Delayed from 11th Sept…
Making our way across the beautiful coastline we decided that it was time to revisit a place we knew we loved and would mean a few days of beach side camping at its best – Port Grimaud. In the bay facing St Tropez it is the ultimate way to soak in the Cote D’azur summer without the need for your own private yacht and Crystal on tap. The town itself is beautiful and surrounded by water – a little like Venice but French!! Just outside the port itself you can literally camp on the shore front looking out towards St Tropez watching the helicopters land on the boats and the water skiers wizz past. Needless to say we spent the next 4 days on the beach, drinking rose, eating fresh market food and my all time favourite French hobby – going to a Brocante!

On the road between Port Grimaud and Grimaud there is a Sunday Brocante held in the grounds of a wonderful restaurant. The ideal plan being you browse the endless stalls filled with clothes, trinkets, furniture, antiques etc a la France with the treat of a cold glass of something and fresh lunch as a reward afterwards. Dave is less inclined to spend three hours looking for treasures and bartering with the locals than myself but he was very kind to indulge me and in the end came away with some treasures of his own in the shape of 5 copper pans. Armed with a fair few things to put up at home when we return we made our way to the restaurants. I have been to both the market and Brocante in the past with my Dad but had realised how great the restaurant was inside – filled with antiques and walls covered in old French signs I was in seventh heaven. However, we had traded off my trip to the Brocante with ensuring that we got back I time to use the campsite bar to watch the Grand prix so we didn’t stay for lunch and after a quick drink headed back to watch Hamilton win – all in a all a perfect and well balanced day!

Dave spent some serious time with the underside of the campervan – developing his ever improving mechanic skills. He changed the oil, tightened up the brakes and generally gave her a little bit of an overdue 3000 mile service. I would like to say that I have been able to learn as much as Dave during this trip but sadly, although I have learnt tonnes, the campers mechanics are definitely dave’s territory – am actually terribly proud of his hard work and the attentions he gives to maintenance. My skills are definitely still inside the camper – ie packing, unpacking and trying to keep it nice – really all very 1920’s of us and a little out of character!

We are still the youngest campers/caravan people at all the sites we go to and probably the only ones who don’t have a dog! We also discovered a French guy next to us who had brought his pet bird with him in his camper – really!?!?!? It was called Clarice…or Claudine or something and spent most of its time terrorising everyone on the beach. Several times a day the guy would let this little white parrot out of its cage and let it fly about the beach and land on people. Apparently he couldn’t fathom the possibility that perhaps some people are not all that keen on a shrieking bird landing on them in a surprise attack and ran around the beach shouting ‘it’s ok! It fine! It’s great!’while giggling like a prized idiot calling her name – the final blow came when he declared for all to hear that she was ‘his child, his baby’…..at that point even the bird had had enough and flew off to take refuge in the nearest tree!

After our little ‘Rivera holiday’ was over we felt great and fully in the swing of la vie Francais and so made our way north towards Aix en Provence. Just in time to watch all the farmers collecting and delivering their grape hauls – which was really special. As I have said I have been to France many times and was intrigued by Aix as don’t think I had ever been there. We camped locally and were very surprised to find that as we were now in the mountains we not only needed the duvet and long sleeves to stay warm but that it was suddenly dark a lot earlier. Perhaps this was to do with being further inland and in the mountains but we were suddenly discussing what it will be like to be in the camper in the autumn months! We were however not the only one feeling the cold as we soon discovered the little black cat who lived on the campsite had taken refuge in the footwell of the camper and was hoping to spend the night! Things are certainly different now that the summer holidays are officially over. The campsites are getting quieter and thankfully a hell of a lot cheaper – using our various discount cards means that many sites are around 12Eur a night for us now. The only slight trouble we might have in the coming weeks is that a huge chunk of the campsites close down end of September…..so it might be time to start thinking about a few nights sleeping at the side of the road!

The following day we took a local bus into town and headed for all four of the markets that were on that day! Again indulging the Provençal lifestyle we sniffed around the food markets being careful not to squeeze without asking – apparently very taboo! Just plodding about tasting cheeses, looking at all the incredible varieties of cured meats and listening to the chatter in the morning sunshine was a delight and I hope I never got bored of doing it. Later we found a restaurant in a town square for lunch – only to discover that is was where all the locals eat lunch – and, as it turned out, for good reason. Heading back to the markets we met a wonderful lady who had spent all her life working on her lavender fields and in her spare time creating hand sowed lavender bags – she was incredibly lovely and of course we left armed with a few bits of her produce! We spent a good hour or so trying to work out the bus system and finally managed to get ourselves back to the campsite in time to watch the local fire crew turn up in their truck and challenge each other to a game of boules.

The sun keeping us warm during the days and being able to actually use the duvet with out waking up in pools of sweat was actually a surprisingly nice balance! And we took our newly renewed energy and interest back on the road heading further north towards Luberon.