Category: France

Saint Tropez – Cloudy Sky #5

Tuesday 13th July

Our first concern today was to go an cash some traveller’s cheques1, as yesterday’s events had cost us over £120.  We then went up to La Croix Valmer, where we spent about an hour.  Phoned Quarry Garage2, and others at home before going to the beach, where we stayed until 16:00pm.  Had showers, made tea and then looked in on the crappy circus at the camp-site entrance.

Wednesday 14th July (Bastille Day)

We went to the Casino first thing and spent £60 on almost nothing.  However, we now have almost the same stock of soft drinks and beers that they have (at the supermarket).  Ours is under the caravan and in the fridge. I don’t think that we need to buy any more before we leave.  We then went to the beach, where the weather was pleasant and the sea a bit warmer than recent days.  Sue is now down to factor 8 on her gentler bits and factor 5 on the rest. Today I used factor 4 first and then factor 2 on the second application and neither of us ended up being sore3.

We left the beach just after 15:00pm as it began to get cold.  A large cloud was moving slowly across the sun that made all the difference.  By the time the washing was done and we had had our showers, the cloud had passed and the evening was quite pleasant. After tea, Sue and I had a game of boules before going out for a drive. We filmed people bungie jumping at the Luna Park and then tried to get into Saint Tropez, but it was simply too busy – we therefore looked at Grimaud and Cogolin instead, but didn’t stop.

We opened a second bottle of gin tonight. The stuff here is much cheaper than at home but still only 37.5%.  I bought a bottle of Ballentines whisky for less than £10.  Famous Grouse is about the same price as at home.

 Thursday 15th July

We were off and out by 10:00am again this morning but didn’t fancy either of the closer markets, so we went back into Saint Tropez.  Parking was easy enough, but there didn’t seem to be any ‘life’ here.  We got to the beach around 11:30am and later, having just finished lunch, an enormous cloud passed over and blocked out the sun. Now, this happened yesterday too, but today we couldn’t see an end to it.  It had been so hot in the sun that it was quite cold now that it was hidden by the cloud.

We therefore decided to drive on round to Le Lavendou. This took quite some time as we had to go the slow route to La Croix Valmer first. However, the sun did come out again as we were passing a place called Le Rayol – so we decide to stop here.  There was a winding road that led to a sort of cliff top and we were able to park just at the top of some steps. The sun belted down on this sheltered bay and the sea was calmer, so it was quite pleasant.

Home for tea and a game of rummy.  We’ve a week left here now and the weather still hasn’t come up to last year’s super heat – but of course it may well do so yet.

1 – Remember traveller’s cheques? That’s one thing the Euro € helped us to do without, when travelling in Europe. It’s also much easier these days to pay bigger bills (supermarket, petrol etc.) by ‘card’ and to simply keep the €€s from one trip to the next.

2 – Quarry Garage is where we had just bought the car from.

3 – I used to come home from these holidays as brown as you like, but wouldn’t dare use less than factor 15 these days. That’s due to a combination of cancer awareness and less time in the sun.

 

Saint Tropez – 1st weekend #4

Saturday 10th July

We were at a garage suggested by someone yesterday, Garage Ford on the Z.I. St. Claude, by 09:00am.  It was closed.  It didn’t look like a main Ford dealer either.  So, we then tried phoning GESA who deal with Green (insurance) Card problems.  Their system is such that they put you on hold as soon as you are connected and then allow the ringing tone to continue.  This eats up the French coinage, of which we have a limited amount.  We then asked at reception if we could have their number – but they told us that they wouldn’t take incoming calls. We tried the site next door, but their phone was out of order1, so we drove up to La Croix Valmer and found a ‘card’ phone in La Poste.  So we dealt with the problem of reporting the accident here.  We had called at the Casino for shopping between looking for the garage and coming back to site, so we drove back and had lunch.

During the afternoon, it rained quite heavily, so we read and slept all afternoon.  Sue and I are now complaining about sore necks.  I filled in the claim forms and wrote more postcards2 ready for Sue to post when she went to phone her dad.

Sunday 11th July

We set off early to go to the beach. It was very windy this morning, but sunny and dry. The beach was quiet but hellishly windy.  We stayed until 15:00pm, came back and had a quiet read, tea, boules, Cluedo, read and bed.

Monday 12th July

Today’s big job, after the weekend, was to get the car seen to3.  We went along to the Garage Savall (Ford) in Cogolin. As was our experience in France previously, we were dealt with kindly and with care.  The boss here said it would be impossible for him to repair the boot as the job would need specialist work and would possibly be too expensive for us here in France. What’s more it would take too long.  Nevertheless, they agreed to secure the boot and bonnet, and to replace the front n/s light, for approx. 1,000 francs (around £117). We agreed to this, and to return at 17:00pm when he had the parts.  We then had lunch with Ben and Emma at the caravan.

We phoned both sets of European Insurance assistants and I phoned Stephen and his guests (staff barbecue)4.  I spoke to Diane, who read out the ‘postcard from France’.  We then went to the beach. It would have been a lovely day for a walk.  The sun was hot, but it was also as windy as yesterday – and the sea was VERY cold.

