France – The Adventures of Elle Coco

Since the countdown is on to Salon du Chocolat – Paris 2023, I thought it only right we head on a little trip down memory lane.

It’s October 2016, and a spontaneous last-minute decision saw me book a day trip to Paris. Catching the train at 5:30am from London St Pancras International resulted in a wake up call of 3am – not pretty! Despite the train being quiet, I was WAY too excited to sleep as I was off to Salon du Chocolat – the world’s greatest chocolate show with makers, growers and artisans from around the world. One day gives you barely enough time even to scratch the surface, and being in Paris I obviously had to check out the Eiffel Tower too! Taking some Zotterschokoladen to help me ascend the 674 steps to the second Level.

There are many things you can do for the Residential section of your Gold Duke of Edinburgh. You can do a Corde en Bleu cookery course in a fancy hotel in Oxford for the week, you can work on a kids camp in Scotland. You could even take a barge up and down the river in Kent and carry out conservation work for the British Wetland Society. OR, you can join the Snow Crazy Chalet Host Cookery Course in La Rosier, France for a few weeks and learn how to be a ski Chalet Host. Well, why not?