Day 25: Nîmes > Aix-en-Provence

I did something silly this morning. Actually, I did something silly last night that caused me to do something silly this morning.

Many of the places that we have stayed have external metal shutters on the windows – I assume for security and privacy. There is a handle inside the window that you use to wind the shutters up and down.

Yesterday afternoon we got home mid-afternoon and had a bit of a lazy afternoon. We had walked 15,000-20,000 steps each day for the last couple of days and we were tired.

I did some blogging while MBW read her book and watched The Rookie.

When it started to get dark, I rolled down the shutters in the lounge room of our apartment. Not long after, when I went for a shower, I rolled down the one in the bedroom also.

Normally we don’t wind them all the way down to ensure that we can get some light in, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

I’ve been sleeping really well here at Kate’s place in Nîmes. Not everywhere that we have stayed has a matress and pillow that agrees with me, but Kate got it right, and I have been sleeping like a baby.

I’m alseep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, and I don’t wake all night until about 7.00am when the sun comes up.

Last night was no different, except that I woke really early this morning. Maybe 4.30 or 5.00am because it was still very dark. I was really annoyed because I have been sleeping so well, and now I’ve woken early.

I looked at my phone to discover … that it was 7.00am. Those stupid roller shutters … I had wound them both all the way down and forgotten to wind them up before bed.

Not a great start to the day 🙁

There was a little bit of confusion with our booking at Kate’s apartment in Nîmes. For reasons that I don’t understand, she had us moving out this morning and more guests moving in this afternoon, and nobody was available to clean the unit between guests. So she asked how we felt about cleaning the unit before we departed.

Interesting concept.

In any case, before I had the opportunity to respond to say “isn’t that what I’m paying a cleaning fee for?”, she said that she had solved the problem.

It turns out that she convinced the people coming in after us to clean the apartment, make the bed, get out new linen, etc.

All power to them!

So we packed all of our stuff and gave the place a good wipedown anyway, and threw away the rubbish.

We were pretty early, so we both went for a walk to retrieve Claude from the parking station a few blocks away and bring him back to pack, and head off.

Once again, MBW headed off in completely the wrong direction to find the carpark, and once again we arrived at exactly the correct location (stairs down to the carpark) to collect Claude.

I don’t know how she does it.

I’ve mentioned how narrow the streets are. And the carpark ramps. And – it turns out – the spaces in the underground carpark. So narrow that if you park normally, you are at serious risk of being unable to get into your car when you need to, without being a contortionist.

I can’t even touch my toes, so there is no way in God’s little green earth that I will be able to twist myself inside out to get into Claude.

But when I parked Claude the other night after our drive, I jagged a once-in-a lifetime parking space at the end of a row between two posts. Wide enough to be a wheelie space, without actually being a wheelie space.

I checked. Twice.

Back to the apartment, and – once again – there was absolutely no street parking available outside, so I did the old double park and hazard lights trick.

When in Rome …

I parked across the front entrance to the apartment block figuring that it wouldn’t be a problem … and a sweet old man came up and clearly wanted to get into the front door of the building, and couldn’t. So I moved Claude and we (MBW and I) had a nice chat with him.

We established very quickly that he could not speak any language that we spoke, and likewise we could not speak any language that he spoke.

I gave him my very best “Je ne parlez pas Français” (I don’t speak French), and he smiled at me like I was an idiot. So maybe he doesn’t speak French either … ?

So we had a lovely conversation – both of us speaking our own language, and neither of us understanding what the other was saying … but there was lots of smiling and nodding.

In any case, he seemed absolutely delighted with the outcome of the conversation, and I was concerned that I may have inadvertently promised him MBW’s hand in marriage, or I may have promised to service his car for him.

Who knows.

But he toddled up the stairs, and it seems that he is our neighbour … so maybe he was just pleased that we were moving out.

We loaded up Claude, asked Joséphine to take us to Arles (en route to Aix-en-Provence), and off we went.

Lots and lots of cars parked in Nîmes on a Sunday morning, but not a soul to be seen on the streets. You could have fired a cannon up the main street and not hit anyone.

Which meant a quiet, pleasant and stress-free trip out of Nîmes and towards Arles, our first stop for the day.

Unfortunately, for any number of reasons, we forgot to instruct Joséphine that we had plenty of time today and we wanted to go the scenic route. We were leaving around 9.15am, it was a <2 hour drive to Aix via the “no tolls” option, and we couldn’t check-in to tonight’s accommodation until 4.00pm.

We turned up at a toll booth, realised our error, took a ticket, and did some low-altitude flying down to motorway to Arles.

