Do You,Do You St-Tropez(Genevieve Gard) - A Relaxing Day in St-Tropez,France - 15th May 2016

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We awoke to another sparkling morning. So much for last night’s brief thunderstorm!

With a day planned without getting the car we lazed in bed for a bit longer than usual and then as the sun gradually spread its rays across the terrace we got up and had breakfast. Our neighbours were obviously sleeping in to and we didn’t see them as we did yesterday at breakfast time.

Yesterday on the way home from St-Tropez, as we passed the Polo Club, which is just a short distance away from where we are staying, we noticed that they were having the first Sunday Polo Day today.

We checked out the website for the Polo Club and confirmed that yes their opening Sunday Polo matches were to start today.

However, the entrance closest to us was only for VIP’s or those prepared to pay to watch the polo.

As we weren’t that up with the game and we didn’t want to spend all day there we decided to make for the free entry gate on the other side of the Polo grounds about an extra kilometre away. It was a lovely day for a walk anyway.

We had found our way out of the Mobile Home Park easy enough when driving the car yesterday and we thought we should be able to remember the way down on foot easily.

It was harder finding our way on foot until we got down nearer the bottom of the park and then it started to make sense. There is no uniform layout of the mobile homes on the fairly steep hillside as they have been placed on a terraced area of the roadways and the original trees on the hillside have been retained around them making it look like they had been there for years.

With no footpath available we walked facing the opposing traffic and have become used to making sure there is an escape route off the side of the road as we have already faced many treks to places of interest without a footpath off the road.

Once we had reached the main road we had a footpath beneath our feet and we picked up the pace a little. We were fairly sure that finding the ‘free’ entry should have been easy but after we got almost to the McDonalds Restaurant near the roundabout on the way to St-Tropez (McD’s obviously not wanted in the town itself with its yellow and red painted building) we realised that we had either passed the entrance unwittingly or it didn’t exist as we had viewed it on Google maps before we left the park.

There was one thing for it. And that was to front up at the VIP gate and as we weren’t that interested in staying for too long we would take a look and some photos and video and head back home for lunch.

We had to backtrack and as we did so we called into the patisserie and bought a fresh, still warm baguette for lunch with our boiled eggs that we had planned.

Switching to the other direction at the junction below the park we again had to contend without a footpath and for this stage of the walk we swapped sides of the road a couple of times because at times there was more room for an escape from a wayward vehicle in need.

We were almost ready to give up ever reaching the Polo grounds as it hadn’t seemed to take this long in the car and then we spotted the high fence to keep out the riff raff like us.

Once we reached the front gate we noticed it was firmly closed and there was a sign confirming that yes, polo was on today. Just not until 5pm this afternoon and it was now only 1pm! If only we had read the details on the website a bit more closely it would have saved us the walk.

So it was home to the park and the climb on foot, this time, up the zig zag formation of roads to our mobile home.

It was sunny and pleasantly warm and we had our lunch, the bread was still warm following our walk, on the terrace with the shade partly pulled out from the roof of the mobile home.

All that exercise and a good lunch(we managed to eat all the bread even though we usually have some over if we are having a baguette for a boot lunch when we are on the road)and it was time for a read of the Kindle and put our feet up. One of us was dozing very quickly.

Before we knew it was almost time for drinks and nibbles on the terrace where one of the trees was providing gentle shade.

The temperature stayed warm enough to have dinner on the terrace too at 8pm and it was only when it started to cool off when the sun went down that we returned indoors.

We hadn’t achieved a lot today and got the starting time for the Polo wrong but it had been relaxing all round and set us up for the drive to the hills behind Cannes tomorrow for a one night stop before we head into Italy for the next 12 days or so.

PS:the song title comes I think from a rather obscure Brigette Bardot early movie,enjoy on Youtube

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