Swimming, chilling, getting lost & making new acquaintances in the south of France

From Avignon I set off south on Sunday morning with a stopover in Arles. The story is quickly told, I looked at the big, old amphitheater. Bullfights take place here with up to 24,000 spectators. I looked around the city a bit more and after an hour I was back in the car further south to drive to the Camargue, more precisely to Saintes Maries de la Mer. I actually saw a lot of flamingos on the way there. Here they are more white and delicate pink.

After settling in at the campsite, I headed to the beach. A little bath and chilling can't hurt. I was sitting innocently on my blanket and a woman said nicely to me, “Bonjour.” I'm a little surprised too, of course, as I'm well educated. Later, when she came out of the water, she spoke to me in German. What can I say, Sabrina (Swiss girl) and I spent the next few days together and have arranged to meet again next week. At some point I asked, why did you speak to me later in German?! Her answer “you said Bonjour in a really funny way and looked so surprised, I knew you could only be German”😂 There we go again, I just have no talent when it comes to French.

On Tuesday I set off to the Verdon Gorge to the lake. I, or Cindy, had chosen a nice campsite with a view over the lake, just 300 meters from the beach. That sounds good.

I entered the route into our travel app and off we went. Shortly before the lake, I had a great view from above. I was excited. But I wasn't there yet. It was 23 km through the serpentines. Finally I saw in the navigation system that the campsite was 500 meters to the right. A motorhome arrived at the same time as me and when I got out I was immediately greeted with Moin Moin. A slightly older couple from Hamburg, so we started chatting straight away.

Later I wanted to make my way to the beach and I took the path opposite and it led forever to nowhere. Over hill and dale, I called Cindy first because it was a bit scary. Of course I didn't have any hiking boots on because I wanted to go to the beach with my Crocs. Later I was holding the cell phone with a view of the lake and all of a sudden Cindy just heard, oh shit. I was gone, then slipped briefly and landed on my bottom. I was able to quickly calm Cindy down again and just said that nothing was happening (small note from Cindy: I didn't calm down quickly at all, I was afraid for my wife at first, and then I was angry... It's not like she's in front of me If you twisted your knee for a few weeks, you can just walk around in the mountains with Crocs…).

On the way back I actually got lost, I wandered around for 30 minutes. My cell phone showed that your motorhome is 48 km away from you. No cell phone reception, in the middle of the forest, wearing Crocs without drinking, so I was sweating. At some point I just started back and after about an hour I was finally back at the motorhome. Phew, no one needs that. But where was the beach after 300 meters and why don't I have a view of the lake. I had questions after questions. Until we realized I had gone to the wrong campsite. Great, Cindy found it super funny and I found it less so (again a little note from Cindy: it's funny when you're trying to navigate someone from 1200 km away, with poor cell phone reception, and the path isn't where you want it to be supposed to be because Steffi accidentally found herself 25 km south... no wonder my statements about the path at the front right weren't helpful, and for once my Corona brain had nothing to do with it).

Then I'll go there straight away the next morning. I told my mishap to the couple from Hamburg, who also laughed a bit, and we ended the evening together with pizza and wine. The next morning I drove 25 km to the right campsite and had my view of the lake and the beach opposite.

From there I set off towards Nice and am now expecting visitors from Hamburg. I'm looking forward to Sandra and we'll go to the Iron Man on Sunday here in Nice.