In which Sid and Doris leave Italian Sardinia for France, spending most of the day sitting on the ferry.
We have covered the little apartment with our washing so the first job is to get everything back in the bags and go find early breakfast. At the cafe we can see the vast ferry coming in so know how much breakfast we have time for. Once on the dock we meet a young couple who are touring on classic 1970s bikes with tiddly racks and canvas panniers, all on the skinniest tyres. No cleats, or toe clips. They are planning to ride from Toulon to Barcelona and then get the ferry back to Sardinia. Epic work [and sorry about the lack of pictures – D.].
We are getting quite good at ferries and again are early boarders. We settle down to our books and music, along with other people who have come well-equipped for a day indoors. The ferry has a small seaside on the top deck with plunge pool and plentiful deckchairs. The old mingers are up there with all you need for a day on the beach.
Toulon is home to the French fleet. Oddly this was the site of the greatest loss of French shipping when the navy scuttled all its own ships when the Germans eventually invaded the South of France in November 1942 (the Vichy zone). This was rather than have them taken by the Germans and handed to the Italians as Hitler planned. There is an excellent story of the officer at the gate asking the Germans for their access passes while his colleagues laid the charges to sink their ships.
There are a lot of grey ships, here is Tonnerre a ship to support amphibious landings with internal harbour and is a helicopter carrier. PIC Those of you who know the Vasa story might like to know the front of the ship was built in Saint Nazaire and the aft section at Brest.
The ferry gets in at 5pm as advertised and we are early off, cycling to Les Voiles (The Sails). It takes about ten minutes and we are already wet with sweat. It is not quite canicule, but it’s hot. A quick turnaround saw us on the beach. Doris loves a game of Crazy Mini Golf and beat Sid over nine holes. Madame offered us the other nine holes and we found we had had enough fun. Time to case the beach restaurants. These are not Greek prices.
We did however find ourselves strangely fascinated by the concept of MiniGold Trampoline. And while musing on this, we found an uber-French scene of old dudes playing petanque, complete with the magnet-on-a-string so necessary for picking your boules up if you are of a certain age.
I had expected no car of the day but found these two Mega cars, saloon and open top. These are fibre glass shells with Renault five sub frames. They are car of the day, even if a bit ugly.
Being in France, country number 15 [if you include Sardinia and Neilson as separate countries, which I have – D.], is such a relief. Sid even called an hotel to arrange a booking. Try that in Serbia.