Week 59: Vive la France!
- Oct 16, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2023
Our stops this week:
One night at Aire Saint Maxime (Sainte Maxime)
Five nights at Camping des Mures (near Port Grimaud)
One night at Camping La Tour Fondue (near Hyeres)
After a disappointing and slightly stressful end to last week in Italy, we’ve had a much easier and more relaxing week. As Yvette left the last blog on a cliff-hanger… I can now reveal that we did continue east across the border into France.
As we hadn’t planned to leave Italy so soon, we arrived in France with no real plan, so we pulled into the first motorway service area that we found to regroup… this involved Yvette making lunch, while I gave Bear a walk and we then set about consulting various books, maps and apps until we settled on a motorhome aire on the edge of a small town on the coast called Sainte Maxime.
The aire was quite large and quite full, with about 40 vans already there and on the edge of a busy road directly opposite McDonalds… not quite what you imagine when you think of the French riveria but it immediately felt friendly, clean, safe and very good value at just five euros for 24 hours. We parked up, apologised to Bear for the unexpected long journey, of close to four hours, and set off for a walk into town and to see the sea!
Bear doing an evening yoga workout on the beach!
The town was exactly what we pictured for this part of France, with a great beach and promenade… unfortunately the beach wasn’t dog friendly, so Bear had to make do with the footpath and the fresh Mediterranean sea air. In the evening Yvette got her head back into study and I went out on the bike to explore and check out a campsite a few miles further along the coast. We thought we’d treat ourselves to McDonalds for tea but surprisingly (or maybe not for France) they didn’t have any veggie options, so we headed back to the van for our staple of pasta and pesto!
After a good night sleep, despite some traffic noise, the next morning we drove along the coast to Camping des Mures, we only planned to stay for a night or two and the Scottish chap on reception explained they were shutting down for the end of season, so we would have to leave no later than Sunday. After a few hours on the campsite we knew that we’d be staying as long as possible, it was pretty much perfect for us… a lovely sandy beach just a few minutes walk away, some interesting towns within easy cycling distance, with good cycle paths away from the road, plus a very peaceful campsite with a small shop and bar… heaven! To make it even better the weather forecast was showing warm and sunny days for the entire week, oh and the campsite had excellent wifi!
The wifi came in handy on Wednesday as Yvette had a lot of online work to complete and I had my first proper online coaching sessions, with some year 9 students! I was a little bit anxious before the coaching sessions but thankfully it went really well and turned out to be very enjoyable and a lot of fun! I’ve got three more coaching sessions and a residential outdoor activity trip with them over the next four months, which I’m really looking forward to. If anyone is interested it’s through a charity called www.yesfutures.org and based on my experience so far, I would highly recommend it… it's very well structured and provides great training, you just need an internet connection and some patience… we’ll I’ve got one out of two and I’m working on the other!
We cycled into Port Grimauld with Bear a couple of times to explore the town and the beach, it’s a stunning town built around a marina with bridges connecting the streets and the most amazing boats… this is definitely on the list of potential holiday home locations, when we win the lottery!
Port Grimauld town and beach
Port Grimauld town and beach.
On Thursday we cycled round the bay to St Tropez, this time without Bear, it was a 20km round trip and we didn’t want to push him too much in case he goes off cycling! We can see why St Tropez is such a renowned place, it certainly has an air of exclusivity about it. We wondered around the harbour and the narrow streets admiring the yachts, the art galleries and the designer shops whilst soaking up the atmosphere… we decided not to stop for a drink, it would probably cost more than a tank of diesel, which we need more!
Bear had lots beach trips this week and enjoyed lots of splashing about and swimming. He’s still a little bit unsure about going out of his depth but he definitely seems to enjoy being in the water. Yvette discovered the campsite had a gym and managed to squeeze in a few workouts… I decided it was a shame to spend the time indoors when the weather and water was so warm, so opted for bike rides, swimming and snorkelling instead.
On Sunday we reluctantly packed up and left the campsite, most campers had already left and the staff seemed more interested in jet washing and packing everything away until they open again next spring. Our next and final stop for this week, took us a long an incredible section of twisty country road down towards Le Lavandou and Hyeres… it was a bit narrow in places especially with the constant flow of sports cars (mainly Porsches) going the opposite way and rounding every corner in the middle of the road… I can see the temptation to blow away the cobwebs in your sports car and find the racing line as you head to St Tropez for Sunday lunch… but it’s not ideal when there is a Moho lumbering towards you.
Not sure if it’s been reported much in the UK but France is struggling with national fuel shortages, something to do with the oil refineries going on strike… we’ve noticed a lot of petrol stations have been shut, or have sold out of diesel. Luckily on the way to our last stop this week we found a supermarket petrol station with diesel and fairly short queues so we managed to top-up, although it did seem very expensive, I’m not sure if this is due to the fuel shortages or just the premium of the French riviera!
It's been a great week, getting to know an area of France that we've never really seen before and making the most of the sunshine... although with just a few weeks left we're certainly starting to think more about returning to the UK and job hunting... feels like it's going to be a bump back to reality next month!
Looks like it has been an incredible week. Enjoy.