Smack my beach up

I was going to title this blog entry ‘Up shit creek’ but that wouldn’t have worked because all of the beaches, bays and creeks we have seen recently have been spectacular (unless you include the creeks belonging to the two old dears in swimwear bent over in front of us momentarily blocking the beautiful view of Cassis bay)..

So, where have we been since we left Anna in Nice? (by the way, if you ever find yourself in a gorge with Anna do get her to perform her ‘Last of the Mohicans’ impression, her interpretation is Oscar worthy).  The plan was to skirt along the South of France (S.O.F from hereon in) a bit more before starting to bend our way back up towards Brittany - where we have to plan re-joining normal life - via the Midi-Pyrenees whilst trying to get as much swimming in as we could, be that in the sea or wild.  So we’ve spent as much time by bodies of water as we can, whilst the sun still shines and the water still warm, all the while further exploring the country that we will soon call home.

First up was the mainly rocky coastline of the La Lavandu area. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the so called ‘chic’ part of the S.O.F - it was way less crass than I thought it was going to be and especially when compared to its Italian neighbour- but just a little further along the coast towards Marseille and away from Cannes, St Tropez etc there can be found some lovely little spots if, like us, you prefer to get away from beaches offering overpriced sun-loungers and hideously botoxed faces.  A bit of scrambling and you can pretty much have a spot on the beautiful Med all to yourself. So we found an awesome little campsite to stay at for a couple of days and relaxed by the clear blue sea for a bit, in beautiful sunshine (sorry Anna!!). It was at this site that I’m ashamed to say that I found myself wanting another… sincerest apologies Gus but that VW Delher was beautiful… ‘Oooohh VW Delher, how I yearn for thee’.  I found myself staring at it all longingly..

Proper chilled by now we packed up and headed out for the quick scoot along the coast to Marseille airport to collect more visitors!!  So, who would be appearing through the ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ doors of the arrival lounge this time? Is that, is that Eddie Vedder and Kylie Minogue*? No! Even better than that it was The Wrights, Mr & Mrs Wright that’s Darren and Emma Wright!! Dazzer and Em, how amazing to see them arrive.  We’d booked a place in La Pradet (the fantastically named ‘Lou Pantai’) back towards from whence we’d came and it was on the 2 hour or so drive back to the campsite that we had our first encounter with what was to become a most formidable foe; bloody Toulon.  Toulon. If you ever find yourself in this region, anywhere on the A50 or A570 and you need to get from Marseille to St Tropez do all that you can to avoid Toulon. Go as faaaar around it as is possible. I’d suggest that going via Switzerland is best, just to be on the safe side, coz once stuck into the spidersweb that is Toulon, there’s no escape. Struggling is futile, the more you struggle the more entangled you become: climb mountains, swim oceans, dig tunnels, just don’t go through Toulon (unless you have a fetish for traffic jams and sex toys, then THIS is your KINDA TOWN!).

Helen and I had not been to Lou Pantai so were a little apprehensive on arrival. Sites can be hit and miss and we wanted Daz and Em to have a nice chilled place to stay but we needn’t have worried. It turned out to be a really well kept, proudly ‘eco’ place run by a lovely couple.  Daz and Em settled into their modern cabin, we arranged our pitch and then a lovely evening was spent catching up whilst downing loads of Italian red we’d saved.  We got up earlyish the next day, had French pastries for breakfast and headed out for some local beach action.  Although not directly on the coast a short walk from Lou Pantai will take you to some lovely coastline and four or five individual beaches with lovely clear blue sea, good snorkelling too.  To get to our chosen beach we had to take the route through the nudist beach area.  Emma said to Helen later that whilst I was walking through it I sounded like the Rain Man – ‘Oh, oh god, oh no, oh god, not happy’.  Man, there’s some sights permanently burnt onto my retinas..

We spent a lovely afternoon here (a few beers, some exploding) talking to Darren and Emma about our future plans for Brittany, which was good, coz Dazzer’s a creative type so once you start him riffing on things any number of good ideas come out.. clever man, gave us lots of good stuff to think about.. this also helped avoid talk of our beloved, but shite-right-now, Reds - JTF96 the truth, at last!!