We went and had the car sorted at 17:00pm and had a walk around Cogolin while we waited. Came home for tea, read, played Boggle with Ben and read.

1 – We often forget how different life was before mobile phones and almost universal connectivity.

2 – Remember postcards? We used to send them to parents, friends and family – as a matter of course.

3 – The boot had been properly stove in (at this point I cannot remember whether we could open it or not) and the bonnet was a big dodgy because the front end had been bent – not enough to break the radiator, but enough to buckle the bonnet.

4 – I was employed part-time at this point and although I was kept busy during most of term times, at this point I was able to depart on holiday almost any time after the last week in June. My Dewsbury College, catering department colleagues were having a BBQ at Stephen’s home in Mirfield.

Monte Carlo and Crash #3

Friday 9th July

We set off for Monte Carlo about 08:45am – it took us two hours. Well, today was a day for the story books. (This post is all about ONE day). Nevertheless, I’ll start at the beginning. The journey to Monaco took two hours, the roads were clear but it had taken us an hour to reach the Autoroute at Frejus. After another delay, we found our way to the palace gardens car park and eventually to the small shopping area that surrounds the palace. Here, we bought respective parents’ scarves for presents, before stopping for a drink and some lunch at the same café we stopped at last year.  This is on the corner of the palace courtyard and the meal was fine.  I had a salami salad sandwich and a beer, Sue had a croque monsieur and a beer. I then had a coffee and Sue had another beer. This totalled less than 100 francs1, not too bad for where we were. I wondered why everyone was queuing by the palace gates and only realised why when bang on 12:00pm there was a ceremonial changing of the guard. However, as we hadn’t yet paid and Sue had popped to the loo, I couldn’t leave the table to film it.2 We did manage to catch the tail end of the ceremony though.  Hey ho. We then drove on to Eze, where we visited (the Fragonard) Perfumery and bought ‘Beautiful’ for Dorothy and some ‘Cacharel’ for me.  We then drove on to Cannes. The road was clear, as I’d found the non-town centre road and zipped along it to the autoroute exit and then zipped along between Nice and Cannes. Cannes is a very difficult town to understand from what the map displays; the bit we wanted to see, the bit we see on T.V. is in fact La Croisette on our map. Anyway, we spent an hour or so looking around the shops and finished by having ice creams. I had one with cherry ice, kiwi ice (nasty) and banana ice with cream and fruit2.  Sue had her usual Colonel with Perrier and I had tea. 139 francs – whoops.  We then drove home. This took some time. We went via the autoroute and Le Muy but as we drove towards St. Maxime (almost there in fact), we were shunted from behind. We were in front of a five-car pile-up. Nothing could be done, the traffic was crawling along towards the roundabout, about ¼ mile away. No one was stationary, just crawling. However, I heard the bump as car #4 (we were car #1) ran into the back of car #3 with some velocity. Car #3 crunched into car #2 and car #2 ran into us – still with some force.  As I heard the bump, I watched all this in my rear-view mirror and stood hard on my brakes to take as much momentum out of the smash as possible. I was nevertheless, pushed into the car in front of me (let’s call that car #1+).  However, damage to that big old Merc (with tow bar) was so negligible that the driver just shrugged his shoulders and drove off. However, we had had a proper tup.  The gendarmes and pompiers were great and the girl who caused the smash (car #4) was very upset, but mainly, no one was hurt. We were allowed to drive on as ours was the only car not to have a damaged radiator. We made it back to the camp site and then called England for help/advice. We had a lousy meal at Fat Jaques before sitting down to write this. (The story continues in the next blog post). 1 – Around £11.00 https://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html 2 – 26 years on it sounds disgusting, I’d never eat those flavours now and certainly not that much.

Saint Tropez #2 – markets

Tuesday 6th July

After a light breakfast, Sue and I set off to visit Saint Tropez open market.  This was bedlam, just like yesterday. Anyway, we managed to spend an hour or so there before moving on to the beach at La Blanche. We had lunch here and stayed on a couple or so hours. We couldn’t stay longer as the brolly broke. We called at the Casino on our way home to but a brolly (to replace Stephen’s broken one). We also bought a set of boules. We had a couple of beers outside the store and came home to shower and read.  After tea, we played boules for a while and read. Later, we did some Sunday Times crosswords.

Wednesday 7th July

Had a light breakfast, similar to yesterday and packed up for the day. I was quite tired although I didn’t get up until 08:30am ish, and had slept quite well.  We went to the market in Cogolin first and found it to be the usual sort of fayre, not bad but nothing special.  We then drove on to Cavalaire sur Mer to their market, as the day was a little overcast and just the weather for visiting markets. It took some time to find the market at Cavalaire and there wasn’t much of it when we did.  We decided to stay there and have lunch on the beach as we had found a parking place just across the road. We didn’t leave the beach until after 17:00pm today, which shows how much cooler (but still v.v. nice) the weather was.  After tea we played boules and then went to the phones 1. We needed to phone Stephen to find out where the beach chairs were.  Played Boggle and read.

