Sunday 21st August

We got up early and had breakfast – whatever was in the fridge?? I went and got the car and parked it at the end of the street ready to pack up and go. Jannie had most of the stuff that we are carting around ready so I started to lug it down to the car. Monica arrived and went through a few things with us and had a look at the map and the AA instructions that we had – “stupeed” she said and then thought that we were offended and she was referring to the direction that the AA instructions was sending us. We kissed, French like, and she came down to the car and waved us goodbye. We stopped around the corner and had a relook at the map and decided that we were going to go a different direction than the one on the AA sheet. Mary well she is a dead loss. She can’t find us as there doesn’t appear to be a map, just the cursor circling.

We got on the road and all was easy as we found the right roads and after a stop for a coffee and something to eat we got back on the road. All went great until we got to a toll stop. There are about 20 booths but only 6 were open. What a shambles and it took us half an hour to get to the booth to pay our money. This wasn’t easy – the voice over the intercom told us how much but was too fast to understand. I poked the credit card into the machine and it spat it out straight away and told us that money was the essence of the day. We only had a couple of €5 notes or a €50, so we stuck in the €50 – accepted and then the change poured out in €2 coins, boy we now had heaps of those as the toll was only €10.40. Nearly to our turnoff number 44 and we got into Antibes. Mary suddenly told us that we were on the right track and a few more corners and we were there. Not so – have lost all faith in her. Jannie hopped out and a young chap gave her a map and we continued on down the peninsula and got to our hotel. It’s lovely and we have a large ground floor room with windows that open onto the garden. We are probably on the north side of the building as the sun hasn’t touched our windows at this stage. Quite cool.

We unpacked and got our swimming togs on and went for a walk down to the La Garoupe Plage or our closest beach. Hot as again and we took maybe 15 minutes to get there. There were umbrellas and loungers everywhere and hardly a spot for anyone else. We spoke to a girl at the kiosk and she was studying English at university. Just go anywhere – not that easy but we did find a concrete step that also had a bit of shade from someone elses umbrella. Off came the tee shirts and we walked into the Mediterranean. Luke warm and extremely salty but it was easy to stay in the water along with all of the beautiful people. Some more so than others and an awful lot of burnt and blackened bodies.

We headed back to the hotel and had a shower and then went out into the garden and had a beer. There was a little bit of a breeze which we didn’t get in Uzes and we chatted with and Italian dad who was organising all of the kids from three families. Soon we are going down the road for dinner.