A mini-van, a car and two bikes

My parents arrive here in eight days after seeing sites and visiting friends in France and London.  To help with the transport angle of things while they are here, we have decided to rent a mini-van as our current Hertz rental car is too small to haul all of us around.  We are also taking the switch as an opportunity to dump Hertz Avis,  a company that has been an absolute headache to deal with since we got a car from them in early January.  Clerical errors have cost us money, they have messed up reservations and it is nearly impossible to get them by phone.

We have found a small company in Macclesfield, Cheshire Rentals, which Andrea reports has been a joy to deal with.  I think she likes them mostly because the woman on the phone calls her love, but she claims they are professional and gave her a good deal.  We are both happy not to give Hertz any more money.

After the van we are back to a passenger car.  This car is to not only take us around Cheshire for the next three months or so, but it is also going to be tapped to drive us to Germany at the end of May and then to France after school finishes in late July.  Yes, that's right, school doesn't get out until July 24.  When you tell folks that schools in the States finish in early June they seriously gasp.

Both the Germany (ferry) and the France (chunnel) trips have science components, but in Germany we will be close to the institute in some concrete-laden German town and Andrea will be doing stuff with colleagues there.  The girls and I will do some sightseeing which we are pretty good at.  As long as we take our time, always have food and see good stuff, everyone is happy.  Of course every other good thing has to be a park with a playground, but I like parks, too.

Our time in France is mostly vacation and the highlight of this trip will be a week on bikes in Brittany.  There is an outfit there that will hook us up with bikes (two tandems), bags, a trailer, camping equipment and an itinerary.  The route we have chosen is called "To The Isle De Brehat" and a description of it can be viewed here.  You can see a map outlining the route below.

Rose and Xyla have a loose understanding of the bike trip, but these will be some real miles we are covering.  I'm not entirely sure how all of it will work out, but I am hopeful that everything will be wonderful.  We did tons of time on bikes last summer in the Netherlands, so I know they like that type of traveling.  I also know they like riding bikes, but this is different.  I anticipate a few tired rears, tired kids and maybe a couple complaints.  We don't have any experience with tired rears, but the other two we know we can handle.


View Isle de Brehat - Camping in a larger map