Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: Let’s play Hide the Supermarket. Only in France.

It’s been an intriguing three weeks since our last post. We’ve traversed Spain and are now in Hyères on the Côte d’Azur, following recommendations from our travelling friends Ann and Stuart, who we met again in a delightful little Spanish village called L’Escala.

To backtrack a little. When we left you last, dear reader, we were optimistic of picking up a newly-beclutched Molly Aswell the following day. Alas, the best laid plans…A phone call from the garage and a quick cycle there revealed a perfectly adequate clutch, but some problems in the gearbox which they couldn’t fix. Ho hum. We made the decision to put it all back together and take a chance. She still drives ok, but makes some very loud protests during gear changes at times.

So we didn’t leave our house sit until the Thursday. Thanks again to Lesley for being so understanding. Less than 100 miles later and we were back in Spain, in a campsite at Huelva that reminded us (not in a good way) of a place we stayed when we drove through France and Spain 10 years ago and stopped at a place on the Costa Brava that felt like something out of ‘The Deer Hunter’. Grim.

From there we went on to Seville and stopped at a glorified car park, but cheap, from whence we could sample the delights of the city and its famous Moorish/Castilian etc palace The Alcazar. Beautiful buildings and gardens in the middle of this lovely city. Followed by large gins by the river!

A big drive the next day brought us to a petrol station near Cullar. Not our first choice for a Saturday night, but free. Nuff said.

Making use of recommendations from other friends, we drove on to a lovely spot called La Azohia, then on to one of the best free sites we’ve stayed - at Cabo de Palos in Murcia, right under the watchful eye of the lighthouse and a glorious sunset.

Another decent hike took us to Valencia, where we only stayed overnight, but should have spent longer probably (a bit citied-out by now, tbh). Then onto a charming little site in Sitges, the gay capital of Spain apparently. While there we experienced a rather wild Saturday night in town; England thrashing the Wallabies in the first test in Brisbane (rugby); very pleasant cycling and beach and a great day in Barcelona (yes, I know I said earlier…but Barcelona is one of our favourite cities). We visited old haunts, such as Palau Guëll, La Rambla for a bucket of sangría, El Extampanet cava and tapas bar and the Sagrada Familia to see if the builders have finished the extension yet. (They haven’t). Wonderful.

Although we’ve had questionable wifi at most places, we were able to contact our friends Ann and Stuart and arranged to meet them the following night at L’Escala, where a pleasant evening of wine and paella ensued. Collioure, just over the French border is another of our favourites, so we spent the next night cheaply there and walked into the attractive town (bus back ‘cos it’s a long hill!).

Ah, now I remember one of the bees I wanted to get out of my bonnet, metaphorically-speaking. Sadly Henry (or Henri), our trusty Apple maps-speaking satnav, has been relegated to the reserves as he was constantly leading us up blind alleys and round the back doubles in our search for campsites, even though we put the details in quite carefully (he once told us we had reached a campsite which was actually a backstreet garage in a nondescript Spanish village!).

So we have turned to Lucy – our Google maps guide. We’re convinced it’s neither’s fault, but trying to get to a French supermarket, which you can see quite clearly from the road, but appears to have no obvious routes to it, is quite maddening. We have found this several times and it’s, well, frustrating to say the least.

We had just such an experience trying to get our shopping on the way out of Sète the next day. They just don’t do signposts. Anyway, Lucy is more reliable for most things at the moment. The pronunciation from both plummy English voices is quite hilarious. Can’t wait to see how they cope with Italy, Germany and Scandinavia!

After the shopping experience, we had a longish trek to Cassis and another campsite above the town, with a decent walk in. Now, we were aware, without being really very aware, that there was some other sport apart from test match cricket and rugby (Aus 7, England 23. Yesssss) going on at the moment, but hadn’t really connected with it.

Until our campsite in Cassis, which, being near Marseille, was a convenient spot for some downtime and getting to the city for the matches. We’re talking football now, in case you hadn’t noticed. We were surrounded by German, Italian, English, Irish, Spanish and Hungarian football fans who seemed to enjoy chugging back vast quantities of beer from eight o’clock in the morning, to the accompaniment of either loud, incoherent chanting, or loud, incoherent rap music. It was all very good-natured however and we were pleasantly surprised at how quickly and quietly everything settled after about 11 pm. Probably all too pissed to stand up by then. I know I was.

So, after a jolly Friday night in Cassis, being entertained by two amazing guitarists by the harbour and people watching, we moved on to where we are now, which is Hyères, a very pretty small community at the end of the peninsula looking out to the Îles d’Hyères. Probably a walk along the coast after lunch…

Italy and more culture beckon by the end of next week. A tout alors x

PS. Hi there, now have I got any bees in my bonnet? The ones that come to mind that we briefly touched on last time are the lack of loo seats in French campsite toilets, also the lack of loo paper and soap. Why do the French sites seem to think this is a good idea. Why?? Do they expect everyone to go about with a loo roll in their pocket?? Now, because we know, we do, also we make sure our ‘special’ bag contains soap, however carrying a loo seat is not practical.

I find this so strange, as when we are not in the loo, we are visiting the most beautiful French seaside towns that are so smart, with gorgeous buildings painted in wonderful colours and shops with such stylish window displays. Also the majority of French people we see have a way of dressing that is so chic, even when they are on the beach. For me the two don’t seem to go together. I feel better now I’ve got that off my chest!

We are so enjoying the different places we are visiting thanks to the tips and advice from our good friends Ann, Stewart and Deidre. One of the purposes of this trip was to visit places we hadn’t been to before and we are certainly doing that. The coast of Murcia in Spain was just lovely, lots of white villages and more natural than other parts. Also some of the seaside villages around Barcelona, set against the turquoise sea were quite stunning. Then onto France and one of our favourite places, Collioure, just over the border from Spain. We’d been twice before, but couldn’t resist another look and we weren’t disappointed, it’s gorgeous. We hadn’t heard of Cassis, near Marseilles, but when we spent two nights there loved it; it’s a bit like Collioure but bigger, a really fun place.

So now we are here at a tiny place called La Tour Fondue, thanks to Ann and Stewart, another hidden gem! It’s right at the end of a spit of land that sticks out into the Med, near Toulon and it is just so nice. It’s a divers’ paradise as the sea is as clear as it can be, so tomorrow we get the snorkel out to explore the hidden depths!

Time is flying by…we’ll be back by the end of July…eeeeekkkkk!

Bye for now. Gillie xxx