The plan for the second day was an awesome one, something I’d be looking forward to for a while – a trip to the Creeks of Cassis!! Although, this also meant going back through Toulon…bloody Toulon.  At least the town planners - probably recognising that having two motorways ending in the same small city centre was madness - had the decency to dig a huge bloody long tunnel under the entire city heading west to east, shame it was only the one way though.  So, arriving at about midday in Cassis and after having trouble finding parking we made sarnies, packed rucksacks, donned sun-cream and headed out in search of ‘Les Calanques’.  The only way to reach the calanques is on foot, unless you take a touristy boat trip, and despite the intense heat we were all determined to walk it.

After a bit of hit and miss with directions we finally found the beginning of the creek trail. Gutted.  We asked some locals which were the best to strike out for and how long it would take and were told that the nearest were at least an hours walk away.  It was getting into the afternoon and stupidly we had only put a few hours or so on the parking meter and the walk meant we would have had to eat our sarnies whilst swimming and leave pretty much as soon as arriving, not worth it.  We’d lost the creeks.  Despondent, we all headed back into Cassis but then still had a wicked afternoon on the beach near town. This was still stunning, amazing views (two old dears aside) and amazing water for swimming. Burnt and happy we headed back to base but not before having to battle ruddy god damn Toulon city centre again..

Our next two days together consisted of more local beach action then a boat ride over to the Ile de Porquerrolles - Emma, ‘is there anyway of saying this without it sounding like pork rolls?’ – where we hired, and trashed, bikes, cycled the well-laid-out scrambling tracks all around the island, found brilliant beaches, clear warm waters to swim in and encountered Forrest Gump on the boat on the way home.  Another awesome day spent with friends by the Med.  Sadly though, this was our last day together.  As with everyone that has come out we have to say a HUGE thank you to Daz and Emma for taking the time to come and see us, for the fantastic laughs and for the lovely generosity you showed us.  I’m thinking here of our last evening together AND for all the washing up.  I hate the washing up… god damn bloody bubbles… We hope that everything goes really well for you.  You just know we’ll be making a trip a bit farther afield as and when..

So, lessons learnt we took the longer scenic route back to and beyond Marseille to its airport to drop Daz and Em off (Marseille ain’t no picnic to negotiate in the van either) through the hills and woods of Provence avoiding central Toulon and circumnavigating Marseille and bid farewell to our friends.  Helen and I had been in this region for a while (not complaining though) but both felt that is was necessary that we started to make tracks somewhere new.  Heading east thoughts turned to where we would spend the evening, to what excitement lay ahead, joy that we’d left Toulon behind forever but regret that the Creek of Cassis remained unconquered – how good was the swimming there that we’d missed out on?? 

As often happens when driving I found myself daydreaming, for some reason mostly thinking of nightmare scenarios that would never happen, ‘what if’ type thoughts.   One was ‘what if Dazzer or Emma had left a passport in the cabin and we had to drive the 2 ½ hours back to Lou Pantai, through Toulon again, glad that didn’t happen’….. ‘Oh shit babe’, ‘what?’, ‘I’ve left my bloody passport behind the reception desk at Lou Pantai’, ‘oh good’.  Van eventually turned around we had to drive all the way back, this being our sixth or so drive along this stretch of road and back through shitting Toulon again, in bloody rush hour, WHY!!??  I don’t even know where the beads that are in that sex shop window are supposed to go but I might just get them now.  Whilst sat in Toulon’s traffic I’ve noticed them steadily come down in price over the last few days.. could be a once-in-a-lifetime deal??

Lou Pantai, bless em, took the blame for the passport which was really really kind of them and insisted they should have given it back rather than me having to ask for it.  So they gave us a free night, dudes.  Dazzer via a text had also called the situation correctly, the gist being ‘man that’s shit, but you should go do the Creeks now’.  Good man, hadn’t thought of that. 

The Creeks of Cassis are one of those things you just have to do if you’re ever down here. They are spectacular.  Daz, Em, we are gutted to say that from the point where we were all together and decided we had to turn back we found out we were just twenty minutes from the first one (pictured below) and the second one was not much farther on. If it’s any consolation the one that we were going to head for together ‘En Vau’ was well over an hours walk (Helen and I making it much harder on ourselves by taking a 40 minute wrong turn on a ridge, in the heat, with big back packs on) and involved a very steep climb down shifting rock ground into a valley, not the best if you don’t like heights. Not sure you would have enjoyed it!?

