France Part Four - Week 4

Miles this trip - 1,109
Sites - 6
Aires/Pub stops - 2
Mileometer - 4,530
Nights out this year - 124
Weather - hot and sunny, 1 windy day

Leaving Camping Les Mures we took a short 30 minutes drive west to Cavalier Sur Mer and sought out Camping de la Baie. Check in was painless and we were whizzed round the site in a golf buggy to choose our pitch, all very slick. Inevitably pitch 51 turned out to be a mistake and we quickly found a

neighbouring pitch better. Asking at the reception to move was no issue, other than the friendly lady, who’d checked me into pitch 51 just 10 mins before, telling me I couldn’t possibly be in pitch 51. Drama ensued for a few moments but was quickly resolved, and our break at this 6th French location could begin.

We followed a recommendation for the site and it turned out to be great, peaceful but located right in the town and just a few minutes walk to a lovely harbour, beach and promenade all with plenty of bars, restaurants and shopping.

The site was just across the road from a vets and on seeing a lab wearing the cone of shame being dragged back into its owners car; the universal scissors snip sign for having its balls removed was understood with no language issue.

Monday evening following a nice meal of prawn linguine I attempted we enjoyed drinks next to the very scenic and pretty harbour. 4 glasses of vin rouge costing us the equivalent of 5 bottles mind, not that I’m complaining. It was worth it.

We’d not bothered to level the van as we thought it near enough; paid the price that evening as I spent the night hanging onto the edge of the mattress and Mrs H with her face planted against the bathroom wall. We levelled the van next day.

A lazy day sat in the sunshine again by the van on the Tuesday with a change of scenery for an hour sat on the beach, with another dip in the calm, clear Med. We’d smiled, nodded and laughed appropriately at the French couple’s comments toward Daisy, who we realised later were telling us dogs are not permitted on the beach at any time. Highlight of the day was seeing the

occupant of a neighbouring van, who’d enjoyed mainly staring at us (as rare Brits in the area) for the last 2 days as if we were zoo exhibitions, trip arse over tit over a guy rope whilst watching us prepping our evening meal.

By complete contrast the couples either side were lovely and loved making a fuss of Daisy. Particularly friendly was a chap who spoke English, but his wife didn’t and asked us if wr spoke French whenever we saw them out and about in the town, we gathered they’d just lost their dog and Mrs H had the pleasure of being shown many photos whilst I shopped. We suspected the poor lady was suffering with dementia.

Wednesday was a blustery day, with an early Mistral blowing, and we bravely endured drinks by the harbour in the last of the day’s sun still though. €28 for 4 large beers is not cheap but seems the price for us tourists. Waitress tried to double charge me, but I stood my ground in very rough French telling her to duck off. The wind continued, and we took the lead from others on site winding in the awning and putting everything away. We cooked indoors that evening, first time for a while.

On the Thursday we followed the well marked and mostly dedicated cycle path along the coast then uphill to La Croix Valmer. This was a lovely place with nice cafes, pretty colourful parasols displayed as a strung canopy to the Main Street, high above the coast with lovely views. We were glad not to have used the site nearby though (Selection Camping) as it’s an uphill walk to town, a bit remote and looked to be all in the shade so not for us.

Friday was washing day, and we spent a few hours lazing around waiting for it to be done, at least this time I pressed the start button on the dryer. In the afternoon we were joined by a lost dog who Daisy wanted to play with but it seemed more intent on shitting everywhere; we entertained our French neighbours trying to catch it who we then heard telling his fellow countryman something along the lines of “Le chien avait une merde là-bas, une merde ici et a pissé partout sur le putain de site. Merde partout” (Basically the dog had a shit here, over there, again over there and all over the effin site) A pleasant evening out followed with more vin rouge in a newly discovered upmarket feeling area of restaurants and a small friendly bar; where again Daisy received lots of fuss and crisps.

Saturday continued with good weather ahead of a change of forecast to strong winds and storm rains for a few days, so we made the most of the day, finishing with beers in the last of the days sunshine at what was clearly a bar popular with the locals after we enjoyed a coffee there in the morning and a mooch around the busy town. Our earplugs were deployed for the first time to drown out some loud music from somewhere nearby in the town until the early

hours. Seemed to finish sometime between 2 & 3 am.

Sunday was cloudy as per forecast but humid and warm & we did a lovely circular coastal path walk overlooking the sea with views across to a group of small islands, apparently National Parks.

We’ve got ourselves settled and will likely stay put for another week before starting the journey back northwards. 2 days of high winds, storms rain and hale in the forecast, before reverting back to more late summer weather by mid week, so we’ll see what happens.