We had a nice dog walk along the river in Lagrasse this morning before having breakfast and completing departure jobs. The weather was still rather cool and very windy and coats were donned for the first time in some weeks. We had arranged to meet Pete and Cheryl for a farewell coffee in the village at 09:30. The one coffee turned into two as happily Claire and Guy also joined us to say goodbye and have a look at our motorhome to stoke the fires of possible future adventures for themselves.
We said our Au Revoirs for now to all, we drove off to re-visit a favourite haunt from our last trip nearly 6 months ago, November last year to Bouzigues. Followers of the blog will know Kevin has a serious Oyster addiction and we could not be so close to the producers in the pretty seaside village in Bouzigues without dropping by to feed his addiction. The wind though still breezy was noticeably warmer when we parked up and coats gave way to a light fleeces as we walked along the seafront. We went straight to our favourite restaurant, this being be our third visit to a restaurant in 6 months over 1000km from home!
We ordered oysters, prawns and mussels for a lunchtime seafood feast. Here you order oysters by grade and only €12 / dozen versus £3-4 each back at home. Now I am venturing into seafood, I selected the mussels, however these arrived raw and I wimped out of trying those and Kevin had to peel the prawns for me as I am allergic to oysters. Another top quality lunch, I am sure we will be back again.
We managed to find an Intermarche on route to our evening camping spot for some cheaper fuel and a couple of fresh supplies. We thought we had the full house when they also sold LPG (GPL in France). Although there was a exit booth for the fuel station, it was unmanned and there was pay at pump for fuel. However, this did not appear to offer an option for GPL. I went back into the supermarket to be told that the petrol station was closed that day and we could not get GPL that day bizarrely.
We drove on toward Aigues-Mortes our destination for the night. The cloud has now cleared and the dash was showing 28.5 degrees, it was 13.5 degrees C in Lagrasse this morning and only due to reach 22 degrees today. We gladly passed Palavas-Les-Flots, one of our least favourite stops from our last trip. We travelled between inland seas and the Mediterranean coast, looking at flamingoes grazing. As we approached Aigues-Morte we started to see some beautiful gray horses. I guessed they were Camargue horses from my recollections of my childhood horse breed books, not realising we were in that area, now wishing I had planned in some more time for riding while we are here.
Finally we entered Aigues-Mortes and the Tower of Constance and the walls of the original town towered over is as we found the motorhome parking literally in the shadows of the wall. We managed to grab a great spot with shade for the front of the van and sun for the solar panel and head into the town to explore.
We entered the town through one of the many large gates and made our way through the lovely cobbled streets. The town was thronging with people which seemed a shock after a nice couple of quiet days in Lagrasse. We made our way to Saint-Louis square where the buzzing shaded bar seating drew us in. There are lots of nice non-tat shops and restaurants plus walks around the ramparts etc. However, it feels like we have fitted quite a bit in today and for now we are happy to just watch the world go by for a while with a nice cool beer.
In for a Penney 