A few comments on French toll booths.

Firstly, you have to stop at the boom gate, pay your fee, and wait for the gate to go up. That’s pretty disappointing after you have been doing 130km/h for the last little while. I can still remember when they introduced coin baskets on the Gateway Bridge, and you needed to stop and throw your coins in. Even then I thought that the need to actually stop was pretty archaic … yet they still do it here in France, even if you have an eTag.

Secondly, some of their toll booths are as big as a Roman Colosseum – with lots of gates for payment, that all merge back into 2 lanes at the other side, creating chaos.

And finally, I have seen a couple of times now Police waiting for people to come through the toll gates, and then get taken aside for some kind of interview. I don’t know what they have done wrong, and it hasn’t happened to me (yet), but I guess it’s only a matter of time.

Arles is a pretty little town, and quite dead on a windy Sunday morning. We drove around aimlessly for a while, then stopped in a parking station briefly to consult with ChatGPT for the top 5 things to do in Arles.

It turns out that the top 5 include a number of things that aren’t exactly in Arles, but some way away, and the other option is a Roman Arena in beautiful condition.

Forgive me, but once you’ve see one Roman Colosseum, you’ve seen them all. I would never be so flippant about baguettes or pastries, but Roman Colosseums … hmmm.

So we did some shopping in Monoprix – our other favourite place to shop for things that we don’t need – and then asked Joséphine to take us towards Marseille instead. Marseille is down on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (I think), with a planned lunch stop at Port de Carro, a little seaside town.

The road was different to anything that we have seen before in France. It was the most like Queensland that we have seen, and we could have been driving down in Northern NSW near Cabarita Beach. Open spaces, scrubby vegetation, sparse landscape.

When we arrived at Port de Carro, it was just like driving through Coolangatta. There were surf shops, people wearing thongs, little shops … and of course a boulangerie.

We stopped in and bought a warm baguette and a citrus cream-filled pastry thing (see photo below) for lunch, then drove around the corner and sat on a park bench that felt very much like Kirra or Coolangatta, and ate our lunch. Salami, cheese, tomato, and mayo on a fresh warm baguette, followed by pastry and coffee.

If eating warm baguettes and pastries for lunch everyday is wrong, then I don’t want to be right 🙁

So good.

After lunch we went for a bit of a walk around the beach and watched some crazy French people in their swimmers enjoying the water. The water was so blue and clear, but I imagine it was cold too.

But tucked into that little corner of the beach out of the wind, it was very nice. I almost felt like taking my shoes off and having a paddle.

I’ve learned a new French expression today, and you never know when it could come in handy.

On our little walk we found a fully automatic public toilet (don’t ask) which can speak french better than I can. Inside was a sticker with two options:

Débit important (big flush), and
Débit faible (little flush)

It’s always good to learn new things.

By now it was around 1.00pm and we had seen everything we were going to see without going back to Arles for the Roman collesseum.

We messaged our hosts for tonight (Laurent and Didier) and asked if there was any chance that we could drop our bags off early and go off exploring … and they said yes.

So we headed to our accommodation for tonight which – in the interests of full transparency – is nothing like what we expected. It is essentially a tiny home behind Laurent’s home, way out in the country at the end of a narrow lane.

But it’s clean and comfortable and Laurent and Didier are very friendly and helpful.

We dropped off our bags, and went back out to do some exploring in Aix-en-Provence. It turns out that Aix-en-Provence – while a very pretty town – is also nothing like what we expected.

We were thinking that it would be a quaint little country town with all of the local grandmas selling home made jam in the quiet main street … but it is a very vibrant and busy township (population 150,000 people) with a beautiful main street. And it felt like all 150,000 of them were out enjoying the beautiful weather.

You will recall that I’ve been saying how cold it has been? It was 22 degrees walking in town this afternoon and very sunny. Not a cloud in the sky – an absolute cracker of a day!

Way too good to be working.

We had a bit of a wander and noticed that the closer we get towards Italy, the more Italian influence we see. But we want to put off eating pizza, pasta and gelato until we reach the promised land 🙂

We bought some groceries for dinner, and headed home around 5.15pm for a coffee and a rest.

Tomorrow we have a walking tour of the city, and by then we will have better bearings for what else to do the following day (Tuesday) on our own.

Laurent & Didier have a washing machine available, so MBW has made a pre-emptive strike and done a load of washing to reduce the chances of another underwear crisis.

It’s 6.00pm now. The sun doesn’t set until 8.02pm tonight, and it’s still warm outside (19 degrees), so I might slap on some coconut oil and go outside and work on my tan.