What a couple of Tarts!

Tuesday 26th September 2017 - Cassis.

After all the anti-mosquito precautions I still took a hit last night.  It wasn't the best night of sleep I've had.  I know I won't get any sympathy but it was hot, my phone beeped several times for no good reason, I needed the loo and half way through we had a tactical change by taking the duvet out of the cover and using the cover and a fleecy blanket instead.  The mossies had several more bites of me, they took so much blood that I thought I was a blood donor but without getting a free biscuit.  Janice got  quite a few new bites too.  That Jungle Formula hasn't done the trick.  No, I don't deserve sympathy because I'm in a nice warm climate doing things that I want to do whilst everyone else in England is getting cold and wet, sorry, I don't mean to complain.

We were moving on today and at the last moment decided to stick to the coast a little longer.  Our objectives were the towns of Bandol (I have already mentioned for making lovely Rose wine) and Cassis, both towns are on the coast west of Toulon.

We moved off and by choosing to avoid toll roads we were directed by the sat nav up the Ollioules Gorge to the lovely medieval village of Castellet.  Despite being locked out of the village car parks by barriers that wouldn't let a vehicle of our height through we found a place to park.  The village was pristine and is obviously a tourist trap in the height of summer, thankfully it is not peak time.

The views were excellent with terraces of vines and olives with mountains and the sea in the distance.

Had a grand cafe grande.

We did a little shopping in Bandol and then popped down to the seafront.  A nice big harbour with expensive boats......is it all getting a bit samey!  There was a shop that almost exclusively sold Tarte Tropezienne (a kind of cake filled with creme anglais and topped with sugary dust).  

I had to try.  They had them in all sizes but I just had the one bite size!

We then moved to our site at Cassis.  It is much more difficult to wild camp on the south coast and there don't seem to be any Aires either.  The site is pretty good, it is at the top of the hill and so once we had set up we went into Cassis.  We expected to get bombarded with shops selling Creme de Cassis, which is a blackcurrant liquor but not a blackcurrant was anywhere to be seen......not even a bottle of Ribena!  However,......

The town was spectacularly beautiful.  It had everything, mountain scenery, beaches, harbour with posh boats, harbourside of restaurants, ruined chateau and nice shops in the back streets.  We walked around a headland and found a second pebbly beach and went for a paddle.

We hung around for about an hour on the beach enjoying the pleasant sun and temperature.

The ride back up the hill was a bit of a beast but once back we had our tea, followed by a treat....

That's what I call a couple of tarts, framboise tarts actually, scrummy!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Strictly raining!

Image
Saturday 4th November 2017 - Vironvay. We had a rainy day forecast so we had a quiet day.  We had a drive to Louvier market and more importantly we made an important visit..... We also bought some brioche for a second attempt at a bread and butter pudding French style. I will have to check with Wendy to see what she thinks.  It was certainly tasty and disappeared quickly. Our day was nice and relaxing followed by a lovely meal. We watched Strickly Come Dancing for the first time, Sian and Janice are big fans and I sneekingly enjoy it too.  Ger puts up with it too. There was break in cloud for a while and although the photo isn't too good we saw a nice moon reflection on the Seine.
Read more

Bonfire Night but no fireworks!

Image
Sunday 5th November 2017 - Boulogne-sur-Mer. We said our fond farewells to Ger and Sian.  They are extremely kind and considerate hosts.  We enjoyed our stay very much. We moved north to stay at Boulogne so we would be close to the tunnel for tomorrow morning.  It felt very cold today despite some bright spells.  We felt so cold it was like a cold Bonfire Night in England.  We will not be celebrating Guy Fawkes here in France...they don't do that here. We arrived in Boulogne and had a little walk around.  It was a little dreary on a Sunday but the old fortified town area was nice with a grand cathedral. I came here about 3 years ago with my friend Bruce, so had some memories. We found an Aire de Camping Car and couldn't immediately park because of parked spectators cars at the entrance blocking the way.  The town football ground is next door and a game was in progress.  We waited for the end of the game to allow cars to leave before we could drive...
Read more

France is closed!

Image
Wednesday 1st November 2017 - Nogent-le-Roi. We had changed our plans a little by deciding that tomorrow we would visit Versailles. As we drove past Tours and northwards we realised that the roads were pretty quiet and when we stopped at a Lidl supermarket and found it closed we twigged that it must be a public holiday.  It is now November and it is All Saints Day.  The day that the French remember the dead.  It seems a great idea but I thought it might be a bit morbid thinking of the dead all day?  Whatever people were doing they were not in public places, they were not eating out, exercising or shopping. We called at one of our favourite places from two years ago, Chateaudun.  It's a small town south of Chartres. The chateau is very imposing.  We stayed at an Aire de Camping two years ago on a car park just below the chateau walls.  I am wearing long trousers for the first time in a long time.  I managed to avoid wearing them through October but...
Read more