Chateau St Germain de Livet

How can you not go to Normandy be in the Pays d’Auge and not visit a chateau?

Impossible and with two princesses in training it wasn’t going to be hard to convince the little ones to leave the swimming pool either.

Normandy is brimming with castles and although others may have been richer in their offer we chose one that wasn’t too far away conscious of the travelling time involved and the need to get back to the pool.

Chateau St Germain de Livet is set off the main road and surrounded by a brick wall but as I entered the gate I was stunned by the beauty of this historic building. Luckily it wasn’t just me, the girls were equally captivated.

We found the peacocks a bit camera shy as they would move away from me whenever they saw my lens coming out which made the girls giggle.

We took a walk through the main gate to the courtyard whilst waiting for the chateau to open for it’s afternoon viewing at 2pm and from there we saw the path on the other side of the moat – it had to be explored of course.

Beauty and the Beast is a favourite story and Disney film in our house and we’ve talked about how the castle was in France,

 

this was also part of my convincing techniques when asking about visiting a chateau.

As we walked around the castle we looked at the bedrooms, dining room and grand piano, we talked about Chip and Mrs Teapot, we talked about how life would have been and where Belle would have slept.

The girls loved it, the chateau was a great hit with them and offered plenty of drawing incentive later on. Mummy is quite the dab hand at castles and princesses now ;)

We also had a ‘muck around’ in the courtyard afterwards playing peek a boo behind the pillars and counting the bird’s nests built high in the rafts.

I’m linking up with Coombe Mill #CountryKids which is all about getting the kids away from the screen and outdoors.