Monday 23 July - Provence - 30C. We set off this morning in our hire car along the Tollway to Arles following a recommendation from the owner of our accommodation. Unfortunately we came to a traffic-jam induced standstill some 13km short of Arles. After 15 mins and moving nowhere we reversed back up the emergency lane to a service exit (following the example set by many other French drivers) and made a quick getaway. Our car is a convertible Renault, so once ...

Sunday 22 July - Aix-en-Provence - 29C. We woke to a beautiful sunny day that promised to reach 29 and it did not disappoint. We set off to tour the Gorges du Verdon which is a fabulous gorge with spectacular views about 120km north-east of our base here at Aix-en-Provence. Driving was at times something of a hair-raising experience - Driving along the walls halfway up the canyon on a two-way road wide enough for 1 and a half cars, the car in front would sudden...

Saturday 21 July Barcelona to Aix-en-Provence via Marseille. Today was a travel day as we caught a flight from Barcelona to Marseille and then the bus to Aix-en-Provence, just 20 minutes north of Marseille Airport. The flight was full and very quick just 45 minutes in the air, they served us a drink and didn't have time to collect the cups before landing. Unfortunately, it was another eye-watering experience for us with flights into and out of France - we though...

Day 23 - Friday 20 July - 30 C. Our last day in Barcelona. We decided to take the gondola up to Montjuic which is where the Olympic Stadium, pool and diving took place in 1992. The route looked quite simple on the map however in reality we got lost and could not find the gondola to take us to the top, although we could see it passing by in the distance above us. So we continued to walk to the top of Montjuic and found the other gondola that begins there and go...

Thursday 19 July - Barcelona 30C We caught the metro north to Lesseps which is near Park Guell. This is a large park on the side of a hill where Gaudi's house and garden is. Unfortunately when we arrived at the metro, we realised we didn’t have the Museum entry tickets with us so it was back to the apartment and another 92 step to climb to pick them up, an exhausting start to the day. Second time around, when we got out of Lesseps station, it was a long ...