Tuesday 20 May 2014

One bit of advice we didn't take too much notice of was, keep your fuel tank full. We'd seen plenty of service stations around so thought nothing of it...........

And wasted an hour trying to get topped up. We had to backtrack a little but the first one we couldn't get into. The seconds pump was out or order so we backtracked to Riez, about 15km to find yet another one closed! Fortunately our map suggested another to the north of the town and we were relieved to find an Intermarche.

So being quite a way off our planned route, we decided to drive round the lake which turned out to be very pleasant with the aqua-blue waters showing up particularly well in the sunshine - but for some reason not in the photos. And found a service station 50 yards up the road from the campsite we had just left...........grrrrrr!

Lavender fields - not yet in bloom

Lac de Sainte Croix

Overlooking village of St Croix

Private chateau at Aiguines

Never mind, it was a pleasant detour before joining the Route Sublime, a road specially built along the southern rim of the Gorge to show off it's spectacular scenery. Not busy, which is why we had planned this trip for today, we were surprised to meet a couple of full-size tour coaches coming the other way - it was a bit tight in places for us, heaven knows how they got through!

As always, lots of photos taken which, as always, don't do it any justice whatsoever. Let's just say you have to go see it for yourselves.

A bunjee-jumping site, they'd just finished!

Mission accomplished, it was time to plan our next move. With the weather set fair for a few days we decided to drop down to the coast, the Cote D'Azure, and rub shoulders with some money. We picked out an ACSI site right on the beach at Port Grimaud which had been recommended in a magazine, so leaving the mountains we enjoyed a fast run through beautiful countryside and charming towns and villages before joining the traffic chaos on the coast road.

Fortunately it was only a short distance and we checked in at Prairies de la Mer, a huge 4-star holiday site that is now mainly holiday bungalows but still has a large touring area with either shaded or sunny pitches. We booked in for 3 nights but haven't made any definite plans for now.