Woodland Walks in Bagnoles de L’Orne

There are a great many lovely woods in Bagnoles de L’Orne and whilst on our holiday in France we made the most of them by having a couple of days of woodland walks, there are coloured routes you can follow although we did once go off piste and then ended up getting lost. Check out more Fun things to do in Normandy with Kids.

We headed to the woods one day after having a delicious pizza/ pasta meal at a restaurant in Bagnoles-de-l’Orne. It was one of those slow wandering days. It looked a little like rain and so we weren’t sure what we should plan – so we just took a little drive – listened to some of these French songs which swiftly became our favourites. (It couldn’t be a holiday post without a little holiday playlist – these were the tracks that we heard non-stop! Madame Monsieur – Mercy   Léa Paci – Pour aller où ?)

We had no destination in mind, the kids just wanted to explore. And explore they did. We collected pretty bark and they found the perfect ‘prickle clearing stick’! Orla examined the wood floor for stag beetles. We have many more fun ideas for kids to do on a woodland walk here. 

The kids always tried to be about 20 feet away from us and wanted to pretend they were adventuring on their own! They created a game where they had to get various ‘wildness qualifications’ by venturing into the deepest part of a stream for example or finding the perfect walking stick or surviving walking through a holly bush! They would award each other various qualifications depending on how adventurous they were! In the words of Orla ‘we are the wildness kids. We can survive anything…….even prickles.’ I love their crazy games!

I did try to steer them clear of a few of the muddier puddles (we didn’t have a change of clothes on us – parenting fail) but I felt a bit sad about that afterwards-there are a few things that immediately make me think of childhood. Jumping on the bed, licking the cake bowl whilst baking, and of course jumping in muddy puddles. Given they love the woods so much, I am making it a mission to explore the woods so much more this Spring! And let them jump in muddy puddles as much as they want! After all, they’re only young once and it’s on our Spring bucket list! Check out more of our fun ideas for kid’s Outdoor Activities for Spring. 

If you’d like a U.K. wood to visit – check out our favourite selection of Best Family woodland walks in the UK.