to admire along the way. Our ultimate destination was les Alignements de Carnac - rows and rows of prehistoric menhirs with the odd dolmen for good measure.
On the morning of the 2nd, we spent a little more time exploring Vannes, including its market, and then hit the road in a hired car for Poitiers, stopping once en route, at a huge shopping centre in Nantes where we had our first ever IKEA experience (another life ambition fulfilled!)
Just as we arrived in Poitiers, the car dashboard informed us that we had a flat tyre, but a quick check revealed nothing amiss. In the evening we walked into the centre of town, had dinner, and found Janet's old house.
Today (the 3rd) we set off at 10am for Futuroscope. No sooner had we got round the corner, however, than we realised that we really did have a flat tyre. Well zut! We could not find a spare tyre and so rang AVIS, who said that someone would be along sometime to help us. We waited for an hour until, at last, a tow truck turned up.
The driver blew our tyre up but said that there would be nowhere open on Sunday to fix it properly. He said that it was a slow leak and that we would be okay to drive to nearby Futuroscope, the huge kind of technological theme park that for Jamie has been the most anticipated feature of our trip.
We got to Futuroscope at lunchtime, much later than we had hoped. We were getting hungry, so we headed for the cafe for which we had a voucher for a meal. Unfortunately it was closed, and after a number of conflicting stories, we were sent to another eating place at the the other end of the park where we had a very forgettable lunch.
Now we were able to some fun: Dancing with Robots, where we were strapped into chairs and spun in every direction to the beat of "Stayin' Alive"; Under the World's Oceans, an incredible 3-D Imax show; and the Gyro Tower, where we got a bird's-eye view of the park;
As we walked out to pump air into the car tyre, a little snow began to fall. On the way back to Poitiers we stopped at Quick for a burger and fries, where, for the second night in a row, an African man tried to chat up Natasha!
Although we didn't manage to see everything we could have at Futuroscope, it was a wonderful experience, and well worth the effort to get there.