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16
thMay – La Mer Méditerranée.
After a few days in Aigues Mortes we moved down to the coast to a favoured spot at Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue, we have now been in France for three weeks and have managed with out any electricity, but needs must so we stopped at our first campsite and did our laundry. Unfortunately the wind which was warm and blowing from the north was a huge problem as it whipped up the dust, and soon we found the van to be full of dust. Which upset Alan as we had just spent 8 euros washing the magic bus in a fancy car wash!
So having checked the weather forecast we decided to move 20-30 km along the coast on the recommendation of a lovely French man we met at a camperstop on the Loire, and we have arrived in the most beautiful and unspoilt part of the Côte d’Azur that we have ever been too! It is between Marseille and the Camargue, no high rise, no tackety tourist shops, no pressure. Lots of French, no Brits, very few Germans, and one Dutchman who has now left. The town/village of Carro
is beside the Cap de Couronne, over a small but impressive range of hills called the Chaine de l’Estaque, I’m giving you all this detail as if you just look on a map you will see that it is surrounded by a very industrial part ofFrance. ThePortofMarseilleitself is massive, but the amount of oil refineries along the stretch of coast from Port St. Loius du Rhone to Martiques is also impressive! Makes Grangemouth look like a children’s playpark.
17
th May –
We have moved on from the coast after a few beautifully hot, sunny days, up into the mountains and are set up at the Lac de Ste. Criox, at one end of the Gorges du Verdon. This is quite a stunning place as I hope the photo’s will prove, we had been sitting outside admiring the view when a couple of Canadairs flew overhead, literally. Last time Al and I were down this way some ten years ago we had an experience with Canadair’s that we wouldn’t want to repeat, which involved us being evacuated from a stunning villa right beside the med. So we are naturally cautious when
we see them flying and using the lake to collect their water. As it turns out there must be a sapeur-pompier training station nearby, as they have been at it for two days now and clearly some of the pilots have not yet perfected the art of scooping up water as they skim the surface.
We have moved on to Les Moustier Ste. Maire and Castellane which means we have driven through the Gorges de Verdon, which is exceptionally stunning and is quite a challenging drive, so hats off to Al as I am equally excited and terrified at the same time. I go between leaning over Alan to take pictures as we pass stunning scenery and dramatic drop-offs, to ‘politely’ asking him to slow down as another camping car screams around a blind bend at brake neck speed on our side of the single track!
22
nd May Three wheels on our wagon, but we’re still rollin’ along. Just!
Oh dear, our mysterious slow puncture has returned, Alan has inflated the tyre to an acceptable pressure and we have driven to Digne Les
Bains, which is quite a sizable town and should have a tyre shop.
Yes they do, the very nice French have ordered us a new wheel! As we had in fact a crack in the wheel, the tyre which was nearly new is fine. Ouch this is going to cost! We are currently parked up outside some thermal spa on a free camper stop, where we will have to wait for the French tyre company to get wheel. Today is Thursday, it may not arrive until Monday apparently. Oh Dear still it could have been worse we could have been inItaly. Impressively we now know the French for slow puncture, wheel rim and valve, along with strangely enough the German for brakefluid.
Spend sometime this morning talking to an interesting couple from Britain who are full-timing it over here and later to a Dutchman who we think tried to sell us a static home, but interestingly was also a former Olympic speed skater. Alan continued his quest to discover why the Dutch are called ‘Dutch’ by Brits, and yet again the ‘Dutchman’ from theNetherlandsdid not know!
29
th May – Ascension Day
As last year we are inItalyfor Ascension Day and the place is heaving with Switz , Austrians and Germans as Ascension Day is a massive holiday for them. Last year at the end of the weekend the outside lane of the Autostrada was at a stand still as the Austrians, in particular left to go back in such numbers that they blocked the approached to the split up toAustria.
So as you will have gathered we are inItaly, and as expectedItalyhas yet again proved challenging. We crossed theColde Larche/Colla di Madelina yesterday and drove steadily north, we thought we would give our recently acquired German Bord Atlas a whirl. This list all the camperstops inItaly, allegedly, uses GPS, and so should be fool proof, you’d think! The first place followed using their GPS co-ordinates didn’t exist. The second was beside a crematorium, and was not clearly signed as a camperstop. Although as we left a small sign was spotted saying that you could stop for 48 hours. We democratically elected to go to a camperstop beside Lake Magoirre, it looked lovely in the atlas, right next to the
lake, however after we got there it was on a car park beside a dubious looking housing estate backed by the railway and was charging €12 per night, so we reverted to our ever trusty ACIS site book and found a brill little family run campsite which is next to the lake for only €16 per night with electric, hot showers, sit down segregated toilets (these have become a luxury), washing machines, a restaurant and bar, we think this is a better deal.
But I must take you back to my statement aboutItalybegin challenging. So apart from the obvious things like the inadequate signs on the roads, which leave you guessing at junctions as to the correct way to go, the inevitable ‘Italian’ style of driving, which has to be experienced to be believed, we ran into a spot of ‘Biblical’ bad weather, as I hope you will see on the short video I managed to record, the weather was one thing but the Italians have a unique way of dealing with it. They stop on the hard shoulder under a bridge, which would be bad enough, but no, as many as possible stop and straddle as
many lanes as they think necessary. So while coping with horrendous weather conditions, slowing down to a safe and reasonable speed as you approach any overpass you must veer out into the outside lane to avoid traffic stopped on the carriageway trying to shelter under a bridge! One scary drive.
PS While walking the dog down a residential street in Didgne Les Bains, a mad Frenchwoman in a fiat Panda swerved violently towards us and stopped a few inches away. She wound her window down and started excitedly pointing at Bran and shouting La Meme ! La Meme!, indicating that one of the three dogs roaming around inside her small car was Brans Doppleganger. Clearly deranged as the dog she was indicating was long haired, grey muzzled and a different colour. However not wishing to offend we politely indicated our deep pleasure that she had interrupted her journey to show us her faintly similar hound and we left the scene pretty sharply.
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