A decent ‘real’ Chinese meal last night. Sat next to a young woman from mainland China (near HK) who was happy to explain, in good English, a lot about Chinese cooking.

Aix was very busy on Saturday night. Despite having many many restaurants, it was surprising just how many were full.

This morning, on another stiflingly hot day, we headed north to Pertuis. From there we wanted to follow the river La Durance east to Mirabeau. Our satnav indicated that it wasn’t possible to follow the river and suggested the main road. Studying the map, we thought otherwise. Over the next couple of hours we followed narrow lanes that got smaller and smaller until we were on bumpy gravel tracks. Eventually the track improved in quality but that was a short-lived improvement because we’d merely come across the entrance drive to someone’s remote garden path. The occupier appeared and was able to confirm what the satnav tried to tell us a couple of hours ago: that there was indeed no way through.

So, very slow progress was made to Mirabeau so we stopped just after at the small riverside town of Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance.

Using the internet, booked into a small house with a pool. Nobody around but ‘key under the mat’. All good. Except it’s Sunday and nothing’s open. A quick tour of the town confirmed that everything was indeed ‘fermé’.

...actually, there was one place open. A little roadside shack selling pizza. Run by a Corsican lady.

We were about to order two pizzas when she suggested that one would be large enough to share. Taking her advice was a great decision - It’s difficult to describe just how awful this ‘pizza’ was! Essentially it was a very large grey-coloured pizza base, with no tomato, onto which was daubed squirty cheese, from a tube, to which she’d added plenty of mustard, a few olives and a few bits of pepper. The ‘pizza’ was then undercooked to that the extent that the gloopy cheese melted and formed a skin but no browning of the top was achieved. The whole ensemble was truly horrible. But being hungry, we forced down a couple of slices. Cooking doesn’t get much worse than this.