After an uneventful flight from Croatia (totally loved Croatia, so sad we had to leave), we arrived in Marseilles, France. Cuing start of the usual arrival routine. Arrived at yet another podunk terminal, which looked considerably worse for wear. (Seems to be a common theme when flying with the cheaper airlines. They’ve gotta save money somewhere, I guess.) Well. Having managed the part of arriving successfully, it was time for collecting our bags and the hire car. Bags no problem. Car… Not so flash. Yeah, we started out with a bit of difficulty with our car hire. As usual, we had booked using an online service. However, said booking was MIA when we went to collect the car. It appears that for all intents and purposes, that The Internet Ate It…And there were almost no other cars available…And certainly none for the same time period we wished to book for. (I expect at this point some sort of reference to Murphy’s Law is warranted.) Anyway, after Murray doing the rounds for what felt like hours trying to score a car (and me baking in the sun with our bags) we ended up getting a van of sorts just for the day (at an epic premium) just so we could get our gear to our new home and get ourselves sorted out. What a pain in the ass. At least the rental staff were helpful. Welcome to France, yes?

(Luckily, Murray was later able to sort out a car for us over the weekend, with the aid of cycling to and from the airport to drop off the van and collect us a new car. Having a bike has actually come in handy. Yay!)

Entry routine complete.

Our place is lovely, although in a rather unlikely location. Having looked at tonnes of Airbnb accommodation, I’d eventually decided on a tiny gite in a small town. Mostly because the accommodation was rather unusual and somewhere that we would otherwise never have the opportunity to stay. (Or the funds… A place like this would be ridiculously expensive at home.)

So our little gite is in Chateauneuf-Les-Martigues: a small agricultural town near to Marseilles. As such, there are farms everywhere,…growing wheat, olives, figs, stone fruit and all manner of lettuce varietals. It’s also dry as. All the cars (and pretty much any other surface you care to name) are solidly coated in a layer of dust. The trees are a) sparse and b) twisted little pines of some sort. There’s hardly a normal tree to be seen. It’s like they (the trees) aspire to grow strong and tall and at some point things just go south (and east and west, just not north.. And by that I mean any direction but up). It’s not quite what I had in mind when I was thinking of staying in the south of France. Not really sure what I was thinking, but my experiences with other areas in France are certainly nothing like here. Certainly not this…dusty. However, it is certainly beautiful. Just not quite in the way I’d imagined.

Our gite (holiday accommodation where the owner resides on the same premises) has been lovingly crafted by hand by our host Stephan. It is made of raw materials and features large tree trunks as structural support and locally grown hay as insulation. The roof tiles look hand cast and were also locally made. Everything is rather rustic and the fragrance of the wood when we first arrived was almost overpowering. Thank goodness it settled down. The bathroom is amazing, with panoramic views of the nearby olive and jujube orchards and the local bird sanctuary. The accommodation was certainly a great find. Although I’m not sure of it, I’m fairly certain that our host is constructing what will eventually be a bnb lodge – he is hard at work every day building a house in the same style as the gite. If it turns out anything like where we stayed it will be epic. If anyone feels the need to see more of our gite, check it out here: A Pincu 

Since we are close to a large wetland area (ie. the bird sanctuary), I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but, it turns out our little gite comes with frogs (one lives in the bathroom)…And a family of tiny bats that live in the wall next door. They (the bats) are ridiculously cute. And all small as a pinky finger. They chitter endlessly and poke their little heads out to sticky beak every now and then. At night they pinwheel around in the darkening sky outside nearby and swoop down to snatch bugs that approach our brightly lit gite. They are quite the entertainment. This is not to say that our resident frog is not also entertaining. He (she?) lives on the ledge of the window in the bathroom during the day. It’s always fun to try to spot the frog when it is out and about during the evening. Sometimes there are other frogs that pay us a visit as well. There has been an unanticipated amount of frog removal required. Thank goodness I like frogs.

We have had a rather quiet time here in France, with Murray making the most of the opportunity to catch up on work after being in Croatia. Also, being Le Tour De France season, it also meant some quality tv-time watching the live feed & english commentary (thanks Internet – never thought about it, but having english commentary really makes it).

