Hotel Le Verger Grimaud

... believe our luck. It was so nice. Still, warm and crystal clear water on sandy beaches. We had a quick swim but knew we had to leave to get to Avignon on time. We then decided that if we found a campsite that was open we would stay. The first 2 we came to were closed and we were sad...but around at st clair beach one was open! Woo hoo!!!! 2 very happy girls. That night we played in the sand like kids ...

We also took the short drive to Port Grimaud, to visit this small but new harbour town built in what was once marshland, but is now row after row of condos and homes built in a web of jetties to allow the homes to anchor their boats at their doorsteps. Of course, we would have rather spend our time on the beach, but with bad weather, Grimaud was a nice alternative.

<li>Because of the bad weather, we missed our scheduled visit to Ile du Porquerolles and Ile du Levant. We were going to pull out the water toys and get some more time on the beach, but it didn't happen. Hopefully on my next visit to the Med, I&#8217;ll be able to see both of these islands. <br><br></li><br> <li></li>

... 1:30, so we looked in from outside the fence. I have a few pictures here of the ampitheatre. It was much smaller than the one in Orange, and in much worse state of repair. They had built modern seating and staging over top of the ruins, so that there wasn't much sense of what the original would have been like to attend events in.<br><br>Then, when leaving town, we saw some ruins over on the side of the road and stopped. It turned out to be a series of bases for ...

... about how their rocky soil is a big key to the flavor and depth of their wines. The rocky soil holds in the heat during the daytime and keeps the vines from getting too cool at night by releasing that heat back out at night. There were a number of vineyards harvesting their grapes as we drove past (big grapes!), as well as the occasionally slowly moving grape hauling truck filled with the grapes ready for crushing. Their were vineyards which had ...

Visited a friend we hadn't seen in years, having checked out of the campsite. Up in the hills behind St Tropez. Wonderful lunch outside and a chance to catch up.<br><br>Off then on coast road past Hyeres and on to the aire here, which was full. Spent the night on the pavement of a service road with a couple of other motorhomes, one quite friendly shared his home-brew.<br><br>Nice view though.

... but felt very second class on Sunday at Pamplonne Boulevard Patch. Setts instead of white lines, Bentley convertibles and Porches galore - no parking for motorhomes :-(<br><br>St Trop nice but a lot of "cruising" going on.<br><br>Les Tournels is also a domaine noted for its rose wine. Tasted and bought some needless to say.

... occassional Beyond visits. Plagiarism Some of our photos here date from 1997, and our original text here we wrote about the same time (Beyond has been online since October 1995). We've found our text of St Tropez, and a few of the other Beyond towns. plagiarized on several other websites. While "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" (C.C. Colton [1878-1832]), we do find this outright theft objectionable. Fête ...

On the drive from Barcelona to the French Riveria we stopped at an old walled city called Aigues Morte which is where the crusades left from. Seeing an entire town contained within these walls gave you a slight idea about what these old towns must have looked like (minus the tourist shops). Our campsite was somewhere in between Nice and Cannes, but it was apparently near a beach. So after a fifteen ...

... waterfront, where you have to search very hard to even catch a glimpse of the beach which is covered by parasols, chaises and tacky, cheap-looking by ridiculously expensive restaurants and cafes. As if to add insult to injury, to enjoy these beaches you must pay upwards of 20 Euro to share the crammed space with hundreds of others. However there are a couple public beaches which haven't been snatched up by the hotels where you can enjoy the sun and sand for free. One of the best things we ...