Part 3 - At last, the Mediterranean Coast!

by Steve Wells

We were now about half way through the holiday. We had driven through France from north to south and the plan was to relax for a few days on the beach before driving back home through the Dordogne and the Loire valley.

However, as you will have gathered if you read my last article, the weather did not live up to the expectations. You could tell that something was wrong because the children had stopped taking photographs. As far as they were concerned, playing a few cassettes on their personal stereos was a much more constructive way of spending the time. It was about this time that they discovered some tapes of the Goon show.

If you go east from where we had been in Provence, you come to St Tropez and all those other famous sun-spots where they specialise in skin cancer. (Am I beginning to sound a little peeved?) We planned to go west which, as any meteorologist will tell you, is towards the weather. We passed under glowering skies until after a short drive we arrived at Serignan. It was about midday. The camp site wasn't accepting visitors yet and the town had just finished packing up the weekly market. The village square was damp from the drizzle, which had just about stopped. Squashed fruit and vegetables marked where the stalls had been. Old paper bags blew across the square.

We decided we needed lunch.

There were several cafes round the square, Most were empty. For a moment we thought of going into one of the empty bars to make sure we could find seats. Then we remembered that if all the locals go to a particular bar there is probably a good reason. The cafe 'ISOCRATE' was crowded inside, and deserted outside, Nevertheless we broached the subject of lunch with the barman.

'Est-ce que vous avez une table pour cinq, s'il vous plait?'

He pointed outside and muttered something I couldn't catch. I thought we were about to be banished to the drizzle! But no; he shuffled up all the tables inside and brought in one of the tables from outside, I can honestly say that it was one of the cheapest, and at the same time one of the best, restaurant meals we had in France. When we left the weather was still overcast but a litre of vin rouge had done wonders for our attitude towards it.

Back at the campsite, we walked down to take our first view of the Mediterranean. It was steel grey with a cold wind. Someone compared it to the sea at Margate on a wet bank-holiday weekend, So much for the idea of a relaxing few days on the beach.

-o-O-o-

We had to resort to touring again. Out came the guide books. We found that not too far away, near Montpellier was a holiday resort called Grande Motte. It claimed to have an aquarium so even if it started to rain we should be OK.

Grande Motte is a purpose built holiday resort. Since the French all go on holiday at the same time (never plan to drive in France on the first weekend in July), they need large holiday resorts which are only fully used for about two months of the year. Grande Motte has a large marina with the kind of boats which you and I can only dream of. Every building is different and few are rectangular; some are triangular, others have unexpected curves. Each apartment block is a different colour and has a different shaped balcony. You can navigate by the balcony designs; "walk down the road till you come to the red, oval balconies, then...”.

The traditional British attitude to such a place is to call it "tasteless" or "a mess". Frankly I found it fun, which is exactly what a holiday resort should be. It's also a great place for photography, Use a long lens to compress the repetitive architectural detail which is common in any modern architecture. Then visit the marina and do the same thing with the long lines of boats. To make the pictures that little bit different, always look for something to break the pattern. Repeated strangely shaped balconies are fun, but are even better if one of them is slightly different. Perhaps there is a window box, or someone is leaning out staring at the view.

On the day we decided to leave the coast the weather improved. If my French was better, I would insert multiple Gallic expletives at this point.

The places we visited on our return to the "warm and sunny north" are the subject of the last two articles in this series but let me end with a mention of Carcassonne which we passed early on the first day of the return journey.

Carcassonne is an old walled town, but that doesn't do it justice, From a distance it is dominated by many round towers with conical pointed roofs. It was continually built and rebuilt over a period of perhaps a thousand years; the oldest towers go back to the sixth century.

Inside the streets are narrow and winding, as you would expect. Equally, as you would expect, every shop sells cheap souvenirs and plastic medieval weapons. The ham sandwiches which we had for lunch consisted of half a loaf filled with a single slice of ham. Still, the bread was fresh.

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