Friday & Saturday 29/30 April 2011 – On leaving St. Raphael we thought that since we were only 40 km from St Tropez then we should pay a visit and see what the fuss is about. We needn't have bothered. Nothing much there to see and even the beach was average.

We set off for the town of Narbonne. Again we chose a small town over a city because you don’t have all of the 'big city’ issues with parking, bike security, finding some where nice to eat and not having to worry unduly about your security and the people are small town friendly.

We booked into the Wills Hotel

which we thought was fitting especially since Prince William was to marry Kate Middleton this day. Narbonne is beautiful. The town is divided by a small river that is navigable by barge and ferry

and has a lock with a rise and fall about 3 metres and we watched a barge being lowered. Narbonne is very old. We discovered their Abbey was built between 1272 and 1330; it is magnificent for a small town. In our wanderings we also found the remains of the Via Domitia that had been uncovered in 1997 outside the town hall.

Our wanderings took us past the Hotel de Police (local police station) where we chuckled that bed and breakfast would be free for cliental!

We found the local market square

and sat down to have a beer as it was warm in the sun and we had hoofed it for quite a while. As we were sipping our beers, two young fellows walked up to a group of about 6-7 young blokes at a table next to ours and a heated conversation ensued. Anyway, the first two guys took off up an alley chased by about 4-5 of the others who caught up with them 50 metres away. One guy was king hit. Greg, ever the alert villain catcher spied a local Gendarme sunning himself and walked over to tell him about the biggest crime in Narbonne this year.

In fluent French Greg said, "deux hommes", meaning ‘two men’ and promptly ran out of French. So with his fists miming a fight and two fingers held up, and pointing in the general direction, the lackadaisical local copper shrugged his shoulders. Greg returned to his beer. Not all was lost; the Gendarme found a few compatriots and came to see what was going on. Not much. By then the protagonists had lost interest and were the best of friends. Keeping the peace French style!

On Saturday we decided to have a 'make and mend' day and spend a second night at Narbonne. Kerrie slept in until 8.45 am, we walked the town, even found an Aussie bar,

washed the P-D and cleaned her chain, found a laundry and washed our clothes, then ate well. The restaurant we chose did not have an English menu so being the worldly travellers that we are, we ordered off the French menu, Kerrie ordered viand (steak) with an entrée of six escargot (snails). Greg ordered poissons (fish). No problems; that is until the meals arrived. Greg’s fish was tasty. Kerrie’s snails were delicious and she scoffed the lot except for one that Greg tasted.

They even had a bottle of "GK' red wine that we reckoned meant 'Greg & Kerrie' - just for us.

Then it arrived. Kerrie's steak was a problem, it was raw mince meat with a raw egg in the middle!


We think our waiter knew that we had no idea what Kerrie had ordered and he hung around like a bad smell waiting for her NOT to eat the raw mince meat so he could have a good laugh at our expense. We toyed with the idea of doing a ‘Mr Bean’ and hiding it in the bottom of the wine bottle ice bucket, or throwing it out the window and then pretending Kerrie had eaten it. In the finish, so as not to give the waiter any satisfaction by leaving it on the plate, we wrapped up the raw meat in a serviette and Kerrie hid it in her pocket until we got outside and then ditched it in the nearest bin. 'Up your nose with a rubber hose' Mr Waiter.

We then went back to the hotel and watched snooker on TV because it had English commentary and then a French soapie. No idea what it was about but aren’t all the soapie plots the same?