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.
My even older Holiday Weblog 