Day 38 to 48 - Le Lavandou -Cöte d'Azur 12 to 21-May-2018)

So here we are 6600km later, back in Gontenschwil on 22 May and this completes our fantastic tour of Spain, Portugal and France. When we left Gontenschwil on April 5, we never imagined it would be so good, with everything working out so well.

Our health and the health of our borrowed car stood up well. Ursi’s elbow also stood up to driving the 6600km (I can’t thank her enough for that). So much has happened in the last 7 weeks, it all seems like a blur. There were so many stunning towns, met so many nice people, so much spectacular scenery and so much wonderful local food, If forced to name a few favourites, it would be hard to go past Spain and Portugal, specifically Seville, San Sebastian and Porto in spite of the occasionally unseasonal weather. 

The last 10days in Le Lavandou, Cote D’Azur, were a pleasant departure from constantly being on the road, living out of a suitcase. It was lovely to catch up to spend time with my sister at her holiday home. Way back then in the seventies when Ursi and I were courting we would spend weekends at her home in Dulwich, London. Here we are, 40 odd years later picking up from we last left it.

The same can be said of my dear friend Hartwig (known him since the late 80’s) and his lovely wife, Dusha, who decided to come a day earlier to Le Lavandou from Lujibiana, Slovenia to spend a couple of days with us on their way to Marbella, where Dusha is taking an intensive Spanish language course. Ursi and I have spent many a time with them in Slovenia, in their holiday home in Krk, Croatia and also in Australia. Had a couple of lovely dinners with them with contrasting pricing; the food was almost of equal quality.

We also spent a day with them in St Tropez, very touristy; we didn’t see or understand what all the fuss is about in that place.

Mind you, the places that we saw of Cote D’Azur were a little too touristy for our liking and came back from a day visit to Toulon with bot of us feeling that it was a day that we would not get back in our lives but we did manage to find some pleasant aspects. 

Like the walks along the Med, the drive over a few mountains to Pierrefeu-du-Var before taking the highway to Nice airport and back taking the secondary road along the spectacular coastline, bicycle track along the coast (occasionally used during our daily walks), the beautiful scenery and the lovely colourful flowers. It was also nice to see a lot of older folks walking hand in hand. Most importantly, it was lovely to relax and spend time with my sister and our friends, Hartwig and Dusha.