Hooray—-we’ve finally gotten out and about in a most exciting and delightful way. (not that things weren’t done completely different from how an American would do them-like why on earth would you leave a delightful day to go make lunch at your own house when you could buy a sandwich and eat AT LUNCHTIME preventing toddler melt downs?) But the point is that we had a very exciting couple of days exploring castles.



First we went to the Tower in Provins, a medieval castle that was just amazing. It was so incredibly fun to go through the castle with the kids. We got to be knights and princesses and dragons in dark spiral stair cases! We got to look out the princess’s bedroom window and drop our golden locks out the tower window to be rescued by our prince charming below. We got trapped in the dungeon and had to fight our way out. Kai kept us safe by stopping at every slit in the castle to fiercely shoot his arrows at the attacking enemies across the castle moat.







Visiting a real castle with kids is FUN! This is such a great age for them to be experiencing this—-a time when their imaginations are still fresh and uninhibited. Often people think that children won’t appreciate travel and what they are seeing at such a young age, but I disagree I think children appreciate and benefit from it more than many adults do, as they are able to weave it into their being and it becomes a part of who they are.

We also happened upon this castle on the one weekend a year where they set up kids arts and crafts! Deva made clay mice and Kai had a go on the pottery wheel. He was VERY interested in it.



The next day we went to this tourist place where a group got together to form a community and build a castle just as it had been done in medieval times. They’ve been working on it for 10 years so far and the whole thing is fascinating. It’s a medieval construction site. Everyone wore medieval costumes and there was the rope maker and the tool maker and the tool sharpener and the stone cutters and the basket makers and the wool spinners. It was very well organized as to which areas of the castle you could visit and which areas were off limits. My favorite area was the tool maker and sharpener. There are three standard tools and one of them needs to be sharpened every day!

A few months ago I met a woman in Thailand who had started a round the world trip with another family. They were teachers and it was to last two years. They were home schooling their children. I’ve always thought that home schooling would be difficult but after these castle trips, I can’t imagine a better education. Deva figured out how the well would work, how the water would settle, where the basin would collect it. Kai was full of questions about stone cutting and he wondered if the rope maker made all the ropes on the site because there were so many ropes. I could have stayed all day, it was so interesting. But you know, we had to go have bread and cheese at home.
Cheers & Ciao for now—G