A Trip Down the Garden Path

Carcassonne - Cassis - Saint Tropez

Well we hit the Cote d'Azur, the south coast of France, famous as the playground of the rich and famous, not that we met any of those while we were there :( but I was a lookin'. As you can sort of see by now, we steered clear of the bigger cities on this trip.  One big city is almost like the next, and there are only so many fountains, statues, churches and parks you can ooh and ahh over. It was nice to keep it simple.  We saw some amazing stuff, and this area was no exception. I'll give you a little running commentary...

This is in the centre of the town of Cassis.  A little village with a touristy edge as it's the gateway to the Calanques (which the translate to mean 'creeks' - but I disagree). The Clanaques are more like large inlets or bays, crystal clear waters and sheer cliffs enclosing them.  We took a boat ride around the Clanaques, you'll see soon...

More of Cassis

On the boat ready to go

Pretty little harbour as we sail out, you can see why it attracts the tourists

One of the Calanques, pretty!

These photos don't really do them justice, they were pretty amazing. There's also a 10km  hike you can do along the coast from Cassis to Marseille that takes in the glorious scenery. It sounded like a good idea if we had more time, It would have been nice to stop for a dip now and then along the way

Just before we got absolutely soaked by the water, it was a sunny day, but pretty choppy

Back from our boat trip and into the water....and it was freezing! My legs braved about 20 seconds, but by that time they were aching with the cold. I told Glen my veins felt like they were going to pop!  He assured me they wouldn't but all the same I high tailed it out of there...freezing!

Our camp in Cassis.  It's pretty much the norm to camp on gravel in France. grass is a luxury.  Other strange camping grounds things in France  include communal showers and toilets (not that that really bothered me) and sinks in cubicles, lockable ones just like a toilet cubicle, not out in the open - that was strange.  Also, wifi everywhere, even in the most isolated places - yay for the iPad!

lavender is a big produce in this region, Provence.  Smells so pretty! I bought this little plant from the local market and lugged it all the way home. It's now in our flat next to the window in our bathroom.

A camping fridge

Me and  Lavy (my plant) at L'Occitane factory and museum. If you're not aware, this is a famous skincare/fragrance company. Shops all over  the world and Australia and I think I've even seen the products in Target. We went through the museum and then I covered myself in the smelly stuff. Didn't buy anything though, a little too expensive. I did find out the correct pronunciation of this name though, it's 'loc-see-tane'. Go figure, there's even irregular pronunciation in French too

This is in St Tropez, doing a little exploring and yacht spotting

We spent a day at the beach.  The water was much more bearable here and crystal clear. Some topless sun baking was going on, which is pretty normal on French beaches, not my think though, being the prude I am...

Our camping grounds was a flash one in St Tropez, it even had a 2 slides! Glen got banned from them and the pool though, for wearing board shorts.  Apparently these are not allowed in the pool.  Speedos or tight little lycra shorts acceptable only

Walking along the front of the marina, some more million dollar yacht spotting

luxury

Glen's purchase, pretty impressive hey?

And a cute little market we went to in a nearby town

Yumo local produce, I bought some of the tomato pesto you can see in the bowl in the right lower corner of the photo. Olives are also heavily produced in Provence, you can see some of these here too

Another view of the markets

We had a lovely time down here. The weather held up nicely and it was actually pretty hot, a bit of a dilemma for me as my wardrobe consists of nothing with short sleeves. Ah well, good excuse to buy a few things.  The interesting thing is I'd heard people say how dingy and overrated St Tropez was.  I would have to disagree.  It sort of reminded me a bit of Airlie Beach, maybe not quite so touristy, but even so, just simple and nice.  We had a lovely few days down here, would love to get back to it again...maybe one day.