I have finally sorted through my photos from our holiday last month. I’ve uploaded my favourites to my Flickr account but here is a small selection.

We took the Eurostar and a TGV to Nantes, which is a small city just south of Brittany, where we spent the weekend. The timing worked well as public transport is free in Nantes every weekend, and we happened to be there on their equivalent of Open Doors weekend, when a bunch of museums and tourist attractions had free entrance. We went to the Machines de l’Ile, which is a former boatyard on the Ile de Nantes that’s been filled with these giant mechanical animals inspired by the works of Jules Verne, who was born and raised there. Plus there’s a four-storey carousel populated with steampunk deep-sea creatures.

We also went to the Jules Verne Museum, where I discovered that my French is just about good enough to understand most of the labels. And we explored the jardin des plantes. We could definitely have filled another couple of days in Nantes. But we had a ferry to catch!

We spent a week on the Ile d’Yeu, which is just a little north of the more famous Ile de Ré. We arranged to have use of hotel bikes during our stay so we were able to pootle around exploring nature, archaeological ruins and farmland. It got to be a habit to pop to the local shops in the morning for a baguette, apple juice and either cheese or potted fish. Then we’d cycle to somewhere pretty carrying our picnic lunch in the bike baskets. Which felt very French.

Ile d’Yeu has a lot of rugged coast. It’s a small island with just a couple of small towns and a lot of biking and hiking trails. There’s an old castle that you can tour if you arrive at the right time – the gate is opened for 10 minutes three times a day. The tour guide didn’t speak much English but handed us a written guide and told us to wander around at our own pace. There are multiple lighthouses, a small brewery, an organic farm with a nice cafe and dozens of small, beautiful beaches.

After a pretty relaxing week, we got up far too early to catch the first ferry so that we’d be back in Paris by early afternoon. That gave us 24 hours in Paris before our Eurostar home. We explored the botanical gardens, wandered past several bits of the Sorbonne, saw a film at a tiny cinema and went back to a restaurant we discovered on last year’s visit. I was really impressed by the botanical gardens. Even without paying to go into the natural history museum or zoo based there, we easily filled a couple of hours just meandering around enjoying the plants and the sunshine and the weird sense of humour of whoever decided to grow arches of squashes.

Just in the same small area of the Latin Quarter where we spent a week last year we discovered cool new things. Did you know on Sunday afternoons people gather to dance on the Left Bank of the Seine? They’re split by musical style, so first we passed a dozen couples dancing Latin ballroom, then another group doing rock’n’roll dancing, then waltz, then hip hop and so on. And did you know there are remains of a Roman ampitheatre in Paris? The Arènes de Lutèce is hidden from view by more modern buildings but a series of alleyways and staircases lead to this big open space filled with people playing boules, eating, drinking and hanging out. Grape vines have been planted in sections between the tiered seating, adding to the Roman feel.

On our final day we went to Shakespeare & Co bookshop and the Sacre Coeur, both of which were rammed with tourists. Those films and TV shows that show the terrace outside Sacre Coeur mostly empty must be filmed extremely early in the morning.

Well sadly we aren’t on holiday any more. But planning has already begun for next year’s adventures.