2011 Summer holiday - week 1 - Toulon – Avignon - Agde – Toulouse

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Bonjour mon petit dejeuner, this is almost a year ago and happened before the last blog I published but the news of Ella’s arrival was too exciting not to write about so I’m going back in time to June 2011 and our last summer holiday.

We spent two glorious weeks travelling from the South East corner of France, along the South Coast then cross-country to Bordeaux, via a couple of days in the Spanish Basque country, a brilliant time was had by all, well - definitely by Lois and I, Fiona was 5-6 months pregnant at the time and as sick as a dog to so it wasn’t the best of teckle for her if the truth be told…

We set of from Montrose about 10am on a Saturday morning for a two hour drive to Edinburgh Airport where we arrived in plenty time got some lunch and dumped the car in the short stay car park (for two weeks….) and boarded a flight, Lois’s first, to Toulon.

The flight was fine, Lois was excited and sat through most of it without any issue – we had a couple of laps of walking down the aisle and refusal to take her seat when instructed to do so but generally it was an enjoyable stress free journey and landing into French France.

We collected our luggage without any hassles and then proceeded to queue for an hour to get our car hire, two things happened here – firstly they didn’t have a car seat booked for us but luckily managed to get one from another firm so no worries, secondly the upgraded my “Ford Focus or similar (manual)” to an automatic C4 Grand Picasso people carrier with sat nav, happy days – total luxury it was too, although I did have to drive for two days and around 600 miles without wing mirrors, but that’s another story..

So we finally found the “elephant” as Lois christened it, at the very back of the car park – I kid you not the car hire mans instructions to find the car were “it’s grey, it’s outside to the right, press the button and the lights will flash”, he may have given me absolutely perfect instructions in French but unless the chat contains “Margret de canard” I’m not really paying full attention… So, it’s now 8pm and proper dark out, we’re at the car and it’s class, we get the buggy and suitcases in the back and Fiona takes Lois into the front to let her play with the steering wheel as I attempt to fit the car seat, and now the adventure begins…

I just can’t get this thing fitted, it makes no sense at all to me, we’ve got three different car seats at home and I would class myself as an expert in the installation of every one, I am that confident in my own abilities, however this one had perplexed me.

It didn’t help that it was about 17 stone in weight either, Jeesy peeps, sweating and swearing so I was, choking for un Stella Artois and still with an hour or so’s drive ahead of us I put the car seat back on the luggage trolley and took it inside to ask the dude to come and fit it, he wouldn’t - but did give me excellent instructions on how to make the perfect snails in pesto hotpot, or something along those lines. Back out I went and tried again, still no luck – I then asked a boy in the car park if he knew how to fit it and thankfully he did, we made small talk about boeuf for a bit then we went on our merry way to our first destination, Agde.

We were staying in a caravan park on the beach in the middle of nowhere which was almost impossible to find, with the aid of the sat nav we got to the nearest town within an hour and we were only 5 miles away from our destination but after 3 attempts in various direction we still hadn’t found it. Fiona ruled that I had one more attempt to find the right place or we would pull over and sleep in the MPV until daylight and try again, I took a stab at it again and we stumbled upon a road sign that pointed us in the right direction, it was not after 11pm and the park was closed but thankfully the 24 hour golf buggy security man showed us to our digs, it had been a long day but the caravan was lovely and we settled in quickly and were off to sleep in no time.

The caravan park was great we were the only foreigners as far as I could tell, it was mostly holiday homes or grandparents retirement living so we were quite the novelty and were very well looked after, there were a few outside swimming pools and play parks where Lois and I broke all the rules relating to flumes and ball games and the location was good too - there was a beach about 10 minutes walk away and a few restaurants in walking distance too, a great start to the holiday. There was also a kids club with entertainment at night which Lois enjoyed – unbeknown to us you were meant to pay to send your kids to this and they got fed and played games, we just used to rock up after we’d been out for dinner then join in, wee bit of French karaoke to round of the night, not too be sniffed at.

We took a few day trips to local towns and also a day each at an aquarium and a crocodile farm, both were really good days out and littered with excellent play parks for kids all around the attractions, it really was a great week that ended with a day in Avignon which we loved, it was absolutely roastifying and I think the most expensive town square I’ve ever been in, also a mental place to drive around the ancient streets in a big elephant of a car.

Avignon is often referred to as the “City of Popes” and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, during the Catholic schism of 1309 – 1377 where the Papal seat was in Avignon rather than Rome, seven Popes resided here in the Palais des Papes, which in an incredible structure in the heart of the town – the walls are 18 feet thick! It was also used a prison after the French Revolution and is now a museum.

I’ve always been interested in the French papacy and it was great to finally visit Avignon in all its glory, we had probably the worst meal we’ve ever eaten here and also bought a coke for six Euros but that aside there was a crazy lift in the car park and some wonderful architecture and history that made it a really worthwhile trip.

I should add here that because of my trip to Avignon we missed out on Fiona’s highlight of the holiday, a trip to the Haribo factory… I think she’s just about forgiven me but after a “dry” fortnight for her, where I got pretty much wasted every night, she had to put up with papal architecture rather than fried eggs and cola bottles on her last day in the South East, je ne sais eh dinnae ken.

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