Thursday 8th July

Today was much like yesterday, a little breezy but quite hot. It soon came cool in the evening though. After an early breakfast we went to the (poor) market at Port Grimaud and then up to the (better) market at Ramatuelle. Here, we had a Perrier in the shade, after walking around the very pleasant village. Afterwards we went to the beach at La Blanche 2. We stayed here three or four hours. The water was choppy and therefore it had an unkept appearance. So, not as yet, as pleasant to swim in as last year 3. We called at the hypermarket on the way back to buy some low seats for the beach and some fish for tea. We had a beer here before we left and when we got back I had two more, which knocked me out. I am still feeling tired now, but am determined to have a gin. 1 – Those were the days! There were no mobile phones and there was a need to queue up to use of the few phone boxes available on-site. 2 – I cannot find La Blanche now, but the name certainly rings a very distant bell. It would be somewhere on the Plage de Pampelonne. 3 We visited Saint Tropez as a family several times in the 90’s. This is, so far, the only diary that I’ve found.

Holiday in France. #1 Saint Tropez.

1993 – Getting there

July 3rd – July 5th

Set off at 10:50am and had to return to make sure door was locked and to collect pillows. Stopped in Sheffield to take my jumper off and eventually made Jacks Hill Café 1 at 13:35pm (137 miles later). Here we had our rather late lunch and then went on to Martin’s, where we stayed until 15:30pm. I lent Martin my Tribes copy of Lemmings 2 and installed T. Type Fonts for Windows. We arrived in Portsmouth about 18:00pm and spent a little time looking around the shops as they closed. We found a pub that sold sandwiches and settled there to have tea and to write the diary. I can’t remember the mileage, but it is a lot less than 300.  Zeroed at petrol station.

The ship set off on time and it wasn’t very full. The 2-berth cabin seems quite comfortable and we were able to get a transfer for Ben and Emma (from reclining seats), to a similar cabin to ours. Sue bought some eau de cologne and I bought a sweatshirt. We also bought 2 litres of gin because of the strange customs rules.  We then heard over the tannoy, that we would arrive in France at 07:00am UK time. This s contrary to expectations. The brochure stated that the crossing would be 7.5 hours (21:15pm – 04:45am). However, I was told that the crossing is a ‘summer extra’ and as it seems to be an old ship, takes longer. The 23:00pm sailing arrives at 06:00am, which seems a little strange. The saving grace is that we can have a longer sleep and longer in the bar.

1993 – July 4th

We left the ship about 08:10am (French time) and did about 60 miles in the first hour and another 70 by the second hour. Stopped for breakfast at Fontainebleau (156 miles), a Bison Futé stop. Set off again at 11:05am.  Stopped at Beaune. Set off again 14:05pm (325 miles).  For the last hour or so, Sue has been driving. We are just south of Chalon-sur-Saône and heading towards Lyon. We reached the Lyon peage at 15:10pm and changed drivers. Then, we changed again just south of Valence, about 480 miles. We were passing Cavaillon and Sue was till driving. The weather is absolutely spanking but very uncomfortable to drive in.3  The highest temperature we’ve seen so far on the motorway is 33oC.

Swapped again at Lançon and set off for the last few miles at 18:40pm.  Arrived at 20:25pm. The security man let us in. 4  We settled into the mobile home 5 as quickly as we could and went to Fat Jaques’ for a pizza tea. Slept v. well.

Monday 5th July

Got up and had a short breakfast, then Sue and I went to the hypermarket. This was a bad mistake. It was very full and very busy. We still need some vegetables and bit and bats.  We came back and Sue had lunch while I re-built the tent (for Ben to sleep in) and fixed things up. The tent is ok now, Ben has plenty of room. When everyone had finished lunch, we discussed going to Port Grimaud and/or the beach, as the weather was overcast and showery. We decided to go to the beach first and as Ben and Emma were to join us we chose Tahiti Beach (family beach). It cost £2.00 to park for the hour (probably FF20 – so also probably less than £2.00) we were there. The waves were up and three of us spent most time in the water as it was warm, even in the rain.

We decided not to return on the main road, as it had been horrendously busy on the way in. We therefore came back the long way around. I got lost.  The road past the vineyard is closed so it was difficult. Anyway, we made it in the end. After tea, Sue and I went in to Port Grimaud. This was enjoyable as it was very pleasant, not as hot as it had been the last time we came (This was not our first holiday in Saint Tropez). It does come dark quickly down here to go from (SLR) filmable to unfilmable.

1 – Now, 26 years later, everything around here is much changed.

2 – I cannot find a non-video link to the original game we played back then

3 – ah, the luxuries of A/C. Not available to us then.

4 – I’d forgotten the security man. The camp site we stayed in had a huge gate which closed at a certain time to keep the ‘estate’ quiet.

5 – This belonged to my work colleague and friend Stephen Hamer.

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