29/8 Carsaconne
As we descended down the mountain out of Andorra and back in to France we decided to stop off along the way at a prehistoric park. There were loads of signs around which seemed to be suggesting prehistoric cave paintings. Alas, we made a bad choice on the place we went to. It was designed more for children and had a museum and you could do your own cave paintings. Everything was a modern artificial version of what the actual prehistoric sites looked like. Not really our cup of tea but at least we got to stretch out legs. Back in the van we headed on to Carsaonne which is a walled fortress and medieval town. It was a nice town, although was a bit packed with tourists and the shops were for the tourists too. We headed into le cite, wandered around on the walls and saw the castle and the church. As we were back in France we had a crepe and wandered around the narrow streets before heading back to the van. It was tinned cassoulet with toulouse sausage back in the van. A step up from baked beans and sausages but possibly not the most authentic cassoulet anyone has ever had.
30/8 Avignon
Next stop Avignon where we stayed at a little shady campsite across the river from the old town. St Bernades Pont was our first call. Apparently there is a famous nursery rhyme about it. It is a half bridge (ie. half of it is gone) with a lot of history some of which was interesting, such as the town folk thought St Bernades had been influenced by fairies as he believed he was destined to build a bridge.Most of which was the standard audioguide stuff though. Too much detail. We lasted through it all though because we wanted to hear the nursery rhyme. Unfortunately after all that listening we didn't remotely recognise the rhyme about dancing on the bridge when we heard it. After coming back off the bridge we decided to go to the Palace of the Popes. Apparently there were 7 or so popes who had previously lived in Avignon when there had been trouble in Rome in the past. The palace was very big and came complete with another detailed audioguide. Some of the massive rooms were pretty impressive, and the view from the top of the castle on that sunny day was great. But after an information overload we decided we needed to buy cake from a boulogerie and sit by the river to eat it. We then headed up the hill to the gardens where we got another lovely view of the town and beyond. By then it was time for dinner back at the campsite and then we went for a walk along the river which was very pretty with both the town and the bridge all lit up.
31/8 Nice (via Marseilles)
Today didn't quite go according to plan. We were aiming to stay in Marseilles but the city proved much too big and after a long time stuck in traffic and unhelpful directions from the TomTom we found ourselves in a tunnel and by the time we got out the other end we were miles out of the centre of Marseilles. We took that as a sign that Marseilles was not the place for us and decided to move on to our next destination, Nice. Hopefully that would be a bit Nice-r.... We took it easy at a campsite we found near the beach west of Nice. As the man had explained to Jess when we checked in that men had to wear undie togs to go swimming at the pool we decided we best go to the beach for a swim. The current at the beach was strong and the beach itself was very little (all the nice beaches on this part of the Mediterranean tend to be private) but we nonetheless enjoyed our swim although it was a bit on the cold side.
1/9 Nice Day 2 & Monaco
The next day we caught the bus into Nice itself to have a look around the old town where we saw a market and some churches. We treated ourselves out to lunch but weren't very impressed (that's what we get for cooking yummy meals in the van). Nice itself is a funny collection of narrow streets and wide boulevards pushed up against the hills on one side and the sea on the other. It was pretty but not somewhere we really felt like spending a long time. So after we checked out the promenade we decided to try out luck in Monaco. There is certainly a lot of money there and the casino buildings were rather impressive from the outside. We didn't try our luck inside and instead we kept moving along the waterfront into the old town where we saw the palace which used to be a monastery but Grimaldi had tricked the monks by dressing as a monk and then stabbing them all - so his family became royalty. Not the most auspicious of beginnings and its probably not worth the risk trying that now. Get yourself shot. Monaco overall didn't much appeal to us either. Big apartments built up against the mountains with giant yachts in the harbour you just couldn't help thinking it was trying to hard...It was a slow trip back to Nice and the campsite with traffic backed up for miles and miles but after a combination of walking and finding a bus that was moving we finally made it back in time for sleep.
https://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/August2011VanTourSouthFrance
As we descended down the mountain out of Andorra and back in to France we decided to stop off along the way at a prehistoric park. There were loads of signs around which seemed to be suggesting prehistoric cave paintings. Alas, we made a bad choice on the place we went to. It was designed more for children and had a museum and you could do your own cave paintings. Everything was a modern artificial version of what the actual prehistoric sites looked like. Not really our cup of tea but at least we got to stretch out legs. Back in the van we headed on to Carsaonne which is a walled fortress and medieval town. It was a nice town, although was a bit packed with tourists and the shops were for the tourists too. We headed into le cite, wandered around on the walls and saw the castle and the church. As we were back in France we had a crepe and wandered around the narrow streets before heading back to the van. It was tinned cassoulet with toulouse sausage back in the van. A step up from baked beans and sausages but possibly not the most authentic cassoulet anyone has ever had.
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