We got up early today, hoping to head out to Parc Asterix on the Friday rather than a weekend. When we woke up, the heavens had opened up, and clearly going to a non DLP theme park with little ones was a bad idea.
We decided to take a leisurely journey for the day (only a 90 min drive to the next hotel if we were pushing it).
We first of all went to the lovely town of Noyon and enjoyed the mix of architectural styles.
Then off to Compiegne, where I went on French exchange as a teen. Drove around the town including past the palace of Napolean and Josephine and into the forest.
After encountering a cross country horse race, we passed the Armistace Carriage of WWI (will stop by when the kids are a little older) and went to the storybook town of Pierrefonds.
We enjoyed the views of the castle, took in a small lunch at the cafe (croque Massuers, Saucisse de Frankfort avec frites and Leffe). Not the healthiest, but quick as the kids were hungry.
It was pouring with rain, so we went to a free craft exhibits where using my broken french and their broken english, we chatted for about an hour while the kids played with the yorkshire terrier puppy that was there. The quilting work and paintings were good too and it was a fun little diversion.
At about 3pm we decided to head to our hotel. We decided to stop at the Holiday Inn at Roissy near Charle de Gaul airport. No pool, but other than that, it was definately 4 star all the way.
We were upgraded to an executive room with robes and slippers and we were very pleased with the hotel.
We chose it to earn more points towards future DLP trips and also because of it's location. 15mins from Parc Asterix, a free shuttle to the metro station for easy access to Paris, and about 45 mins from DLP. We thought it would give us lots of options (which it did).
That evening we dolled ourselves up a bit and went down for dinner. We had a wonderful 3 course meal with a bottle of Cote de Rhone, and Sarah's duck was to die for (plus kids eat free).
This was a great choice. The room was a special rate of 79 Euro (£64 or $128 a night including parking). Dinner was good value considering it was an airport hotel - 124 euro - much cheaper than the DLP offerings (£100, $200). I recommend it for those that want a clean, modern, large room with good service not in the city.
More details and pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=5 ... leid=en_GB (http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=56a8td25.30e00c42x&x=0&h=1&y=63w53y&localeid=en_GB%22%20onclick=%22window.open(this.href);return%20false;)