18th April PM – Day 11
Go to Montpelier and really enjoyed ourselves. We saw some fantastic scenery and architecture and enjoyed some good food at a café. We already felt some affinity with the place, because our house was originally in Montpelier (Bristol) according to the deeds, although it is presently in Cotham.
Found a place to stay in the French Passion guidebook, on a farm that makes fois-gras, of all things. Lorraine was adamant that we didn’t buy any. There are a couple of other camping cars here as well, but aside from a cursory ‘Bonjour’ we don’t have much to do with each other. Despite being in the back of beyond, the sound of the auto-route is constant so whilst it is not ideal, we are not really disturbed.
19th April – Day 12
We have been moving eastwards in order to be reasonably close to the place where we have to take Suzab to have her heating fixed. We get up and on the road, stopping at a massive supermarket complex (not wanting to come across all patriotic, but I find them a lot uglier than the ones in the UK) and make good time arriving at a specialist motor home mechanics at around 1.30pm in a place called Berre L’Etang – an industrial estate containing an oil refinery and other big industry looking factories (imagine Bladerunner, but sunny).
My limited French gets the ball rolling with Pascal, the mechanic, and before long he is stripping out everything in the van, including the boiler itself (no mean feat, because it is located underneath the fixed double bed, which is all screwed down). Callum, Lorraine and I are left sitting in the van or milling around outside, playing with tractors, reading and doing rubik’s cube, respectively. After about 4 hours, Suzab is fixed! One of the valves in the boiler was broken and needed replacing, but it had been fully tested and was now operational as was intended! We drive around the corner to a kind of lay-by where Lorraine cooks up some sardines for dinner.
It is late and we don’t want Callum to fall asleep on the journey, so we opt for a campsite nearby in Berre L’Etang. This was probably the wrong decision as it was a grotty over-priced site, no facilities, next to a fairly unpleasant lake, with a view of oil refinery. The guidebook gave no impression that it was this bad! I think that if we had booked ourselves in for a holiday in the south of France and ended up there, we would have felt very short-changed!
To top it all off, I suffered from ‘splash-back’ when emptying the chemical toilet – not a pleasant experience. Somehow, this job seems to have become mine; something to do with me not cleaning bathroom/toilets back home, or something??!
20th April - Day 13
From Berre L’Etang, we make an early departure and aim for something a bit nicer. We muddle our way down onto the D559 a coastal road that takes us through some lovely parts of the Provence countryside and then through some lovely coastal towns and resorts.
We stop for lunch in Cuges-Les-Pins, spot some cool graffiti on a large wall (it looks like they may have had an open air rave here at some point), then take a walk through the village and up onto a hill where there is a very quaint chapel and a great view of the mountains and the valley.
As we make it down to the coast, we wind through various sea-side resorts. At one point I get drawn down into a rather narrow one-way system in a small seaside town (after unsuccessfully trying to make a u-turn on a larger road) only to be met by a large road-works lorry nearly blocking the road ahead. We thought we had come a cropper, the gap didn’t look big enough for a car, let alone our motor home, but fortunately one of the workmen guided me through, phew!
We drove through St Cyr sur la Mer and a couple of other charming places, trying desperately to find somewhere free to park Suzab using the Aire de Service guidebook, but having no joy we eventually relented and checked the campsite guidebook, which directed us to a site in Six-Fours La Plages. We are greeted warmly and the fact that I am trying to converse entirely in French is appreciated and I even get a bit of a lesson (i.e. they repeat themselves!!!). We park up, get out the table and chairs and Lorraine again knocks up a feast, while Callum and I explore the playground just across from where we have stopped.
21st April – Day 14
We enjoyed a very peaceful night in the camp-site in Six Fours so decide to stay for another, which gives us the opportunity to explore a bit. I donned my running shoes and ran about 4km first thing. On my return, I learn that it is against the law in France to wear Bermuda shorts in a swimming pool, so I am legally obliged to wear Speedos. Then we head into town, which takes us about 30 minutes. We walk along the promenade in front of the beach , stopping to eat crepes for lunch, before continuing along the coast road to a large park, where Callum plays for a bit. We then walk back to the campsite, Lorraine kindly carrying Callum on her back in the Pattapum; the walk back takes a good hour and a half, in the glaring sun as well! We spend some of the rest of the afternoon by the pool, or outside the van, then chilling out after dinner.
Lorraine may well want to add her own thoughts to the last couple of entries!
chillin'
bright
energetic