Our host Stephan was pretty fab. Everywhere we have been, our hosts have been friendly and often furnished our stay with little extras like complementary beverages or milk & eggs etc as a welcome. Our host this time around kindly invited us to dinner with his friends and family one evening, so we got the chance to eat some authentic french home made food (including home roasted tomatoes, escargot cassoulet and some wonderful desserts made with chocolate, figs and fresh peppercorns). He also gave us a carton of figs, since he grows them for a living. A whole carton.

Stephan also invited us to the local fete & we had a great time eating local food and playing petanque with his friends. They each brought their own set (plus sets for us), complete with measuring tape (which they totally used). Somehow, I get the feeling that the French take the game of petanque very seriously. We played for hours. It was much more fun than I anticipated. In fact, the whole fete-thing was more fun than anticipated. There were long rows of tables and everyone sat together like a giant family gathering, while the kids cut up the rug on the dance floor. We ate local mussels and sardines and some sort of fish dumpling stew and drank wine. The evening was all quite festive and certainly not like any I’ve attended at home…Think we got home at midnight.

During our stay we have visited a few places of interest – Aix-En-Provence, Avignon (where the papacy moved for a brief while), Les Baux (a historical village), Luberon and the surrounds (home of lavender and sunflower fields), Mt Ventoux (and the small village of Bedoin) & the calanques at Cassis. We would have visited more, but that would require a teleport.

Murray did the famous ride up Mount Ventoux, while I explored the town below (as it took hours to do the ride). While reading about the area, I discovered that Bedoin apparently features a nudist camping ground. Unusual. Who camps in the nude? Sounds rather uncomfortable.

We also went for a road trip to explore the coastline from here to Nice (via Frejus, Cannes, Antibes etc – if it was on the coast road we visited it). As we discovered Monaco was not all the much further, we ended up going there also, and then continuing on right up until the French-Italian border. Never realised where Monaco was. Or that it was so tiny (it’s something like 2 square km). Bit of a joke really. But quite lovely nonetheless. Murray got his opportunity to drive the iconic road/underpass known from the Monaco Grand Prix. (Although it may be a little underwhelming driving at 50km/hr in a 3 door compact Renault Twingo. Lol.)

On the drive, I was expecting to see some seriously fabulous beaches. The beaches were ok, but on the whole far from amazing. Some of the coastline was gorgeous, but the amazing part is the clear blue water. Not everywhere, but in enough places to make me exceedingly jealous. It’s also pretty weird seeing beaches with no surf. There were more beach umbrellas, inflatable pool toys and snorkel gear than you can poke a stick at.

I’ve also never seen so many boobs. Clearly, Europeans have a different idea of modesty.

The south of France is hot. Perpetually hot. While we have been here, the sun has done a solid job of shining all day, every day. It’s strange, uncomfortable and wonderful all at once. It’s also solidly in the territory of 30+ weather almost all the time. After being in Ireland it feels a bit freakish.

I had hoped that we might do some hiking while we were here, but the terrain and conditions more or less make that a bit of a no. It’s just too damn hot. The only place we have found that it’s consistently great to be is in the sea. So we have been to the beach almost every day. I don’t think I have been to the beach this frequently in my entire life. I have to say, it’s pretty fabulous. The water is crystal clear and a lovely shade of blue. So clear that as Murray pointed out – he can see his toe hairs from the surface. And this has been more or less the case all the time (at least where we are staying). The water temperature (unlike the ambient temperature) has been rather changeable, with some days being quite (read: very) cold (wouldn’t surprise me if it is 22 degrees) and other days when it is like getting into a tepid bath. Either way, it has been a bit of a life saver, as we have no air-conditioning in our place, and the summer heat is rather uncomfortable from about 2-7pm. So we stick it out (literally, stuck to the leather couch) and watch the Tour De France every day and then go to the beach. Fabulous. And then have to contend with the heat again when we return… I didn’t think the heat would annoy me all that much, since our weather is worse, but… (being the indoor plant that I am these days) I have become unused to what the outdoors (and lack of air-conditioning) really means. It means being distinctly uncomfortable.

And that’s it for now. I have prattled on enough for one post, I think.