After our long walk to En Vau we were slightly disappointed by the amount of people there but it was well worth it, really dazzling place this.  Although, despite being a hot day due the time we arrived and the narrowness of En Vau the sun was hidden just behind the top of the ridge. Never mind though, we’ll still swim, especially as there aren’t any people in that crystal clear blue water and we’re well hardcore after our gorge swim with Anna; ‘fu..fu..fucking hell, it’s FREEEEZING!!!’. My god was it cold, you got one of those ice-cream headaches if you swam more than a few strokes with you head under the water but we stuck it out and were rewarded with an incredible swim.

Our complimentary stop at Lou Pantai was followed by a further two free evenings. One was at a decent aire occupied by a load of cats, any number of which we would have taken with us (not a Hoxton amongst them though) and for the second we got back to proper free camping again by parking up right beside a canal on our own in the lovely town of Agde. France being France this was completely hassle free, they are waaaaay more relaxed here about vans parking up than anywhere else we have been and you can get some incredible spots. We couldn’t swim here, water not up to much but cest la vie (that’ll be the French coming along nicely..)

Next up was a campsite near the city of Narbonne set on a bay and in a natural park. Looked at lot like north Norfolk I thought, particularly Blakeney, so was therefore good for cycling on account of being mainly flat.  This place had the most aggressive mosquitoes we’ve ever come across though.  I had about four or five attached to my back at one point, in the daytime.  I put a top on to combat them but they just bit me through it, little buggers. This campsite was notable for two things. A brilliant pool designed for proper length swimming and individual camping spaces the size of tennis courts, obscenely and stupidly big. So much space you see, it’s all the spare land they have in France, they almost mock you with it; ‘ere izz your-a comping pitch, itz az beeg az your Bedfordshiez’.

Although we were a few kilometres from the coastline it was here that we finally let go of the Med for the foreseeable future and headed north and inland.  Helen (who always finds amazing things for us to do) had done some investigating into the best wild swimming locations that we want to seek out.  First up was Point du Diable on the Gorge de l’Herault just north of Gignac.  Our aire book listed a place in the town of Aniane just short of Point du Diable so we headed there.  Crikey, Aniane is a weird old town full of League of Gentlemen type characters but a cracking little place, probably.  There is a strangeness about it we that couldn’t put our fingers on that made it both off-putting and appealing.  It did stink of wet dogs and piss though, that didn’t help.  Proper alternative, squatty, traveller type town worthy of another future visit I think.

Anyway, when you start getting up into this region it all gets very impressive.  Needless to say Point du Diable didn’t disappoint and was a truly great swimming experience.  I won’t try and describe it but there is a picture below, the last one, which as good as it is doesn’t tell you the whole story, and we had a blast here.  We arrived early enough to be the first and only people here for our swim starting off in the large lake type pool, then up into the gorge and under the three bridges.  Not even the experience of having people way above on the bridges take pictures of us playing about in the water could spoil it, we agreed that it might even have made it a little better.. a great place to swim this.

From here we headed to another aire at Fraisse-sur-Agout in the upper Languedoc region, just shy of the Midi-Pyrenees area.  You have got to come here and drive this region, man it is incredible.  Spent the whole journey ‘look at that’, ‘wow, look at that’ - forests, rivers, lakes, gorges, big climbs, rolling hills incredible little towns.  We just don’t have anything like it really at home, not on this scale anyway. 

Fraisse-sur-Agout itself is nice, if a bit twee, but the aire was really good. It cost €7 but was worth it because it was right by a river, quiet and offered all of the facilities we (desperately) needed both having suffered a little ‘digestive trouble’ over the previous few days, leaving us err, a bit clogged up and not able to go to order as and when the opportunity arises, at campsites or supermarkets, like we usually do.  Oh yeah, life on the road man; Athens, Nice, Carrefour supermarket disabled bogs, seen all the sights.  Anyway, it was here at Fraisse-sur-Agout aire that my earth finally moved after a 3 day hiatus but that I then had to suffer the ignominy of a succession of teenage French girls on a field trip running out of the toilet that I’d used holding their noses and making puking noises.  Bang a gong, approaching 40, cool as ya like.

Our final destination of this blog entry was/is Cordes-sur-Ciel chosen for no other reason than it’s in the general direction of where we’re headed and is in a lovely area – I’ll leave Helen to tell you about this place though.

France, as we knew already but are discovering more and more, is absolutely stunning. It offers everything you could want if you’re active and like to get out and about and if you like peace and space from time to time you couldn’t place yourself anywhere better.  Huge big old vast bloody country, but just over the same population as back home, no one to be seen some days!  I think we’re going to like living here.

