Sea, Sand and Sun

We are back from our trip to South of France; I spend most of my childhood summers there. I have talked to Ben about it for so long now that I was afraid I had built it up too much. But I guess I hadn't; he loved it even more this second time around. Here is some of what he wrote to the family on our day back, and some of my contributions:

"Quite a large portion of this vacation consisted of "we woke up late and went to the pool/beach, ate some stuff, went home and went to bed." I will try to expound a little more on the parts that don't go like that. 

So we flew into Paris and stayed the night at Charlotte’s mom before catching the train to Marseilles the next morning. We went straight to Le Pradet where we rented a mobile home; it felt really warm but great. Of course the first thing Ayhilann wanted to do was go to the pool.

I am still surprised at just how white I get living in England, but worst of all, I have managed to get a little sun at work and so my farmers' tan was something of legend." (This is Ben talking by the way...I, Charlotte, obviously don't have a farmers' tan).

"So, I guess now I will outline the things that we did other than the above stated cycle of sleep, sun, and food. We went to L’Ile des Embiez, which is an island owned by one of the big alcohol manufacturers, Paul Ricard. It's not a big booze inspired paradise, it's just owned by the guy who founded it. It is absolutely beautiful, the water was crystal clear. We found a nice little beach that had some rocks and lots of sea life."

"This year I also had the chance to go to a typical South of France street market in Carqueranne, and Charlotte had been building it up for years now, but she was right, it was absolutely heaven. I was expecting fake Rayban's and nagging street vendors, but it was an endless amount of my favourite thing in the world: Food!!!! After we took in all of the endless rows of great South of France food, we grabbed a few specialities like marinated olives, tapenade (an olive, garlic and herb spread), basil cheese, a warm baguette and rotisserie chicken, and headed home to the pool."

"We also went back to La Capte, the beach where Charlotte spent a lot of time as a kid, and had a great time hanging out with Ayhilann collecting cool rocks and making a sand castle. Although it was mostly me trying to get them to work to an acceptable structural engineering standard, which is not easy when working with sand  (queue the song about the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish one on the sand). It was more sun and fun on the beach, and the water again was perfect."

"We had promised to take Ayhilann for a day of fun and so we went into Hyeres to Kiddy Parc, a cool little amusement park that catered to kids from 2-12 yrs old. He had a great time making new friends and playing on the dozens of attractions they had, like huge trampolines connected together, or the 4-wheelers they had on a little track, or the water park they had. They also had a huge play labyrinth thing like they have at McDonald's, but about ten times bigger. It was an ADD child's heaven since they could play on one thing for two minutes and then decide to move onto something else… We kept waiting for him to wear himself out, but it didn't happen. So we finally had to drag him out of there by his hands and feet."

"We eventually came back to visit Marseilles one afternoon. Well, I always forget how much I don't love driving through Marseilles; it is absolutely mad!!! You get used to it after a while, but there is absolutely no courtesy and scooters everywhere!!"

(This is Charlotte again, I can't believe Ben forgot to mention the highlight of our trip! We went to Les Gorges du Verdon. This was on my bucket list... CHECK. It is a breath-taking canyon fairly high up in Provence, filled with amazing blue and crisp lakes. It was a beautiful 2-hour drive where we passed tiny hundred-year old villages and vineyards after vineyards. The photos just do NOT do it justice.)

Back to Ben: "On the last day, we went to the presqu’ile of St Mandrier, the Almost Island (that is what it literally translates as, since it's not really an island but it is almost an island). We hung out at the beautiful beach and walked along the pier. It really was a great way to end the trip."