*Sorry Emma, couldn’t think of any other blonde antipodean lady! 

If I had a photograph of you...

Riviera roulette and gorgeous gorges

Leaving our relaxing campsite on the edge of Tuscany, we were looking forward to having over a week or so to explore the Liguria region; the Italian Riviera no less.  Amongst much other useful stuff left to us by the previous owners of our van, was a dusty old map of Liguria highlighting all the wonderful sights, sounds and gastronomic delights to be found, so we picked some ‘must see’s’…well excited we were… and planned to make our first stop at the very edge of the region, at La Spezia.   Now, perhaps partly because we chose to stay on an aire, and in some instances as I’m sure we’ve already mentioned, they tend to be in the scrag-end of towns, we weren’t left with a nice feeling about La Spezia.  Our stop for the night was at the bottom of the ambulance car park, and we were checked in by a bunch of paramedics having a late lunch break.  Weird.  However, aside from a voluntary donation to the service, it was free at least.  As you can imagine though, ambulance car parks are rarely in the nice part of town, and our attempt to walk towards something a bit more up our street failed…finding ourselves at a shop where the locals couldn’t be bothered to put their cigarettes out when they went to get their shopping…yup, that bad.  So La Spezia was a one- night treat, and not really desiring to explore further we headed up the coast.

Driving towards Cinque Terre, we were keen to adhere to our friend Joanna’s advice to ‘not attempt to take the van there under any circumstances’, and certainly the roads looked very small and squiggly on the map, however we thought Levanto looked pretty manageable, there were a few other motor homes about, and well, quite frankly saying something is tricky in the van is a bit like a red rag to a bull after Albania-mania so we went for it.  Levanto was lovely; steep and jagged cliffs plunging into clear sea and lovely pastel coloured houses perched up on the mountains.  The rows of matching sun loungers and umbrellas on the beach ruined it somewhat , packing em in like sardines as usual, but still an impressive view.  It was attempting to negotiate ourselves out of Levanto on a different road in busy traffic that we took a wrong turn somewhere along the line and found ourselves snaking up the ‘steep and jagged cliffs’ on an increasingly narrow road…aahh, we thought as we realised we couldn’t turn around…this is what Joanna meant…yeah we really shouldn’t be here.  But the only way is up, as Yazz would say, and up, and up and up.  At last, thankfully the road ended and we had enough space to turn around and head down, this time at least a little more relaxed and able to appreciate the stunning view.  We finished the day at Sestri Levante, on a very overpriced campsite, due to the lack of aires on this part of the Riviera.  In fact it was the kind of expensive that got us thinking about how much it was going to cost to carry on exploring the Riviera at this time of year, and actually, now don’t get me wrong I’m sure parts of it are very lovely, but it really isn’t our thing.  We also realised that the parts of Italy we had enjoyed the most were when we were in the countryside, so we made plans to abandon Liguria and head over to Piedmont instead.  What, no Portofino I hear you cry?  Nope, afraid not, you can’t do everything hey.

The Riviera obviously felt a little put out by our decision, as that night we were both kept awake by about four rounds of thunder and lightening, and extremely heavy rain.  Packing our damp belongings into the van the next morning (something tells me we best get used to this) we headed for the countryside.  And the minute we did, we knew we had made the right decision.  We stopped for some lunch in a place called Sassello, apparently the home of amaretti, a lovely little town where we thought it rude not to purchase some of their wares, yum.  Then we drove onwards to our aire at Acqui Terme.  What a beautiful place we were in, a stunning town indeed, and we arrived in time to have an afternoon stroll around a street market full of antiques, and all sorts really.  As girls do in these instances, I managed to pick up a bargain; a €2 cardigan which I’ve respectively been told looks like a rug in a granny’s house, oh well…  We arose early the next day to get out on our bikes, and with the weather god’s smiling on us had a fantastic ride, stopping at the most picturesque river for a plunge in the clear water, made all the more perfect for having the whole place to ourselves.  Returning to the van, via the local gelato shop (melon flavour is where it’s at guys) we drove onwards to stay the night at a vineyard aire at San Damiano d’Asti.  At first when we saw the gate across the entrance, we thought our luck was out, but thankfully the owners daughter greeted us and suggested that once we had parked up the van, we join her for some wine tasting in the cellar.  So, we left the van next to a cheerful looking goat and in we went.  The vineyard itself has been passed down through three generations and there were wonderful old photos of grandfathers and great grandfathers working the land adorning the walls.  We sampled a few reds, and were kept thoroughly entertained by the owner’s daughter throughout, who was moving to Australia later that week and thankfully wanted to work on her English!  She then asked us to choose our favourite so that she could fill us up a complimentary carafe…errr could this day get any better?  Strolling back to the van, wine in hand, we heard an odd noise coming from a nearby shed, ‘it sounds like some old guy lifting weights’ I said.  No, not at all it turns out, as our neighbour for the night, an asthmatic Shetland pony announced himself by wheezing his way over, joining us and the goat for the evening.  We had wine, they had peaches, and we were all a happy bunch. 

After a shocking night’s sleep; old wheezy stood guard by the van all night, we headed out for more cycling to blow away the cobwebs, and then prior to leaving the vineyard, thought we might just purchase some of that lovely wine to take with us.  Now I knew purchasing direct would probably be cheaper, but €1.65 a litre is unbelievable!  So off we went, lugging our very heavy 5litre bottle with us.

We drove through the town of Alba, breathing in the thick scent of chocolate hanging in the air…it’s here they make forrero rocher chocolates and …nutella!!  Did anyone else know they were made by the same company? Well it was news to us, and weirdly quite a sickening smell.  Onto our final stop in Piedmont, an agrotourism place in Belvedere Lange.  Bloody lovely it was to, with a swimming pool for us to while away the evening sun.  Piedmont, as it turns out, was the best decision we ever made.

Next though, we were bound for France, as we had an airport appointment with London Lady, Anna Smith.  Heading back down to the Italian Riviera rather then tackling the route through the Alps, we spent a night at an aire in San Remo, waking up to our final border crossing for a while.  Pretty much four months to the day we left, we were back in France.  And weirdly, the difference between the Italian and French Riviera is vast, suddenly everything was less packed, very beautiful, and far more chic.   Certainly this coastline is made for burning around in a small, vintage convertible, as we found out to our frustration arriving at Nice airport; height restriction barriers everywhere preventing the bus getting anywhere near.  Finally though, there were three of us in the van, pootling up through the Provence countryside, and soon enough us girls were in bikini’s and by the pool for afternoon sunshine.

The next day brought what seemed an endless search for the ‘nearby’ Gorges de Loup, made all the longer by the campsite owner pointing us in the opposite direction.  Nearly four hours, and nearly as many about-turns later, the three of us found ourselves winding through trees beside the Loup river, marvelling at all the clear pools that we wanted to jump into, but pushing on towards the gorges.  Finally settling on a deep pool fed by a small waterfall at the top, we stripped to our swimmers and walked up to our ankles; ‘whooah!!’ this was seriously cold water! Had it not been for the effort required to get there I’m not sure we’d have got in, but slowly we managed to lower ourselves in, Anna’s shrieks echoing around the gorges, for the most invigorating swim in the most beautiful location.  While sat on the rocks in the sun, thawing out our frozen toes, a group of French tourists came gorge diving into our pool, head to toe in wetsuits.  We realised how bloody cold the water really was, and hoped that our hair still looked wet enough to make us look like crazy adventurers…  anyway, what adventurers need are croque monsiours and beers, so we stopped at a bar on the way back and then ambled our way through the pretty French town of Bar sur Loup, returning to the van, and the start of a night of rain.  Not that we cared, what an amazing day we’d had.

The next morning, we packed up the van in the pouring rain (told you we’d get used to this) and headed back to the coast.  Not really feeling our first destination we plumped for Antibes, and after setting up camp decided to walk into the old town for a nice French supper.  Mussels of course, and obligatory red wine.  Then of course it was time for some beach action, so the next morning we strolled to Antibes beach (since the one near the campsite was more ‘bleugh’ than ‘beach’) , past all the shiny yacht’s in the harbour, for a morning of sun, sea and sand…and more importantly Anna’s first swim in the sea all year.  But inevitably, here come those rain clouds again, so we packed up and happily found a Picasso museum in the old town to while away the afternoon and add a touch of culture to Anna’s trip.

As always, we reach the day when our friends have to go, which is always tinged with sadness.  In this instance it was also tinged with slight hangovers from a night of far too much red wine and very competitive card games into the wee hours.  Anna, it turns out, is a pretty aggressive Uno player for a first-timer.  A wonderful visit from a wonderful friend, we felt a little lonely when she had gone.  I wonder what could cheer us up…more friends to stay perhaps?...        

Piedmont

Provence